Katia Hosch Mazuy describes her externship working with physicians at the Raby Institute

I did my shiatsu externship at the Raby Institute of Integrative Medicine in downtown Chicago, where I was already offering yoga therapy. The sessions took place in a beautiful setting. The Institute is a total realization of an Integrative healing center, where East meets West, and we can experience the reality of a well-designed, healing, therapeutic environment. I am very grateful for the opportunity the Raby Institute gave me and for the trust the patients who received shiatsu shared with me. I had the chance to present shiatsu at a practitioners' meeting, which was an opportunity for the practitioners to get familiar with it and see where it could potentially benefit some of their patients.

I was referred two patients by one of the physicians. I worked with those two patients weekly over ten weeks.

Both patients had compound functional pathologies with no simple diagnosis. I had asked to perhaps work with patients with insomnia, anxiety mood disorders, emotional upsets, which can be part of many chronic conditions. I was able to check in along the way to make sure I was working in concert with the referring therapist and the patients shared a positive feedback of shiatsu with the practitioners and doctors they were consulting.

One of these patients truly helped me grow in my ability to manage my own energy. She had long-held symptoms, more complex, creating some frustration for me in the beginning that I didn't feel my work was going anywhere, from my perspective. This perception of mine was happening partly because my own energy was really depleted after a session. It was a process of learning of how to manage my own intention and input of energy as I was working with someone who was facing a lot of challenges. With the guidance of my instructor, I shifted my perspective and coached her using guided visualizations, breathing techniques and affirmations to empower her process. It turned out to be an extremely rewarding growing process professionally and humanly.

Throughout the process of our first sessions together, I would feel my client connected with the breath and her body sensations, but at times it seemed, to me, that she was not fully "connected" to the work, or that I wasn't feeling the changes I was hoping for, or she was not staying engaged with her breath and process in the way she had been at a previous time. She would also frame her progress in a way that seemed to me to put more power in my hands, relying on my reactions as her benchmark, more than trusting on her own sense. This was frustrating to me on a personal level and I also wanted to make sure I was contributing to her empowerment process, as part of the integrative model of a true patient-centered treatment.

My instructor and I discussed this internal dynamic and I realized that I should not read too much into the moment-to-moment reactions of someone during a session. Even though they are not so outwardly responsive, or I can't necessarily feel something under my hands, they may be going through a profound internal process. We also discussed handling and letting go of my own feelings of frustration and energy depletion.

Based on his guidance and a consistent positive feedback from my client, I stopped reading into her way of receiving shiatsu. I realized that in fact, she was experiencing all sorts of sensation and movement internally, even though I wasn't detecting what I expected under my hands and I started coaching her more into breathing and staying connected with her breath.

I offered her a different tool for how to visualize her own role and gave her back her power in the process. I related the shiatsu to her own life, and helped her set her own goals for treatment and tried to get her to articulate how her life would be different if she met those goals. I asked, If we could make the impossible possible in this session, what would that look like? I drew metaphors from her important hobbies in her life, to help her describe her progress poetically in those terms.

Both patients had more than an hour's time per session, which was what I intended. I wanted to give them plenty of time to review meridian and yoga stretches that could help them. One woman felt like the guidance prepared her to deal with her issues and pain mentally and psychologically in a new way.

Things are constantly in cycles, and the patients were always in a new place compared to what they were describing in their past. Pain has a way to sit on other levels, and can come back as fresh as when you first had that wound. And yet you have evolved. If you can sit with the new sensation of pain and recognize where it came from, and hold the possibility that it can float out, just as it floated in, it may seem less hopeless and debilitating.

There was a beautiful companionship in that sense, that we were doing this together, and where they could envision themselves as having agency in the process.

What I realized was that I was seeing two patients who represented the complexity of who we all are. Sometimes when we're out of balance, we can't pinpoint one or the other cause; it's a map we have to decipher together without being black or white about it.

After graduating, I definitely plan on offering Shiatsu in integrative therapeutic settings, including those focusing on offering treatment to children.

Kristin Burns describes her externship working with mothers at Parenthesis Family Center

My externship was at Parenthesis in Oak Park, an organization that works with mothers, teens and older moms, they provide links to support services they may need, and have on-site services as well.

I worked with 18 mothers and some of the staff who wanted to go first so they could explain it to their clients.

The space I worked in was one of their toddler playrooms.  They do provide daycare, so there was some noise, but the plus side was that they were able to provide daycare to the moms, so that they could receive the treatments.

I was pretty impressed with the courage of the teenage girls to try this, something that was completely foreign to them.  That was pretty amazing.  The adults as well, many hadn't received any bodywork before.

One particularly gratifying experience was working with a woman who was really concerned about her body image.  I was able to give her a safe space to have a nurturing experience regarding her body, and she did come back.  The staff was really happy that she'd had a positive experience.  It seemed she hadn't had positive touch in some time.  That was very rewarding to hear.

The women, also, exchanged childcare services for each other so that they could all have an opportunity to receive shiatsu.  It was great to see those relationships develop as a part of the work.

I offered to return once a month as a volunteer, but I would love to do it five days a week.  I was really happy to provide that service to their clients.  The development director contacted me, and offered me a page in their fundraiser program, and the executive director wants to maintain a relationship after I graduate; I'm supposed to let her know when I'm finished with my training.  That was great!  I hadn't expected that those little things might come up.  It was great to see practice-building opportunities come out of this experience.

That sort of publicity is a win-win opportunity, it's good exposure for me, and it's helpful to Parenthesis to be able to tell their donors about all the services that the women are receiving.