Precision Healing P-DTR (Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex) | Aline Wachsmuth

What if pain, tension, and dysfunction aren't simply problems in the tissues—but responses being organized by the nervous system?

In this episode, I sit down with Aline Wachsmuth, a longtime Rolfer, movement practitioner, and student of the body-mind, to explore P-DTR (Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex)—a highly precise, neurological approach to understanding how the nervous system processes information and responds to the body.

Aline's fascination with the body began through dance. While earning her BFA in Dance from Florida State University, she experienced Rolfing Structural Integration and became fascinated by the subtle patterns of tension that could influence movement, awareness, and physical possibility. After moving to San Francisco to dance professionally, that curiosity eventually led her to massage therapy and the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration.

After 15 years of practicing Rolfing, however, Aline continued searching for additional ways to work with the people who came through her door. She began studying craniosacral therapy and eventually discovered Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex, a form of functional neurology developed by Dr. José Palomar.

P-DTR offered another entry point: the nervous system.

Rather than relying solely on where someone feels pain or dysfunction, P-DTR uses specific testing to investigate how the nervous system is receiving and responding to sensory information. For Aline, it opened the door to a remarkably precise way of assessing patterns and informing treatment.

Together, we explore the relationship between the brain, nervous system, sensory input, movement, and the body's compensatory patterns—and what can happen when practitioners begin looking beyond the location of a symptom.

In this episode, we explore:

• What P-DTR (Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex) is
• The principles behind this approach to functional neurology
• How the nervous system interprets information from the body
• Why the location of pain may not tell the entire story
• Proprioception and the body's internal awareness of movement and position
• How neurological testing can help identify patterns of dysfunction
• The relationship between sensory input and muscular responses
• Rolfing Structural Integration and Aline's 15 years of practice
• How dance shaped her understanding of movement and the body
• Craniosacral therapy as another way of working with the nervous system
• Moving from structural approaches toward neurological investigation
• The value of precision when assessing complex physical patterns
• How different modalities can offer complementary perspectives on the body
• Developing a deeper relationship with the intelligence of the body-mind

About Aline Wachsmuth

Aline Wachsmuth has spent her life exploring movement, embodiment, and the mystery of the body-mind.

Beginning as a dancer, she earned her BFA in Dance from Florida State University before moving to San Francisco to dance professionally. Her own experience with Rolfing Structural Integration introduced her to the ways tension patterns could influence movement and ultimately inspired a new direction in her work.

Aline became a licensed massage therapist and trained at the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration. She has now practiced Rolfing for 15 years while continuing to expand her understanding through modalities including craniosacral therapy and P-DTR.

Her curiosity extends beyond her professional practice into Pilates, Gyrotonics, and ceramics. She lives with her husband, daughter, two cats, and dog in the San Geronimo Valley north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Connect & Learn More

Aline Wachsmuth / True Balance Rolfing:
www.truebalancerolfing.com

P-DTR USA:
https://www.pdtrusa.com/

Dr. Ida Rolf Institute:
https://rolf.org/

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Rooted and Wild. Healing doesn't always require force. Sometimes it requires precision. In this episode, I'm back with Aline Waxmith to explore a powerful and lesser-known approach to nervous system healing called proprioceptive deep tendon reflex or PDTR. After years of hands-on structural work, Aline began asking a deeper question: What if tension patterns aren't just mechanical? What if they're neurological? That curiosity led her beyond structure and into the nervous system itself. Two years ago, she was introduced to a form of functional neurology developed by Jose Palomar, which uses data-driven testing to identify and reset faulty reflexes within the nervous system. In this conversation, we unpack how PDTR works, why precision matters, and how incredibly specific inputs can create profound changes in pain, movement, and regulation. Aline, welcome back to Rooted and Wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Hi, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Of course. So in our previous episode that we had had you on a few weeks ago, you you spoke about rule thing. We dove into that. But this is a this is something I have not heard of until I met you. This proprioceptive deep tendon reflex. Did I say that right, even?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yes, you got it. It's a tongue twister.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yay, I like tongue twisters. It's fun. Um so I mean, I in the description I said it briefly, but what is PDTR?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

It is a form of functional neurology that uses muscle testing to assess and reassess where there's a dysfunction in the body. So every muscle has two jobs. It should contract, engage. Yeah. Like a light switch, it should turn on, and it should also turn off or inhibit. A lot of people use the word lengthen, and actually it doesn't do that. You want it to just turn off, turn on, and turn off, just like a light switch. And so we're testing muscles throughout the body to see where we have a weakness where the light switch doesn't turn on, or B, the light switch is left on and doesn't turn off. And that is called hypertonicity, which essentially translates to too much tone because the muscle is always engaged even when you're asleep.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

That makes sense. So the muscle is always engaged even when we're asleep. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

