The Highland Chronic Pain and Whiplash Centre was founded by myself, Alison Salter in collaboration with my SAT Osteopath, Clifford Conway as a response to my personal journey to recovery from a life of chronic pain, tension and difficulty due to traumas sustained at birth and as a young child.
My own journey to recovery through the osteopathic treatment of SAT, Mindfulness Meditation and Pilates, inspired me to spread the word of this collaborative approach to treatment and the possibilities of change which it offers, whilst also educating people as to the root causes of chronic pain.
The collaborative approach of SAT-Mindfulness-Pilates/Somatics is embodied in The Trident Concept© which is central to the ethos and treatment approach of this Centre.
There are three broad strands to our work at the Centre:
If you are considering whether our treatment is relevant for you, we recommend that you read our Symptomology page which outlines the most common symptoms of an upper cervical spine injury.
Alison’s Story
In 2013 I discovered a treatment which changed my life beyond recognition. I share my story here and in the foundation of this Centre in the hope that it will inspire and help others also suffering, and that in the long term, The Trident Concept will become a more widely recognised treatment model. I have dedicated the last five years to healing my own body following an injury to my spine from decades earlier (which I never knew I had), and the last three years working towards the formation of The Trident Concept© and this Centre. Like all of our practitioners – who are based around the UK and Europe – I am passionate about spreading the word of the Trident Concept© treatment model and the immense changes it offers to overall health.
The Background
In 2013 I was 30 and had suffered since my teenage years from growing amounts of tension, torsion and pain in my back, which had gradually referred throughout my whole body. I did not know the reason for the tension and discomfort but I knew it was gradually getting worse as the years went by. The muscular torsion in my body was at the forefront of my mind all day long as I was constantly trying to battle with it to go about my day with more ease. My head was so twisted to the left that I was driving with one eye on the road. In fact, my whole body looked completely twisted with one shoulder and one hip higher than the other. I could not even sit in a chair normally and was constantly shuffling and ill at ease, which, when doing this every minute of every day for years on end, had become exhausting. I appeared to people as though I had a nervous disposition. I could not relax and lie in bed at night because every muscle in my body was under tension. In order to sleep, I had to completely wear myself out just so that I would fall asleep through sheer exhaustion as soon as my head hit the pillow, rather than lie there rigid for hours on end. I often exhausted myself to the point where I climbed upstairs to bed on all fours; bed times often ran into the early hours of the morning in order to get myself into this state. There was no escape from the tension, and I was utterly exhausted from the daily battle of trying to correct and fix this. I had spent ten years seeing countless physiotherapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, sports massage therapists and Alexander technique specialists both in the NHS and privately, and had spent literally thousands of pounds, only to find that the tension and pain always returned a few days later. I had the best will in the world to fight the muscular pulling sensations in my body with exercises, relaxation techniques etc, but all my efforts always turned out to be short-lived and futile. I was desperate to try anything new that might work.
SAT and Trauma
I had been put forward by my osteopath in Inverness as someone who might benefit from a specialist osteopathic technique called SAT (Specific Adjustment Technique) which was specifically for people who had suffered a trauma to the upper spine.
This trauma can occur at birth itself (so you are often not even aware of anything being wrong because it has just always been this way for you) but it can also be due to a fall, impact or a car crash for instance. In any case, such trauma to the upper spine cannot be treated effectively through conventional osteopathic or chiropractic treatment. It is usually not apparent that you have damaged your spine at the time of the impact. You dust yourself down and any minor injuries you may have sustained will heal, but underneath, the trauma has affected your body on a deeper level in your spine and Central Nervous System – this is not apparent to you. Health problems which are not normally associated with damaging your spine will gradually creep in over the years. The most common symptoms are asthma and allergies and intolerances, IBS, diabetes, anxiety and any condition which is labelled as ‘chronic’ or ‘fatigue’ based. Such problems are then often treated in isolation as problems in their own right rather than as an effect of the trauma to the spine – which by this point may well be long forgotten about in the past and so sadly, no connection is ever made. A lifetime of deteriorating health ensues which is merely managed. No underlying cause is ever discovered.
