Valerie Whiting, MS, LMT, OTR

Complementary Health Strategies
405 Sugarwood Drive
Farragut, TN  37934

865 675-5975
865 3844239 cell

www.KnoxvilleMedicalThaiMassage.com

Valerie has been a registered occupational therapist since 1969.  As a practitioner of yoga, she was drawn into alternative practice in Knoxville in 1994.  She practices myofascial bodywork, Thai massage,  yoga teaching, yoga therapeutics, and Yamuna BodyRolling from her home in Farragut.  Valerie’s main focus is for her clients to take charge of their own pain and become proactive, using a method that suits them best.  She borrows the Tantric yoga image of warp and weft on the loom:  fascial fabric is plastic, and can reform to alleviate pain.

Valerie has worked a variety of hospital and rehabilitation programs over a 35 year span.  She served in the USAF and retired from the USAF Reserves, holding the rank of Lt Colonel.  She and her husband have resided in Knoxville since 1991.  She is now semi-retired, but continues a yoga and process-oriented bodywork practice in Farragut, TN. 

Her academic history includes degrees from Indiana University and Eastern Washington University.  Holistic professional studies range from process and mental factors (Landmark Forum, Hakomi body-based psychotherapy, and  a year of Bioenergetics training in body-based psychotherapeutics)  to structural therapeutics (Barnes’ myofascial release, Iyengar, Viniyoga, and Ashtanga yoga forms, Thai Massage in  Thailand, and Rossiter structural bodywork methods.

Valerie is a life-long learner, and loves keeping her inquiry fresh and deepening with maturity.     

What I’d like for people to know about me & my perspective on practice: It’s more about practicing the art &exploring the dimensions of health & wellness, as they manifest in different lives. 

 People who are in pain often search for a practitioner  from a panic mode.  This narrows their perspective about what it really takes to establish a healthy foundation from which to heal.  People looking for immediate relief misunderstand that structural and emotional stability must be cultivated from the ground up.  So the actual process may be one step forward & two steps back to fill in the missing links that cause problems to persist.    

Thai massage helps people feel the reality of a different point of view, that is readily understood by the Eastern mind but usually dismissed in the United States.  An example:  a recent client was in pain and very anxious to name the particular muscle that was the injured offender in her body.  By the second session, she had learned to relax and allow her body to inform her of the problem.  Her preoccupation for an anatomical name was limiting her understanding of her problem.  This method is called “mindfulness” in the Eastern meditation traditions, and teaches us  patient curiosity as we view ourselves. Americans often reduce their viewpoint prematurely, and forget to enjoy the learning process that constitutes real healing.  At first, this model may not appear to be a bargain massage, but it turns out to be priceless.