Patrick Flanagan

I was drawn to Clinical Somatics as a way of sharing the gift of physical freedom with others who are frustrated by the limitations caused by health problems. Having been injured as a child, I spent the majority of my childhood and young adulthood trapped by my condition and limited in the activities I wanted to pursue. I spent a decade looking for a solution, trying numerous different modalities in both mainstream and alternative medicine.

I felt many therapies were effective at temporarily reducing pain, but I didn’t feel that they got to the root of the problem, as the pain would always return and my posture would always be distorted within a short period of time. I was also frustrated at the expense of many of the therapies and how in most cases there was “no end in sight,” that I would need to keep going for routine visits (and keep paying!) for the rest of my life. I intuitively felt that whatever therapy would work should be something that I could eventually do on my own to take care of myself, saving both time and money.

I stumbled across Clinical Somatics accidentally. Thomas Hanna was referenced in a book I was reading, and he spoke about how Sensory-Motor Amnesia leads to pain and structural movement problems. It piqued my curiosity, so I searched and came across Somatic Systems Institute in Northampton, MA, which was teaching Thomas Hanna’s work. The next day I was at a student clinic. In a one hour session from a student I received more results than I had in a previous decade with other modalities. I then knew that I had to learn Clinical Somatics to help other experience the liberating feeling I discovered that day.

Best of all, Clinical Somatics fits perfectly into my ideal view of how a therapy should be, because the client is gradually taught to become his or her own therapist, making the need for an expert obsolete. I love teaching Clinical Somatics because it gives people greater freedom in their lives and empowers them to be their own health expert.