Aged 30, I finally discovered this to be the root cause of my life of tension and pain. Although the trauma in my spine may be traced all the way back to birth, I believe that a bad fall onto concrete in which I whipped my head to the side to avoid smashing my face on the ground, further exacerbated the problem in my spine when I was 11. I injured my feet and knees during this fall and could not put my foot to the floor for about a week. I did go to the hospital but nothing was broken and so I was sent away. So, my body was racked with 20 years of compensations to cope with the original injury to my upper spine, which had been made in order to allow me to function as best as I could.
I had always had trouble walking; as a baby I was a late walker (in fact I was still clinging to my push chair when I was almost four years old) and after the subsequent fall when I was 11, I found it very difficult to walk in heels as a teenager. I looked and felt very clumsy. As an adult, I went to my GP, who then referred me to the podiatrist who obviously looked directly at my feet to try and manage the problem. Over the years, I was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, measured for orthotics, told I had one leg longer than the other, given exercises by physiotherapists to strengthen my arches etc. All of this input was helpful, but only with a view to managing (as best as was possible) the deteriorating situation. No medical professional had ever looked for a problem further up my spine until I met Clifford Conway, my SAT osteopathic practitioner many years later. By my late 20s, I was finding everyday walking even for a few minutes very difficult and painful, and my overall health in many other areas had deteriorated drastically.
February 2013: A False Start
When I first began SAT treatment, Cliff made the first all important major adjustment in my upper cervical spine and then my current osteopath in Inverness was to continue the treatment over the coming months. I would be lying if I said that the first adjustment was small in terms of its effect; I went home and slept for most of the next two days! Cliff had advised me that I should take a few days rest after the initial treatment adding that I should just go with whatever my body was wanting to do. It clearly wanted to sleep…and sleep…I only woke up sporadically to have a snack and a drink for the next couple of days. On the third day after the treatment – and I remember every detail of what happened over the next few hours as it was such a life changing event to date – I woke up feeling extremely relaxed and content. It was a really serene moment as I lay awake in the bed in the B&B I was staying at for work, but not needing to toss and turn to stretch the usual tension out of my body. I got out of bed in an almost dream-like state, and to my shock/horror/delight (it really was a mixture of all those emotions), my entire right side of my body had dropped dramatically (several inches) and was now ‘hanging there’ with no tension whatsoever! I looked in the mirror and was so shocked by what I saw and felt that I burst into tears and my legs turned to jelly because I was so overwhelmed! I also was shocked to discover that I could suddenly breathe so deeply compared to what had become ‘normal’ for me. Asthma had gradually become a very limiting health condition since the age of eight.
Words cannot adequately describe the relief I felt. The release of all that tension which had been building for most of my life had all vanished overnight. It was like I had been given a new body in my sleep! I felt a sense of immense liberation and freedom. It felt like I had been a caged animal and someone had just unlocked the door and let me free. However, it has to be said that the impact of such a drastic and sudden change was also hugely disconcerting and I did momentarily panic, even though the sensations were so amazingly wonderful. To say that this was a life changing moment would be an understatement.
Despite my injury I have always been someone who had lived life to the max and had experienced several exhilarating moments in my life. However, I do nevertheless state that the events of that morning are up there in the top three most pivotal moments of my life.
“I knew at this point that this S.A.T treatment was different and much more effective
than everything else I had ever tried.”
It took me months to become accustomed to living in my new body. I found myself gasping air in (rather than breathing normally) because I had never in my life experienced the ease with which I could now breathe. I did not need to try and breathe anymore. It was such a novelty! My chest felt so unbelievably free of tension. Life instantly became instantly easier and much lighter.
The treatment continued with my own osteopath and I began to feel much better and able to live with ease without osteopathic appointments. However, what I crucially did not realise at the time, was that unless my body was strengthened and realigned after the initial adjustments, the old tension patterns and the related pain would just reappear because those patterns had been ‘imprinted’ in my Central Nervous System for so many years.
