About Tabitha Marsh
 | How did you get into the Healing Arts?It all began with a gift. A coworker gave me a certificate for a massage with her favorite bodyworker as a gesture of appreciation. I'd never had a professional massage before so I didn't really know what to expect, but what I experienced was amazing. I never realized how much tension and pain I had been unconsciously holding in my body, and in the first session my practitioner was able to dramatically improve a shoulder condition that I had been experiencing for a number of years. In one more session it was gone for good. Like many people in today's driven society, I had thought the pain was something to block out, live with, and ignore as I raced full force into life. This experience taught me otherwise and was a significant wake-up call. Soon afterwards, I was ready to make a major life change and began massage school. Thus began a passion that has traversed the world of Massage, Counseling, and most recently Oriental Medicine. |
What is your Background?
Massage Therapy
When you find something you truly love, it's easy to throw yourself wholeheartedly into it. That is what happened when I entered the Oregon School of Massage in 1994. I took every elective class I could, became a teaching assistant, and even worked as an Administrative Assistant and Bookstore Manager at the school. I started in private practice from the beginning, but gained experience working in a couple chiropractic clinics and later taught for several years at local massage school.
Counseling
Along the course of my studies and teaching, I became increasingly fascinated by the connection between mind, body, and our own inner reality. So, I plunged deeper into the world of psyche, soul, and imagination by enrolling at Pacifica Graduate Institute. After completing a thesis with an appropriately long title (The Value of Massage Therapy as an Adjunct to Psychotherapy in Community Health Settings), I earned a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology in 2007.
During the course of counseling individuals, first at a community health center and later at a clinic for eating disorders, I became keenly aware of how nutritional deficits, medication, environmental toxins, and illness itself can affect our mental health. Massage had led me to the mind, and psychology had lead me right back to the body!
Oriental Medicine
Study at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine provided a final, satisfying bridge between worlds -- both between mind and body and Eastern and Western medicine. Currently in my second year of clinical internship, I have had many opportunities to see how disorders that slip through the cracks in bio-medicine can have great results with acupuncture and herbal therapy.
I look forward to combining my experience with Massage, Lifestyle Counseling, and Oriental Medicine to form a truly mind-body, integrated approach to healing in Fall of 2012.
Why A Way of Being Wellness Center?
Carl Rodgers' book, A Way of Being, provided the inspiration for the name of my practice. Rodgers held the philosophy that we all have an innate ability to grow and change, and an inner, intuitive self that helps us get to a place of healing. At the same time, I loved the idea of “being” as opposed to “doing” – a perfect reference to the practice of mindfullness that underlies much of my work.
