About Catherine

Catherine Taye Slattery

Certified Rolfer® and Rolf Movement Practitioner

Somatic Experiencing Practitioner

About Catherine

I’m a Rolfer with over 25 years of experience working successfully with pain, tension, stress, and trauma as they live in the body. My work is patient, attuned, and collaborative, guided by careful listening and respect for each person’s pace and capacity for change. I offer Rolfing bodywork, somatic trauma support, or an integrated approach, depending on what feels most appropriate and supportive.

Clients often describe my work as satisfying, calming, and deeply supportive of lasting change. They enjoy their sessions and look forward to being on my table. 

Over the years, I’ve developed particular expertise in:

• nuanced, effective soft-tissue work that mobilizes long-held tension
• working with how different parts of the body relate and organize as patterns
• supporting nervous system regulation when the body is stuck in habitual tension or shutdown

My background and approach

I first came to Rolfing over 30 years ago for the same reason many of my clients do: I didn’t feel good in my body. I lived with headaches, TMJ tension, knee, and back pain. Yoga had increased my awareness, yet all I found was more tension. I longed for ease, flexibility, and relief.

A series of Rolfing sessions helped resolve my physical pain and, unexpectedly, made me a much better dancer. Even more importantly, it initiated a fundamental shift in my relationship with my body. Before Rolfing, I consistently—though unknowingly—ignored and overrode my body’s needs. Rolfing became the beginning of a true, responsive relationship with my body.

Years later, an overlapping series of traumatic medical events overwhelmed my nervous system and left me living in chronic dysregulation. While my existing tools helped me cope, it wasn’t until I began receiving regular Somatic Experiencing sessions that my nervous system began to truly repair.

Because of this, I’m deeply grateful to offer both Rolfing and Somatic Experiencing. They are powerful on their own, and often even more effective together.

Movement and Influences

Movement has always been central to my life and my work. I’m especially interested in how movement supports the structural integrity of the body and the lived experience of being a person. Modern dance is my passion, alongside studies in ballet, hula, and classical Indian dance. I’m newly learning (and loving!) Gaga Movement Language.

Other influences include Vipassana meditation, Iyengar, Ashtanga and Sofia Diaz yoga, 5Rhythms, Azul Conscious Movement, animal movement, developmental movement, and attachment+horsemanship with Duey Freeman.

Training

I hold a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and life sciences from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. I trained at the Rolf Institute (in Colorado and Brazil), graduating as a Certified Rolfer and Rolf Movement Practitioner in 2001, and completed Somatic Experiencing  training in 2024.