2014 – 2016: The Gradual Slide Backwards
The symptoms did continue to improve for about a year but then very gradually, tension did begin to creep back in and my overall health began to deteriorate once more. Stressful events seemed to exacerbate the return of the tension. After another couple of years, the symptoms had worsened to the point that it was now severely affecting my ability to walk as well as having immensely aggravated my asthma. I staggered around a lot of the door, just struggling to get by, I could not even walk up the two steps to my front door without needing my inhaler (the strongest steroid inhaler on prescription) and I even wheezed sat in a chair; it had become debilitating and affected my daily life. This deterioration happened gradually and alongside some very stressful emotional times in my life. I was frightened at the direction which my health was taking. I struggled everyday walking along a street or opening doors. Whole flights of stairs had long since been abandoned and I was now taking the lift instead – I was only in my late 20s at this point.
At it’s worst, my feet had become contorted to the point that I was standing on the edges of my feet and every day became a struggle to do even simple tasks. I had started to not want to go out of the house because even walking to the car was so difficult. Sitting in a car to drive had become tortuous but yet I had to commute 2 hours to work everyday. The only way I could get through this was to literally ‘get high’ on energy drinks before I set off and have some uplifting dance music blaring out at 6:30am to numb the pain! I was still under immense tension with my body pulling against my will to sit comfortably in the car seat, but at least I got a zing from the caffeine and had an aversion tactic. I functioned in this way for a couple of years. It became the norm that I accepted…
I had also been diagnosed by the NHS as having IBS, urinary problems (frequent urination) and ‘fibromyalgia’ as well as various conditions which began with the word ‘chronic’. I must stress here that I did not accept any of these labels and I never used any of them to describe my condition. I believed then, as I do now, that assigning labels to conditions for the sake of labels only has a limiting effect on the body and mind’s innate healing capabilities. Once a condition is labelled, (and usually along with the proviso of there being no hope of ever recovering from it), it prescribes your life ahead of you and your mind adjusts to that new limited set of possibilities, therefore ruling out any possibility of ever recovering. (In other words, your body will act according to whatever you believe to be the truth). I knew there was an underlying problem which had not yet been found. At this point, I was exhausted and I was doing the bare necessities in life just to survive from one day to the next. Life was frantic, working 18 hour days and struggling to balance long commutes and build my Music School business singlehandedly whilst suffering such deteriorating health. Years later, I look back and I see now that I simply piled all of this workload onto myself as a method of proving to myself that I could still be successful and that this exhaustion and tension throughout my whole body would not beat me. Overworking was also an aversion tactic. Most people suffering from long term health conditions partake in these behaviours.
A Possibility for Change
In October 2015 however, my lifestyle became much less stressful. My Music School was now sufficient to financially support me and so I quit my school teaching job with the hefty commute. I decided that now was the time to put my life on hold in order to get my health sorted. I had always made a mental note of Cliff’s SAT treatment from three years ago, and I had kept it on hold in the back of my mind for a time in my life when I could commit to going down to the Lake District to his own practice see the process through with Cliff himself from start to finish. I first embarked on almost six months of relentless daily foam rolling to loosen off some of the concrete-like muscular tension which pervaded my body. I did also at this point decide to get involved in the Highland Mindfulness Group. I thought that calming my mind could only be a beneficial step in the bid to ease the tension in my body. I jumped straight in the deep end and went on a five day retreat during which I learned just how much tension I was holding in my body, and how this was affecting my mental capacity and state of anxiety. I persevered even though I could not actually sit to meditate and even lying down was difficult. Each night I set aside half an hour to bring my mind to rest and really learn the skill of feeling into my body. I began to realise that over many years, my mind and body had indeed become separate entities as a result of turning away and denying the pain and tension. This min-body disconnect is a common symptom of cervical spine injuries. I began to gradually reap the benefits of meditating regularly and started approaching life with much more ease and with a growing awareness of what it was like to fully ‘be’ with your experience rather than skimming the surface of life. I learned, to my astonishment, that once you stop labelling conditions as ‘my asthma’ or ‘my inability to walk’ and instead, let go of the ownership of such debilitating conditions as well as letting go of mentally resisting, denying and averting your attention away from pain and tension, ironically, much of the tension disappears all by itself!
