Physical Therapy Camp

I arrived home last night. And Patrick is out goat hunting! He just called and he got a goat! Yeah!


The class in Portland was truly amazing. I feel like I returned from physical therapy camp!

It was 30 therapists, 2 instructors and LOTS of lab time to practice the manual techniques. Out of the 30 therapists there, I was in the less-experienced sector. Most of the group had 15+ years of experience as a PT. Nonetheless, when it comes to learning new skills, everyone is on the same page. A lot of them already had a lot of experience doing organ and lymph manipulation. Plus, its excellent learning to have techniques done on yourself, so you know what they feel like and can give the therapist working on you feedback as to amount of pressure, etc...The class was evenly split between men and women, which was unusual.

Physical therapy is a female dominated profession, but there was even numbers of men and women. I used to think that male therapists have a "rougher" touch as therapists, but this class shattered that illusion. There were women therapists with rougher touches as well as male therapists...what matters most I think is someones confidence with palpation and finding landmarks and feel a release of muscle or connective tissue. It takes a certain amount of patience and reflection with the work. Some therapists are very fast and others were very patient. A few would rush the lab, and tell me where to put my hands when I was working on them, which I found a little annoying. Other therapists would sit and give me feedback if I was really needing help. I gained confidence in my own palpation skills with finding landmarks, tender points, counting ribs and things which are critical to getting effective results with the Strain Counterstrain technique. Most importantly, I got to see different therapists techniques and philosophies with manual work. That was definitely a highlight of the weekend.

The techniques are based off of osteopathic manual techniques done for improving the mobility of the organs and lymphatic system. It opens up a whole new avenue of treatment, as often there are sources of pain that are not necessarily musculoskeletal in origin. Today I started using the techniques and really liked the results! Yeah! We'll see how all my clients are doing next week. Its so fun to have new treatment techniques to offer.

Its so good to be home!!!

Zoya

Zoya