My work has always been grounded in person-centred care, and I work with people in two ways: through hands-on bodywork, and through movement & breath coaching, and the way we carry ourselves through daily life. What the IHT programme gave me was a more rounded framework for understanding something I see again and again in both: pain, stiffness and tightness are much more than “tissue issues”.
Think about it. Two people can have the same “tight shoulder”, yet one responds quickly to hands-on work and movement, and one doesn’t. Same muscle, same joint — very different experience. Why? Because what we feel in our bodies is never just about tissue. It’s about perception, context, emotion, and the nervous system that ties it all together. Three ideas in particular have reshaped how I think about this:
Perception shapes response
What we expect and believe colours how pain and tension show up — and how they respond to touch and movement. If you arrive on the treatment couch expecting a session to hurt, your body prepares differently than when you arrive feeling safe. The same is true in a movement class: if you expect a movement to be impossible, your body tightens before you’ve begun. That isn’t imagination; it’s your nervous system doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
Emotion and sensation connect
Emotional experience is inseparable from physical sensation. Touch, breath and movement all affect comfort, safety — and through those, how the body responds. Many of us have felt it: the shoulders that drop after a good conversation, the breath that deepens the moment we stop rushing, the way a supporting hand can let a movement finally release.
The nervous system matters
Neuro-sensory integration explains how touch and movement information are carried, processed and interpreted. In plain terms: whether I’m working with my hands or coaching you through a movement, your brain isn’t just receiving what happens — it’s actively interpreting it, weighing it against everything it already knows about you and your history.
What this means for our work together
So what changes? In truth, the heart of my work hasn’t moved — but it has deepened.
In hands-on sessions, I now have more structured ways of working with pain and tension, along with clearer clinical reasoning to guide my choices. I have better tools to assess what might be going on, decide how best to work with you, and explain the “why” behind what I’m doing, whether that’s the pressure, the contact or the pace. Rather than simply working around pain or tension, I can approach it more intentionally, using specific methods and helping you understand what might be happening in your body.
In movement sessions — whether that’s Pilates, Yoga or Functional Movement Explorations — the same principles apply. How a movement is introduced, how safe your body feels, what you believe about what your body can do: all of these shape how the movement lands. I now have better ways of adapting cues, breath and pace so that practice meets your body where it actually is, not where a textbook assumes it is.
And perhaps most importantly, this framework strengthens the part of the work I’ve always valued most: the collaboration. Your expectations, beliefs and experiences aren’t background noise to the work — they’re part of it. When we understand that together, sessions become more genuinely yours.
In short:
I haven’t changed direction — I’ve gone deeper. My approach to touch and movement is more firmly underpinned by research-led principles, with enhanced skill to support your unique needs.
If something’s been bothering you
If you’ve been dealing with persistent pain, stiffness, or movement challenges — something you’ve been quietly putting up with, or working around — I’d welcome the chance to explore what might help. You can book a hands-on treatment session, a movement coaching session, or start with a discovery call and we’ll simply talk about which might suit you best.