The nervous system is in protective mode around some injury, right? If there's instability in the body, it's going to send tension to stabilize from other places. And so those muscles will do the job of things that are not working.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Interesting. When you think about manual therapies like roofing or massage, how is PDTR different and how is it complementary?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So PDTR is essentially addressing the software of the body, where rofing is addressing more of the hardware. I've been using this analogy, or I've I heard it recently, and I'd like to pass it along. If a car alarm is going off, rolfing, other forms of massage are essentially like putting a blanket on top of the car. So if there's a car alarm going off and you put a blanket on top of it, or you put earplugs in, you're just dealing with the symptom. You're not actually addressing the root cause, which is looking under the hood. Why is the alarm going off? That's what this nervous system work is doing is you're looking under the hood to see why are these muscles weak or why are they always turned on and activated.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

You know, I know that you started to question after years of like structural work uh that the nervous system needed to be addressed more directly. What was it that caused you to question it? And what essentially led you to work with um PDTR?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Clients would keep coming back with the same issues over and over. And I felt bad taking their money. Every week I would do session after session after session, some clients over 10 years, and they would keep coming back and the tissues would be tight again. And I kept thinking, why? Why doesn't it just stick? Why doesn't it hold? I want these clients to feel the freedom and the potential and the possibility that I know they are capable of. So I was getting curious about, well, what is the cause of this? And so I started to research different forms of nervous system work, one of which was biodynamic craniosacral therapy, which I love and appreciate, but it just wasn't as specific as I was craving. I wanted the data, I wanted real measurable evidence before and after a session. And that's what's so beautiful about this work is that both the client and I are on the same page about what's not working and then what's working after the session. So we have a clear before and after that just it's so satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Now you have described uh earlier that PDTR is a data-based and highly precise approach. What does precision mean in this context?

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Great question. So the precision, it's a very clear step-by-step protocol that we follow. So it starts with the muscle testing, but then we determine there are two different receptor types, one of which is called a mechanoreceptor, and one of which is called a nosoceptor. A nosoceptor is a pain pathway specifically. Mechanoreceptors are more related to Golgi organs. Uh, it's the tension pathways of the muscles, ligaments, and the fascia. So we assess which type of receptor is the main cause of an underlying weakness. So, say we find a weak bicep. Now we apply either a rubbing to see if it's a mechanoreceptor or pressure to see if it's a pain receptor. Then we go through a whole Rolodex of different receptor types depending on which category is making the change. And so we find exactly which receptor type it is, the stimulus, and we find the primary and the secondary receptors that are feeding into this particular dysfunction. And I like to think in fractals. So if a dysfunction, imagine the dysfunction is set up as a fractal. If I find one branch of the fractal, then we are able to climb the fractal to find the very top. What is the thing that's driving the whole pattern? And we treat the top and we challenge it to make sure that it's really gone. And then we retest the muscle and we see is this the weak muscle, the weak bicep, strong? Can we challenge it with that stimulus again and see if the results have stuck? Essentially, the receptor type is caused by a stimulus, a noxious stimulus from a past trauma, event, injury. And the body stores that stimulus in the nervous system, in the receptor. And it holds almost like a wind-up car, it holds this reflexive hypersensitivity to that stimulus as a way to protect you from that happening again. It's a reflexive response. That's an important point that I want to make today because that's the level that we're working on. It's subconscious, it's the nervous system. So when you touch a hot pot or a hot stove, the natural, normal response is to pull away, to withdraw from that heat. That is a pain receptor stimulus. The heat is the stimulus. The reflexive changes are such that all the muscles in your body activate to help you pull your hand away from that stimulus. That's the stuff we're working with. And so it's the same for if you fall and you land on your right hip. We look at the stimulus. It's an impact force to the joints. How can we reset the nervous system by applying that stimulus and then striking a deep tendon reflex? So the reflex is the piece that helps the brain reset that particular stimulus so that the sensitivity level returns back to normal, so that you have an appropriate response to that stimulus. So if I have poison oak and I'm itching, itching, itching, itching, itching, itching, itching, itching, my body becomes hypersensitized to that itchiness. It stays there. And our body has a way to remember that. And in PDTR, we essentially stimulate that itch receptor, strike the reflex, and then the body doesn't hold on to the memory of that itchiness. It doesn't affect our muscles in the same way. Itch is an interesting pain receptor type because it's the opposite of the withdrawal response. It's actually approach because if you have a spider walking on you, you bring the limb towards you so that you can move the bug, the spider, off of your body. So it's the opposite of withdrawal. It's called no susceptive approach reflex. It's another reflexive response in the body.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And they're all different movement pathways, movement uh responses. Yeah, different muscles will respond to pull away versus to move toward.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

No, I've heard of muscle testing and I've had muscle testing performed before, and then Theta Healing, they taught me muscle testing. But what does muscle testing look like in your work? And is it always reliable? Um, and do you need imaging or other types of things as well?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

