David Murphy helps patients move to the center
David Murphy understands pain and has made it his mission to help resolve it.
A skateboarding injury sidelined him for nearly a year in his 20s. Eventually, he found a Hellerwork practitioner who introduced him to an approach that gave him relief and a calling.
Murphy’s method is called Structural Integration, a practice for which he is board certified. He began his practice in 2001 and has offices in New York City, Cold Spring (within the Ascend Collective) and Beacon, where he moved in 2020. He is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and a Certified CoActive Coach.
The foundation of Murphy’s technique is bodywork, awareness-based movement and coaching. Better balance and strength, as well as the absence of pain, are achieved through becoming conscious of how one occupies space and holds oneself. Our “braced” patterns are often hidden as blind spots, he says. “The mind will trick us to avoid confronting them.”
Improvement is a process, with sessions personalized for each client and with individual sessions addressing particular needs. “It involves connecting to parts of ourselves that are hidden from our own view,” he says. The goal, he adds, is long-term change achieved within a limited course of treatment.
For 24 years Murphy has treated a wide variety of clients, with athletes and creatives representing a substantial number. He was a filmmaker and athlete himself before he began his practice, and it is a point of resonance with many clients.
“I love to work with people who are passionate about being in their bodies,” he says. From acrobats to lawyers to any other client description, he strives to help the people with whom he works achieve growth and greater agency over their bodies.
Murphy’s model is a collaborative one, and he appreciates when people are ready to invest with effort. “I give lots of homework,” he says. But it’s not exercises and sets common with some other modes of treatment. Instead, he wants people to be able to answer: “When you move, how are you doing it?”
Murphy’s clients come with a variety of problems, and sometimes a physical complaint can be paired with unresolved psychological trauma. “But some people just need to fix a shoulder,” he says.
The typical course of treatment is an 11-session series that helps empower people with knowledge of their own bodies and their needs. “The goal is to get you to be your own therapist, trainer and teacher, and to get you comfortable in your center,” he says.
Over time Murphy has added yoga, cranial sacral therapy, visceral manipulation, body-centered dialogue, men’s work, trauma resolution, breathwork and somatic movement to his learning and repertoire.
While still maintaining his New York City practice, Murphy’s goal is to shift more and more of his hours to the Hudson Valley.
Prospective clients can arrange a complimentary 30-minute consultation and a discounted first session. There is also a discount for those who wish to follow that session with a subsequent package of 10 appointments.
Transformative Structural Integration
75 Main St., Cold Spring
845-705-3236
transformativesi.com