In April 2016, I resumed contact with Cliff. The mission commenced and there was no going back!
April 2016
My Journey through SAT begins
For the next five months I embarked on a round trip journey of over 700 miles every three weeks from the North of Scotland to the Lake District to receive treatment from Cliff. Out of only a handful of SAT practitioners in the UK, he was the closest to me. Because I had received SAT treatment before, I had every faith that my efforts would bear fruit as I was going to receive the entire course of treatment this time – including advice on post treatment pilates input. I had no qualms about taking on such a project but it was a huge commitment to make, not only in terms of time and effort (the trip took a whole weekend every three weeks), but financially too. However, the life changing release from three years ago was still so clearly etched on my mind, and over the coming weeks, my faith in the procedure itself grew more and more as the treatment never failed to deliver even more astounding tangible improvements. I was constantly spurred onwards to stick with it despite the colossal effort required.
The original adjustment made three years earlier was still in the correct place; it had not reverted back. Cliff methodically made adjustments down my spine and used cranial osteopathy to calm my Central Nervous System. I followed every bit of advice Cliff offered; especially not exercising after treatment and not dabbling in other treatments at the same time. He explained SAT to be almost like a resetting of the nervous system (and this is exactly what it felt like), so that my body could learn to unravel the myriad of compensations throughout my spine and soft tissue (muscles, ligaments and fascia) which it had made in response to the out-of-position vertabrae right at the top of my cervical spine.
Everyday I would get an enormous debilitating shivering sensation through my body, like my nerves were awakening for the first time. It winded me and sometimes was so strong that it knocked me to my knees! But the sensation was so pleasant – never frightening – and often made me giggle because it was so intense and positive! Whenever, my body was beginning to fall into old muscular holding patterns, it seemed to stop dead in its tracks and reset in this way. My body started to ‘tell me off’ when I was doing too much. It felt like my body had been enabled to know how to best heal itself and I grew confident that my body knew instinctively which particular pain/tension to address next. I had to learn to go with the flow without interfering too much, to really listen to my body and when I felt it moving and resetting, I just had to sit down and enjoy the sensations! My regular meditative practice helped maintain the calmness between treatments and it was from this point of calmness where my body was able to fully assimilate the SAT treatment and move on to the next level of healing. I thought of my meditation practice like a spa treatment for my Central Nervous System and began to look forward to it immensely each morning and night.
Over the next five months, after each SAT treatment, more aches and pains disappeared. I had ultimate faith in the procedure and in Cliff. I had improved so much by this point, that I managed to walk up a 2000ft mountain and an 11 mile walk; six months previously I could not even walk a few metres without severe difficulty and pain!
“This is the extent to which SAT can change lives if you fully believe and embrace it.”
September 2016: Moving On
At this point, Cliff recommended that I start doing Pilates one to one with a Body Control teacher to help strengthen and realign my body; this, I believe was the vital part of my ‘rehabilitation’ which had been missing three years ago. At this time I also began to fully take stock of the profound life changing effects which SAT had had on my life and I became passionate about spreading the word so that more people could benefit as I had. With Cliff as my mentor, I studied SAT in depth; the history, the technique itself and the deeper understanding of why it is so effective. As I learned more about SAT and the wider field of osteopathy, I began to realise how the cervical injury I had held since birth had indeed shaped my life so far. My life began to make sense; my behaviour and actions, or rather ‘re-actions’ which I had made to certain events, as well as my physical health difficulties. Also, I gradually became aware that there were indeed thousands of people suffering in the same way and for the same reason as I had, merely because whiplash injuries are not diagnosed, treated, and most of all, not understood. This saddened me greatly and spurred me on to raise awareness of this technique. Over the next two and a half years, it is fair to say that studying about and raising awareness of SAT became a major – time consuming – driving force in my life.
