Andrew Schaefer, PhD, CSE, PTA

I'm a Somatic Movement Educator helping individuals struggling with unresolved musculoskeletal pain and movement restrictions. I am driven by an unquenchable curiosity to understand how the dynamic interplay of matter and energy create the wondrous living world and the desire to share my knowledge and experience to help people succeed in their life’s endeavors. My quest for knowledge led me first outward into the world of academia where I explored the cellular basis of nerve regeneration. After many years, I felt trapped within my own body from past physical trauma and poor postural habits. The body does indeed keep the score and old forgotten injuries resurfaced. I realized my inability to move well significantly limited my imagination of what was possible in my life. My transformative healing experience with mindful movement drove me to examine my own inward processes and ignited a desire within me to more directly impact people's lives and health.

In my practice, I take full advantage of the neurophysiological principles of learning and movement control and provide collaborative guidance in identifying and then releasing unconsciously maintained chronic muscle contraction (tension) patterns. I offer both verbal movement instruction and hands-on manual feedback techniques that instill greater mind-body integration and ease of movement, which impact both physical and emotional freedom.

Sessions are focussed on your unique needs, history, movement habits and muscular pain issues. Muscles tighten in response to stress from accidents, injuries, surgeries, and emotional trauma. Movement habits are so deep that we often don’t realize we can’t fully relax our muscles. I’ll teach skills you can access for the rest of your life to help free you from physical limitations and pain. This requires your active participation, curiosity, and willingness to sense how your body is moving!

I’ll start by examining your movement patterns and posture walking, standing, and lying. Then, while lying on a table, I’ll guide you through a series of movements and add a gentle hands-on resistance to help your conscious brain learn to lengthen and reset your muscles’ resting tension. During the final phase of the session I will teach you specific Somatic Movements to practice for a few minutes a day to manage chronic stress, relieve aches and pains, and improve balance, movement and posture.

My practice is grounded in compassion and recognition of our shared humanity. I don’t view myself as a “healer” but rather an educator. Our bodies -like all living things- have the remarkable capacity to heal themselves given the right information and sustenance. I am inspired by Thomas Hanna’s PhD insight that “The human body is not an instrument to be used, but a realm of one's being to be experienced, explored, enriched and, thereby, educated.”