Synergy Healthcare has the most experienced occupational therapy team in Spokane Valley. Our therapists have honed their craft over decades. Their techniques include Craniosacral Therapy, Strain Counterstrain, Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM), Visceral Manipulation, and more. At Synergy Healthcare, we’re often able to help our patients to successful outcomes, even when they’ve been to other clinics and been told that nothing more can be done.

Learn about each of Synergy Healthcare’s skilled physical therapists and physical therapy assistants below. We’re standing by to help, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any inquiry.

Table of Contents:

1. Laurie Levine-Lowen, OTR/L, LMT, CKTP – Myofascial Release, Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation
2. Kathryn Matsubuchi., OTR/L – Visceral Manipulation, MyoFascial Release including Strain-Counterstrain
3. Shauna Burchett, OTR/L, Owner – Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, Lymphatic Drainage

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After graduating with a B.Sc. in Occupational Therapy from McGill University (Montreal) in 1980, Laurie worked in all phases of rehabilitation as an occupational therapist, including acute and chronic pain, neurology, rehabilitation, hand therapy, neonatal rehab, early intervention pediatrics, pediatric outpatient, and burns. She served as Assistant Director of Occupational Therapy at Jacobi, a large teaching hospital.

In 1991, she graduated from the New Center for Holistic Health Education and Research in New York and became a licensed massage therapist to further her growing interest in manual therapy to include the whole body. This was part of an immersion into the study of manual therapy which included: joint mobilization, Myofascial Release, Craniosacral Therapy, muscle energy, Visceral Manipulation, integrated manual therapy, Mulligan method, Therapeutic Horizons, Dynamic Manual Interface, and other techniques. She has also taken classes in pediatric Neurodevelopmental Treatment (NDT) and Total Motion Release (TMR), and is a certified kinesio tape practitioner.

Laurie started lecturing to therapists and doctors at Jacobi Hospital in 1983. Starting in 1989, she assisted at many Myofascial Release seminars with John Barnes and lectured at his pediatric course. She also assisted at several levels of Jean-Pierre Barral’s visceral manipulation classes through the Upledger Institute between 1996 and 2000. In 2001, she started teaching for Lowen Systems Dynamic Manual Interface and is presently the educational director for the company. She attends virtually all classes (assisting at most), has written the text for many of the manuals, and has developed some of the introductory classes. She is responsible for the content of the classes and assists with training the other teachers. She teaches all but the most advanced specialty classes in the U.S. and Europe and also runs practicum tutorials.

After relocating to New Mexico in 1992, Laurie incorporated both her occupational therapist and massage therapist backgrounds in her work with clients and became the practice manager at Desert Light Associates (later Center IMT Albuquerque), working with Frank Lowen, Sharon Weiselfish-Giammatteo, Tom Giammatteo, and other prominent therapists. In 2001, she and her husband Frank started and co-directed a private practice and training center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2008, she moved to Spokane to focus on developing Lowen Systems Inc. to expand classes and train more teachers in the U.S. and internationally, while working part time at a local PT practice. She is now expanding her clinical practice at Synergy Health Care.

Laurie specializes in upper extremity rehabilitation, complicated pain syndromes, chronic pain, postural imbalances, and functional rehabilitation. She believes that each person’s body is seeking a return to health and that the best results are achieved by listening to the subtle messages from the tissues and supporting these efforts while enhancing the process with interventions that are specific, gentle, and supportive. Laurie has spent most of her life involved in physical activity including running, rugby, bicycle riding and racing, and martial arts, and is particularly interested in encouraging clients to find a meaningful practice for wellness suited to their bodies and interests.

Laurie currently support Synergy Healthcare patients through iCare appointments only.

Kathryn Matsubuchi has been a practicing Occupational Therapist since 1996 and she provides holistic manual therapy and movement training for all ages. Manual therapy helps reduce overly heightened sympathetic nervous system “survival tone” throughout the whole body and includes Visceral Manipulation, Cranial Sacral Treatment, Lymphatic Drainage Treatment, MyoFascial Release including Strain-Counter-Strain, and Musculoskeletal Mobilization. Once the body is not so intent on survival, the parasympathetic, “restful” functions of the body can help improve resting, digesting, eliminating, and more typical hormone function. This helps restore the balance of the body’s systems, which in turn supports patients in their activities of daily living.

Kathryn’s visceral manipulation skills are a road map to identifying a client’s “layered restrictions.” Each visceral layer needs to allow for sliding and gliding motions. A restriction in any one visceral layer can have a far reaching effect on more distant areas of the body, interfering with healthy tissue and organ function. Visceral manipulation treatments help improve motion, glide, and health within any one layer, or between two adjacent layers of the body’s organs and their attachments. This improves parasympathetic function as well as lymphatic and vascular health.  Patients frequently comment on how gentle and calming their visceral manipulation treatments feel.

Kathryn also holds specialty training in Neuro Developmental Treatment (NDT), which helps her apply a biomechanical/movement integration approach to her treatments. NDT uses posture analysis and weight bearing activities to help normalize muscle tone, which results in effective movement strategies for activities of daily living. She incorporates traditional developmental OT approaches with sensory integration and pediatric NDT principles, while addressing a young patient’s uncertainties and anxieties that can occur when making changes in the body and nervous system.  
Kathryn’s versatility is matched by her dedication to providing individually tailored OT to help patients get back to living their lives and experience the joy of new-found motion. Kathryn truly enjoys making a positive difference in the quality of patients’ lives, one OT session at a time! 

Shauna Burchett is the owner of Synergy Healthcare in Spokane Valley, WA. She graduated from University of Alberta, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Department of Occupational Therapy in 1993. Shauna began her career as an occupational therapist specializing in traumatic head injuries. She has also worked in skilled nursing facilities specializing in long and short term geriatric rehabilitation. Shauna has been in private practice since 1998.

She loves Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation and Lymphatic Drainage. Shauna’s perspective on healing and recovery has been influenced by many osteopaths whose classes she has taken; but more importantly by the clients that have taught her through their injuries and illnesses.

“If you listen hard enough to a patient they will tell you what is wrong with them, but if you listen even harder they will tell you how to fix it,” is one of her favorite expressions. It is the framework on which she built the clinic. This is the perspective she tries to lead from, and from which she tries to live her life. “I think we don’t listen enough,” she says.

Shauna enjoys spending time with her husband, Robin, and three sons, Ethan, Parker and Sawyer. She also enjoys traveling, playing the piano, and studying yoga.