Pilates – The Restrengthening Stage
I found myself a Body Control Pilates teacher and although it was a huge commitment each day, it very much took over from where the original SAT treatment left off. I began with just half an hour a day of exercises but over a period of months this increased to two hours a day. I also supplemented this with at least an hour of body scan meditation to allow my body to be in a relaxed state to begin and end the day, and to develop awareness and the skill of ‘feeling into’ my body with a view to calming my nervous system and releasing pain and tension should I need to do so. I cannot stress enough how strongly I believe that the combination of SAT, Pilates and Meditation is vital to calming, healing and reconnecting mind and body in order to ultimately get the most out of SAT treatment and move on from a life of pain and tension. It is also possible to strengthen and realign the body after SAT treatment through Hanna Somatics rather than Pilates. This could be equally effective in some cases.
…and things just kept getting better…
My feet were by now much less contorted. My toes had straightened out and I was no longer clawing my foot or walking on the sides of my feet. My ability to walk improved dramatically. I climbed another couple of mountains and began to cycle much longer distances. These were things that I have never been able to do without a huge amount of distress and by the time I embarked on SAT treatment, had become completely off the radar to even dream about.
In addition to the obvious structural and mobility improvements, the ‘asthma’ had reduced massively (from taking 250mg of the strongest inhaler on prescription twice a day down to 125mg once every ten days or so!) My allergy problems (which had been a daily hindrance since before the age of 3) significantly improved, my digestion and waterworks had returned to normal, my skin was clearer, my libido had increased dramatically and I also lost a stone in weight even though I was probably eating more than I ever had! Although some of these improvements were indeed helped along by a distinct change in lifestyle and working hours which occurred just before I met Cliff again in 2016, they were for the most part, due to SAT and the Pilates which followed. I could tangibly feel my Central Nervous System resetting and my body getting stronger. However, I did notice that whenever I was stressed, my body would begin to fall back into the old holding patterns and compensations of former years. I decided to stick with the belief though that the Pilates input would strengthen my body sufficiently to eventually combat this. Now, almost three years down the line, I can say that this was the case.
April 2017: A Year On From Commencing SAT Treatment
By this stage, my life was unrecognisable to the one I had been living a year earlier. I saw tiny movements in the right direction every day. I continued with the tried and tested combination of Pilates and Mindfulness meditation on a regular basis. It is probably worth noting at this point that my injury had gone untreated for a very long time and so I was quite a ‘severe case’; not everyone’s journey through SAT will be as intense, difficult and will take as long as mine did.
The whole journey through SAT can indeed be a long one, but together with the results from the Pilates it is all very encouraging; in fact there are very few things I have ever done which deliver such regular positive feedback to spur you on!
“I completely embraced the SAT process and it has completely changed my life.”
Every day, I felt my body starting to move in different ways, I felt it getting stronger and straighter and this allowed me to live a much happier and fulfilling life both in terms of everyday activities like sitting in a chair comfortably and driving without being under severe tension and discomfort (tasks which other people take for granted), but also the ability to follow an active outdoor lifestyle. I had had these health difficulties for most of my life and so I did not actually know what a ‘normal’ body felt like…so therefore I did not really know how much more improvement was feasible! However, I embraced the journey, and the pain free, new found freedom which every day brought!
The tremendous improvements in my health have been accompanied with overwhelming tears of joy, excitement and awe at what SAT could achieve. However, although I had always had reassuring signs from my body that the treatment was working, there were times where I had to dig deep to keep going just because the journey ahead seemed such a long – and often lonely – one, especially living so far away from the one person who knew what was going on in my body! Trying to unravel the multitude of problems in my body was like peeling an onion; there was layer after layer of problems to resolve. At these times, Cliff always was there to remind me that SAT would work, I would achieve my goals and that it just needed time. He engaged with my sharing of high emotions when there were huge leaps forward and spurred me on every step of the way!
