by Rob Williamson, BRCP, CCATCM, AOM 

     It takes many, many years of practice to learn how to soften your hands when you become a physical therapist. It takes time to build a reflective practice, to explore your values around “fixing”, “healing”, or “cure”. When I first became a physical therapist I was taught to “go in” and perform a big technique and “fix” or “sort out” a shoulder, hip, or rogue meridian. Hopefully, as we mature as therapists we move away from the therapist-as-healer ideal to the principle of the therapist-as-facilitator. We are here to facilitate our client’s transformation process; we are here to support our client to garner the resources to achieve good mental and physical health.

by Anne Woods, BFA OTR/L, C-IAYT

As yoga has gained in popularity it is too often given as a generalized prescription, such as, “Yoga is good for back pain.” Yoga could also be very bad for back pain. Yoga could even cause back pain where there was none before. One of the hardest things for long time yogis to discover is that the way they’re practicing yoga is causing their pain. While yoga can have many benefits it is not a panacea . . .

by Elizabeth Browning, CMT

Section I: Introduction

Do you ever find yourself frustrated after getting good manual therapy results but then finding that clients with complex presentations return with an intense list of symptomology? I know I did. After learning about breathing pattern disorders (BPD), I had a “lightbulb” moment. This was the key I was waiting for in my clinical practice . . .