Meet Betty Dupont

licensed PT, certified clinical somatic educator, +30 years experience

I know what it feels like to try everything and still wake up in pain.

In my 20s, a traumatic event left me with severe neck pain that didn't respond to conventional treatment. I saw practitioners, tried manual therapy, and did all the "right" things. Nothing held. It wasn't until I discovered the mind-body work of Dr. John Sarno and began to understand the concept of neuroplasticity - how the nervous system can both create and resolve chronic pain -that I finally found lasting relief.

Years later, a diagnosis of spondylolisthesis and disc bulging brought me face to face with chronic low back pain. Same story, same frustration. And the same hard-won lesson: the nervous system is not just involved in chronic pain. In most cases, it is the cause.

That lived experience shapes everything I do.

I've been a licensed physical therapist for over 30 years, serving patients in Nantucket and beyond. My clinical training spans a wide range of manual and movement-based approaches, including:

• Myofascial release

• Craniosacral therapy

• Muscle energy techniques

• Applied neurology

• Dry needling

In 2020, I was introduced to the work of Thomas Hanna and the field of Clinical Somatic Education. What I found stopped me in my tracks. Hanna's model -that chronic muscle tension is a learned nervous system pattern called Sensory Motor Amnesia -explained what I had experienced in my own body and what I had watched frustrate my patients for decades.

I completed my certification as a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator, and Somatics has since become the foundation of my practice.

The moment that changed everything happened because of a patient and friend.

She had been living with persistent low back pain for years. She had tried manual PT, spinal injections, and conventional exercise programs. Nothing worked. She was facing the possibility of spinal fusion surgery when she stumbled upon Essential Somatics at a yoga festival.

One month later, I saw her running on the bike path.

That was the proof I needed. I spent the next two years going deep into Somatic Education, completing my certification, and gradually transitioning my practice entirely. I have not looked back.

Most chronic pain treatment is passive. Someone works on your body, you go home, and hope the relief lasts.

Somatic Education is different. I teach you-through slow, guided movement -how to restore the connection between your brain and your muscles. You learn why your body holds tension, what reflex patterns are driving it, and how to release them yourself. The goal isn't for you to need me indefinitely. The goal is for you to understand your own body well enough to maintain it for life.

This approach is not a replacement for medical care. But for the large category of chronic pain that has no clear structural cause -the back that has been "fixed" three times and keeps returning, the hips that are always tight no matter how much you stretch, the shoulder that no one can explain-Somatic Education addresses what conventional treatment cannot reach.

Betty Dupont, PT, CCSE

• Licensed Physical Therapist, Massachusetts

• Certified Clinical Somatic Educator

• Continuing education: Myofascial Release, Craniosacral Therapy, Applied Neurology, Muscle Energy Techniques, Dry Needling

• 30+ years in clinical practice

• In-person sessions: Nantucket, MA

• Virtual sessions: available worldwide

If you have been through the cycle-the appointments, the adjustments, the exercises that help for a week and then stopand you are ready to understand what is actually driving your pain, I would love to work with you.