Mary Catherine “MC”
Mary Catherine Donnelly (MC) graduated from the Academy of Massage Therapy and Bodyworks and is very happy to join Optimal Massage & Movement’s team of professional massage therapists.
MC’s approach is integrative and is influenced by her training and years of experience using Somatic Experiencing, NeuroAffective Touch and Polarity Therapy to help ease nervous system imbalances resulting from physical, emotional and relational trauma.
Her Massage Therapy sessions are individually designed to reflect and respond to each client’s unique goals, form and history, believing our body is our biography and like all great personal stories, can evolve and transform when witnessed and met with respect and care.
Before moving back to PA in 2020, MC worked as a trauma counselor, crisis interventionist and educator at a rape crisis center in the Bay Area and with forensic nurse examiners in NYC working carefully and compassionately with survivors of various ages, ethnicities and genders. She lived in New York City for almost 20 years working in medical education, simulation and the performing arts.
Her interest in the body began many years ago by way of sensation based storytelling that led her to train in Italy in a professional development program that integrated gestalt, bioenergetics, Jacques LeCoq based movement analysis, personal awareness and physical theatre. MC has worked with a cohort of international artist/educators based in the US, Italy and the Republic of Georgia in movement analysis and the poetry of the body.
It was her injury as a physical theatre artist in 2012 that initially opened her eyes to other entry points of accessing the body’s innate intelligence and healing. Through her artistic and somatic practices, she experienced the body’s capacity not only to tell our story by the way we move but also to assist in healing physical and emotional injuries. This inner journey led her to receive therapeutic support and then train in the somatic practices she found deeply relational and restorative that includes receiving and training in massage therapy.
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MC’s “pressure intensity” is 1-8, working with releasing muscle tension slowly and deeply using structure and energy simultaneously to help clients find relief from pain and discomfort and to come back into connection with their body as a place of aliveness and flexibility
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Once we know the “what and why” behind YOUR need for a massage, we can book you with the skilled therapist trained in the specific disciplines that will deliver the most beneficial impact, the greatest relief, and the highest satisfaction. If you aren’t sure of which therapist who can best serve you, browse individual profiles in “Meet the Team” or call us at 610-696-6880 to assess and help you find the right fit.