A New Impetus
By this point I was now only seeing Cliff every 8-12 weeks or so for follow up treatment and everything continued to move in the right direction. My passion for raising awareness of SAT had grown synonymously with my own improvements in my health. One of the main reasons why SAT is not more widely practiced is because it is such a complex technique to become proficient with and to maintain the level of skill required. At this point there were only a handful of SAT practitioners in the UK and so Cliff and I began to discuss plans regarding the training of more SAT practitioners in the UK. He and his wife (who is a Body Control Pilates teacher) had been combining the healing effects of SAT and Pilates for many years and so this was not a new concept, but I began to share my experience with Mindfulness as a possible third input.
“I became ever more sure that I wanted to open up this discovery of SAT-Mindfulness-Pilates connection to a wider audience and under Cliff’s supervision and direction, I started considering the possibility of opening a Centre which would reach out to those people suffering in the same way that I had; from chronic pain/fibromyalgia/whiplash injuries and a whole myriad of associated health problems. I wanted to raise awareness that it is possible to move on from these health conditions and that they are not the life sentence they are often portrayed to be.”
May 2017
I was now witnessing some huge improvements in my fitness levels and strength. Whilst on holiday, I cycled over 100km in four days including one extremely challenging hill climb of 15% gradient which would have never in my wildest dreams have been possible even a few weeks ago! I was now running up hills without even being out of breath! A year ago I had struggled to even walk from the house to the car and was starting to not want to go out. I now no longer felt depleted of energy which was incredibly liberating. In fact, I was – for the first time in my life – actually wanting to exercise because it felt so easy! I continued with my Pilates program although in a more relaxed manner by this point and the muscles around my pelvis and buttocks continued to strengthen and realign to make walking feel much more balanced. My body had begun to heal all by itself without so much conscious effort. The allergy problems (most notably the incessant runny nose first thing in a morning and last thing at night) had vanished completely! This was something which had troubled me my entire life.
“By this point, I estimate that about 80% of my health problems had completely vanished.”
June 2017
In June 2017 I found out that I was pregnant with my first child! Whilst this was planned, I never thought it would happen so immediately! Over the following months, the pregnancy was very easy and straightforward with absolutely no sickness or aches and pains until past the 30 week stage. I was thoroughly delighted and astounded by how well my body coped with the physical strains of pregnancy. The entire pregnancy was very easy and enjoyable until the last week or so; I felt physically very strong throughout. I have no doubt that I would not have fell pregnant so easily – if at all – in the state my body was in prior to SAT treatment. In September, I also achieved something which I had written off ever achieving again – climbing a Munro (a mountain over 3000ft in Scotland)! Here I am at the summit of Ben Wyvis (1046m) whilst five months pregnant! Two weeks later, I set out on a further mission: to climb THREE Munros in one day at Glen Shee in the Cairngorms! Both walks incorporated not only a climb to height of over 3000ft but also a 14km long walk on each occasion.
Prior to SAT treatment: I had climbed a total of five Munros in my life. Each one had brought me to tears as I was in so much pain, and had incapacitated me for a good week afterwards. I had given up on the ambition of climbing hills.
Following SAT treatment: I climbed four Munros in the space of two weeks whilst five months pregnant! At the end of both climbs I felt just a little fatigued as any normal person would be after a whole day walking up mountains. What better testament to the effectiveness of SAT treatment to turn around someone’s overall health, wellbeing and fitness?
February 2018
I gave birth to a baby boy in February 2018. We named him Lewis. Although the birthing process began well, in the end, it turned out not to be the easiest and it did take it’s toll on me for the first two or three weeks afterwards. Cliff had warned me, that although my spine had coped with the gradual addition of child bearing weight, my body may not cope so well with the sudden loss of all of the weight overnight. Coupled with exhaustion through iron deficiency along with some pain from the birth itself, the first fortnight was very difficult. It soon became apparent that my spine was struggling to readjust to its former state especially with the rigours of looking after a new baby.
