The Fascia-Informed Therapist™ Podcast; Occupational Therapy, Myofascial Release, Fascial System, Posture, Movement, and More

In this episode, I sit down with Madeline Seide, OTD, OTR/L, RYT, LSVT-BIG, to explore how trauma shows up across the clients we work with every day. We discuss what current research is revealing about trauma’s impact on the brain, why understanding trauma matters for all healthcare professionals, and how it can influence behavior and engagement in therapy. Madeline and I also share practical ways we apply trauma-informed principles in our daily practice to create safer, more effective therapeutic environments.

 

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In this episode, I’m sharing one of the most foundational parts of my fascia‑informed approach: the progression of matching, pacing, and leading. Before I introduce any hands‑on work, movement exploration, or self‑treatment strategies, I focus on helping the client’s nervous system settle enough to participate.

I talk about how I attune to a client’s initial tempo, tone, and level of activation, and how that simple act of matching creates the safety their fascia and nervous system need. From there, I share how I gradually shift the rhythm of the session—using posture, breath, cadence, and presence—to support regulation without forcing change.

You’ll hear how I use these relational cues as the first intervention in fascia‑informed care, and why this sequence makes such a difference in interoception, tissue responsiveness, and therapeutic outcomes. If you’re looking for practical, immediately usable ways to help clients arrive more fully in their bodies, this episode will give you a clear, grounded framework you can bring straight into your next session.

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Recent headlines have once again brought childhood sexual abuse into public view, often in ways that expose survivors while protecting systems of power. In this episode, we shift the focus away from spectacle and back to care.

Using evidence from two large systematic reviews, we explore how childhood sexual abuse, often occurring alongside other adverse childhood experiences, shapes nervous system development and increases the risk of chronic pain and pain-related disability in adulthood. We discuss how long-standing threat responses can amplify pain even decades later.

For fascia-informed therapists, this episode offers a clear rationale for trauma-informed evaluation, education, and referral which are grounded in science, not assumption. Pain, in this context, is not a failure of tissue, but a signal from a system that learned to survive.

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References from the podcast:

Bussières, A., Hancock, M. J., Elklit, A., Ferreira, M. L., Ferreira, P. H., Stone, L. S., Wideman, T. H., Boruff, J. T., Al Zoubi, F., Chaudhry, F., Tolentino, R., & Hartvigsen, J. (2023). Adverse childhood experience is associated with an increased risk of reporting chronic pain in adulthood: a stystematic review and meta-analysis. European journal of psychotraumatology, 14(2), 2284025. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2284025

Karimov-Zwienenberg, M., Symphor, W., Peraud, W., & Décamps, G. (2024). Childhood trauma, PTSD/CPTSD and chronic pain: A systematic review. PloS one, 19(8), e0309332. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309332

See the alarming extent of NIH and NSF funding cuts in 2025

Fascia has become a popular word in health and movement spaces, but what does it actually mean?

In this episode, I explore why definitions matter and why fascia is not a fixed concept. How we define fascia shapes the questions we ask in research, the way clinicians think about the body, and how we explain pain, healing, and recovery to the people we serve.

I walk through the key definitions that have influenced my own thinking, starting with the traditional structural perspective found in Gray’s Anatomy, moving into the widely accepted definition from the Fascia Research Society that reframed fascia as a three-dimensional environment, and then exploring the function-focused definition proposed by John Sharkey and Mark Flannigan.

The heart of the episode focuses on a 2024 update to fascial nomenclature by Bordoni and colleagues, which challenges long-held assumptions by grounding the fascial system in embryology. This work expands the fascial continuum beyond solid connective tissues, emphasizing how tissues that develop together, function together, and communicate together cannot be fully understood when separated conceptually.  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.53995

Rather than offering a final answer, this episode highlights fascia as a living, adaptive continuum and invites a wider view based on embryology.

As our science evolves, our language and perspective must evolve with it.

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In this episode, we explore Dr. Patricia Huston’s 2022 paper proposing a new way to understand chronic disease. Huston suggests that unhealthy lifestyle patterns don’t just strain the heart, lungs, or muscles directly. Rather, they change the behavior of interstitial cells, especially macrophages and fibroblasts. These cells orchestrate inflammation, healing, and tissue remodeling throughout the body.

Using a six-level hierarchical network model, Huston shows how environmental pressures, social context, lifestyle habits, and nervous system activity converge on the interstitial microenvironment. When this system becomes overwhelmed, macrophages get stuck in a chronic inflammatory state and fibroblasts begin laying down excessive collagen, leading to fibrosis and organ dysfunction. This stalled healing process provides a unified explanation for why so many chronic diseases progress in similar ways.

We discuss why this theory is groundbreaking for fascia-informed therapists and how it aligns with salutogenesis—a health-focused approach centered on restoring interstitial fluid flow, tissue mobility, movement, and self-regulation. This episode offers a science-backed lens for understanding the transformative potential of fascia-based therapy in supporting long-term health and resilience.

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One option for explaining this simply to clients:

Your daily habits change the environment your cells live in. The fascia is your cells' environment. And cells behave differently depending on that environment.

This means lifestyle does not just affect symptoms. It affects how your cells decide whether to heal or stay inflamed.