Welcome to Valley Acupressure
Will Stamell (IAP, MOT)
Arriving here means your healing journey is well underway. You’re ready for deeper shifts, new ways to inhabit your body & mind. Together, let's welcome profound change & sustained health back into your life.
Integrative Acupressure is a powerful yet non-invasive bodywork modality with life-changing potential. In order to return balance to “systems gone haywire,” acupressure makes conscious adjustments along the organ meridian networks. Unlike acupuncture, acupressure utilizes finger and hand pressure to ‘massage’ specific acu-points, assisting the nervous system to release and transmute old stress patterns.
Performed fully clothed on a massage table (no needles), Integrative Acupressure accesses the body’s innate capacity for healing. In this powerful work, both practitioner and client have a role in “Listening then responding” to the acu-points, meridians, organs, and the bodily systems (nervous, immune, lymphatic, digestive, reproductive & endocrine.) The results from an acupressure session last long after it ends. Chronic stress patterns often benefit greatly from receiving consecutive treatments, often weekly or bi-monthly. Once your nervous system fully unwinds, old patterns of tension naturally fall away, leaving behind your more balanced homeostatic state, ready for a fresh start.
The nervous system is at the center of our work. Our lives are filled with stressors and the nervous system is the command center which alerts our cells and tissues as to how safe they are. Safer environments generally lead to a calmer and more organized nervous system. Physically or emotionally unsafe spaces lead to hyper- and hypo-responsiveness in the nervous system. Each of us can attest to how stress finds unique ways to manifest in our bodies; muscle tightness, nerve pain, energetic stagnation, organ disruption, and/or emotional imbalances. I’ve witnessed the capacity for acupressure to melt away these chronic manifestations of stress, rebalancing the nervous system, and bringing our spirit, mind, and body back to gentle contentment.
As a lifelong athlete and soul-seeker I have enjoyed a challenging yet ever-deepening relationship with my own mind-body-spirit connection. As an acupressurist, my passion and strength is in bringing an intuitive healing touch to my client’s ‘stuck spots’. My hands get right to the core of the issue, steadily facilitating long-held stress patterns to release. I love working with clients who are nearing readiness for change, whether that’s finding ways to alter patterns of chronic pain, or helping overburdened nervous systems find the rest they deserve.
My background is in occupational therapy (MOT, Springfield College ‘18) where I focused on alternative treatment techniques to reduce chronic pain. While working with children and adults in the Pioneer Valley my passions keep evolving to include Chinese Medicine, especially acupressure and qi gong. My current work has culminated in the 300-hour Integrative Acupressure Practitioner Training Program with Sam McClellan. Sam’s development of the Integrative Acupressure model stems from nearly 40 years of experience working and teaching in the Pioneer Valley.
Acupressure continues to open up my world in personally meaningful ways. Both myself and loved ones have healed chronic illness with acupressure. For myself, that involved working with my teacher to heal a chronically taxed kidney and adrenal gland.
My symptoms came on slowly but progressively, from many years of physical and emotional output without sufficient self-nourishment and quality rest. When the quantity of energy expended supersedes the quality of energy nourished, the result is compensation in the body. Certain systems start carrying more than their fair share of the load.
As an Integrative Acupressure practitioner an important part of my work is understanding how my client’s chronic stress patterns present. From there, we work together to determine the best ways to teach your system to unwind them. Each of us have a signature stress pattern; do you know how yours presents? — bunched up neck and shoulders, a recurrent headache, tight or imbalanced low-back hip-flexors and psoas, overworked adrenals and kidney, unstable/shifted pelvis, chronic lymph congestion — there’s manifold types of presentations and each requires a unique approach. By assisting the body to unlearn old stress responses we naturally relearn how it feels to return to balance. Calm, cool, and collected your body knows how to heal itself - it just needs the right jumpstart and guiding touch.
As we work together, my deepest commitment is to help optimize your health to the best of my ability, taking great care to honor your journey along the way. I hope you will join me and give yourself the healing gift of Integrative Acupressure.
“Will has quite literally changed my life! After years of suffering from acute shoulder pain … I was resigned to believing I would always have pain. After only 3 sessions I started to notice a difference and am very confident that with continued maintenance work with Will I’ll be able to live pain free! Will has a very calming presence and is incredibly attentive to what my body needs. He creates a welcoming and safe atmosphere to feel comfortable experiencing anything that may come up during session. I can't recommend him enough!” -Allie
“I'm so glad I found Will and Integrative Acupressure! Will is totally professional, I felt very comfortable with Will, and Integrative Acupressure is powerfully therapeutic! I highly recommend Will and the Integrative Acupressure approach!” - Andrea
What is Integrative Acupressure?
Powerful yet gentle, Integrative Acupressure is a comprehensive healing modality which combines traditional Chinese medical theory and modern medical knowledge. Fully clothed on a massage table, no needles, fingers and hands are used to balance the energy meridians, organs, & musculoskeletal system.
The foundation of acupressure is the energetic meridian network. Every organ system has its own meridian and an intimate relationship with other associated meridians and structures.
Physical, emotional, and environmental life stressors cause congestion and imbalance to build up within meridians, creating dis - ease in our organs and the bodily systems associated with those organs and meridians. Acupressure uses finger pressure to “run” or massage along the meridian networks, rebalancing the flow of qi, life force energy.
Integrative Acupressure builds on this traditional energetic acupressure approach by incorporating non-forceful musculoskeletal release. This method uses neurological repatterning techniques to retrain the nervous system — the goal here is that you come back to balance quickly and retain the changes long after the session ends. Also incorporated into this work are several complementary modalities: cranial release, lymphatic drainage, as well as abdominal organ release to optimize overall qi flow.
What is Integrative Acupressure good for?
Integrative Acupressure is beneficial for both acute and chronic health ailments.
It can be particularly useful in treating: recurrent patterns of stress & anxiety in the nervous system, neck/shoulder pain & stiffness, recurrent stress headaches, chronic digestive issues, taxed kidney & adrenal gland, pain & misalignment of the spine, pelvis & sacrum, back pain including scoliosis & vertebral issues, post-chemotherapy & radiation symptoms, nausea, emotional trauma, joint related issues , TMJ, stagnant & congested lymph, Lyme and bacterial illness, sinus complications, autoimmune system induced disorders, arthritis, organ inflammation & adhesions, sleep troubles.
Acupressure may be used as a less-invasive alternative or adjunct to chiropractic work. There are several objectives to treatment: to unwind old and unsupportive stress patterns, to bring the nervous system into deep relaxation, and to promote greater alignment of each structure and meridian network.
What can I expect from treatment or series of treatments?
Acupressure is available for people of all abilities, body-types, and many different types of ailments. The more chronic or long-term an issue is, the more sessions it may take to address fully. More acute issues are often fully addressed in fewer sessions. These sessions are for your benefit; you have the agency to request work on specific ailments and to redirect treatment at any time. That being said, to get to the root of certain presentations may first require giving attention to areas of the body less acutely present.
Acupressure is a powerful tool for mitigating the effects of long-term stress in the body. Sessions are performed fully-clothed, on the massage table or massage chair. Most clothing types are fine to wear; looser clothing is best, avoid bulky or stiffer clothing like jeans. Before your session begins we will discuss your symptoms and goals for treatment. As appropriate, you will be on your belly and also on your back during the session.
Treatments are often deeply emotional & profoundly healing. During the session you need only relax and notice your breath. I will assist you as needed in staying present with your body's experience. Many healing processes benefit from dialogue, conscious breathing, and awareness of sensations as they arise. I will guide you naturally into this process.