Cranial Osteopathy for Babies
When Lewis was six weeks old, we travelled to The Lakes for an appointment with Cliff. Lewis received cranial treatment and I started the journey back to the point in my recovery which I had reached before I fell pregnant. It was a gradual recovery process – but a very familiar one. By the time Lewis was one year old, I had reached the point I was pre pregnancy.
Following Lewis’s cranial treatment, he began to sleep longer and longer periods through the night. By ten weeks old he was sleeping about nine hours through the night. From about 12 weeks, he slept 10-12 hours. Every night. In the first year, we have witnessed perhaps less than ten awakenings during the night due to teething discomfort. But even these were not severe. Throughout the first year of his life, he has been an extremely calm, happy and very giggly baby! Very easy all round and absolutely delightful. His level of contentedness is striking and is always the first thing which strangers comment on! Of course, I cannot claim that cranial treatment was the only input which made him such an ‘easy’ baby, but I do believe it contributed heavily especially with regard to sleeping and general contentedness. Since giving birth, I also became passionate about spreading the word of cranial osteopathy for babies. Please see our Babies & Children and Testimonials pages to see the level of improvement in babies’ health and wellbeing after cranial treatment.
November 2018: SAT and Breathworks Training
After much collaboration between myself, Cliff and Gez Lamb (the leading SAT specialist), we held a CPD refresher course for current osteopaths (Alumni of The European School of Osteopathy in Kent which is the only place in the UK where SAT is taught) who had studied SAT during their degree but who had not had the opportunity to maintain regular use of the technique in practice. Prior to this, there was only a maximum of seven practicing SAT practitioners in the UK. Following this course, there are now 17! From the osteopaths who attended, we invited four to practise here at the Highland Chronic Pain and Whiplash Centre in Inverness. This takes the total number of osteopaths at this Centre to six; the combined wealth of experience and knowledge is invaluable. Our second CSP SAT Course will run in November 2019. This is in the hands of Gez Lamb who is the SAT Advisor here at this Centre.
I also began training with the world leading Breathworks Mindfulness organisation. Breathworks was founded by Vidjamala Burch who has a similar story of trauma to my own (although much more severe). She too has dedicated her life to helping other people deal with chronic pain and illness by founding Breathworks and developing the immensely well-crafted Mindfulness for Health and Stress courses. Our course here at this Centre is based on this Breathworks model, which I am qualified to teach, but we have adapted the content to work alongside our SAT osteopathic programme of treatment I embarked on the intensive teacher training course with a view to taking my place as Centre Manager and Director of Mindfulness Courses alongside the SAT osteopaths in the formation of my new Centre here in Inverness.
My Vision Coming to Fruition
And so returning to My Story. I am now a year post partum, and my body has almost fully recovered from the stresses and strains of having a baby. I look forward to making the final phases of healing – for me, it has been a long journey with (some very pleasant) ‘obstacles’ along the way! Several years ago, I gave up my musical instruments, because the tension and pain through my body was so great that I could not practise. I now feel I am ready to begin returning to playing music for myself rather than just in a teaching capacity and perhaps even begin to perform again in 2020. My own healing journey is now coming to a close and I am entering into a new phase whereby I look forward to opening up the collaborative treatment of SAT-Mindfulness-Pilates to help other people. I have dedicated my life over the last three years to spreading the word of this collaborative treatment to help people who are suffering in the same way I was. Helping people through the Trident Concept© has become my passion and my raison d’être; this is indeed true of all of our Practitioners here at this Centre.
“The culmination of both my work and journey is in this Centre and am very excited to go on the journey to recovery with you. It may just be one of the most fruitful journeys of your life.”
I hope that the symptoms and the content of this Story and my Symptomology resonate with you and that SAT is the correct mode of treatment for you. I wish you the very best of luck in your recovery and hope that it delivers the life changing results it has to me. If you decide to proceed with treatment, please do read the leaflet in your welcome pack. This outlines how to set optimum conditions for you to get the most effect from SAT treatment.
Alison Salter, Centre Founder, Manager and Mindfulness Course Director