Maxi Miciak

Maxi Miciak PT, PhD (cand.) is completing her doctoral studies in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Maxi’s research interests are therapeutic relationships and environments in health care, with a particular focus on physical therapy. Her doctoral research aims to identify the key components of the therapeutic relationship in physical therapy and translate these components into a practical framework for clinicians and educators. Her research interests developed as a clinician working in private practice and on interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams supporting people with chronic physical conditions and psychological dysregulation. She is a Certified Practitioner in the body-centered psychotherapy method, Hakomi, and has additional training in the sensorimotor processing of trauma and traumatic stress.

Finding Freud in Physiotherapy-Part 3

Reconsidering Boundaries Moves Us Forward (Read Part 1 & Part 2 here) Are physiotherapists doing psychotherapy? Applying Frank and Frank’s descriptions, I say yes, physiotherapy treatment can be psychotherapeutic. In my view, psychotherapy is not solely contingent upon the treatment of psychological diagnoses; rather, it is a form of therapy that addresses the psychological factors of a person’s experience. Of […]

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Finding Freud in Physiotherapy-Part 2

Contextual Theory –An Unexpected Ally Although physiotherapy supports models that acknowledge psychological elements of rehabilitation, it may be surprising that support also comes from psychiatry. American psychiatrists Jerome and Julia Frank broadened the definition of psychotherapy by arguing that it is the healing relationship between a healing agent (therapist) and a sufferer (patient).1 The sufferer, wanting to alleviate disability,

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