So we do very specific muscle testing. We have to make sure that it's a meeting of client and practitioner. If the client starts ahead of the practitioner or the practitioner starts ahead of the client, it's not that equal matching of the pressure, right? And then also speed and intensity matters. I always use the phrase, meet me here, because it's like uh, you know, the trust fall exercise where you have to lean into each other's backs. And if one person pushes more than the other, it the distribution of weight gets out of balance, right? And so I want to really find that happy place, that harmony with the clients so that we're matching each other exactly. And if I add a little bit of pressure, a little bit more resistance or load into their system, if they can maintain that and keep that equilibrium, then I know that muscle is strong and engaged and able to meet me. If it can't, then I know there's weakness there. And we go through all the muscles of the body. That's the beauty of this work, is we can get so specific into the tibialis posterior and the sartorius and the gracillus and all the different muscles. And we gather that data. And then our job, and this is the fun part for me as a practitioner, is to find the global tension pattern. Like what's happening here and what could be causing this particular pattern. Is it an organ, the adrenals? Is it uh an ankle ligament? And then I look at their whole health history and I try to put together the clues of what's happened in their past and how it's manifesting in these particular muscle tests. Okay, I had a client who was in a car accident when he was a young boy with his mother, and he hurt his right arm. And so all the muscles on the right side of his body were affected by that injury. So in the muscle testing, totally open mind, neutral perspective, the abductors on the right side were weak. The abductors on the left were normal, the abductors on the right arm were weak, abductors on the left arm were normal, neck muscles, all of this. It just showed as what's called the thalamic response, where it's all one side of the body. And so then I put pressure on the scars on his arm. He has visible scars, and the weak muscles strengthened immediately. And it's just so satisfying to be able to pinpoint exactly on the body one location where the receptor lives that is going to make a huge global change in this person's function in the way that they're able to feel empowered, right? Where there's weakness, then all of a sudden they can turn that light switch back on. How amazing to be able to give somebody that capacity.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Absolutely. No, that's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Uh, from a nervous system perspective, why can pain or dysfunction persist even after the structure looks like correct? You know, because I know like there's like I know that's true because we have like these ghost pains sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah. No, it's a great question because it's not only in the body, there's also pathways that are lateral pathways. It can be sound, visual, uh, memory, and then also just this simple stress response, spinohypophalamic response. So there are all these different pathways that can get triggered really easily. So even just thinking about uh, for instance, my shoulder dislocation, just thinking about that injury oftentimes would cause the pain to come back or the weakness to come back. I would have a physiological response to the activation of that memory pathway. And that's what PTSD is, right? So, or it can be sound, you know. If if a client has had a car accident where they've been rear-ended, most likely if you snap right behind their head, all the muscles will reflexively change because of that particular historical event in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Oh, incredible. No, that's it's so true. Amazing. This this topic is like fascinating because it's like, you know, I I am currently, this is maybe a little bit transparent for the podcast, but I'll just say it anyway. Uh, going through some stuff with um PTSD. Okay. And I didn't realize I had it until recently when my body all of a sudden would be triggered by an experience, and I start shaking uncontrollably and can't control my body, but it's triggered by almost I realized the pattern over the last few years. Every time a certain thing happens, it brings me back to a childhood. My body remembers how it felt in that moment, and I start start shaking. And and so now I'm trying to get to the root of healing the PTSD. So I find it fascinating from the nervous system standpoint and the PDTR that the body has that kind of physiological response to memory, even.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Absolutely. And it can be even more stimulated the more frequently we've had similar types of events happen in our past. So it's almost like we have a file of all of our past injuries and pain in general, you know, our pain file or our grief file or our file of anger, all these different places that we collect memories. And the more full the file gets, the more hypersensitized we become to that particular thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

People who've had a lot of pain are gonna be even more sensitized to pain.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

That makes sense. So as you're working with clients, what what does the approach how does it how does the approach start? And how long and how often do you do PDTR with your clients and how quickly will they see results or field results?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

So I typically work with clients once a week. Uh sessions can range anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. And typically I tell people if they don't feel results after three to five sessions, uh, it might not be the right approach for them, or I'll refer them out to another practitioner. I want people to get results fast. My goal is to get my clients back to 100%. That's my goal. And if I'm not getting those results, I have a whole network of practitioners that have more experience than I do, and I'll just refer them out to people with more experience.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Makes sense. Uh, what kind of issues does PDTR um especially work well for?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Anything.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Gary go.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Uh I mean, literally anything. It's burns, uh breaks, poison oak, rashes, any organ dysfunction, emotional stuff. I mean, literally, that's the beauty of it, is that it can even be chemical, you know, physical, mental, chemical. It's that applied kinesiology, trifecta, the triangle triad of health, I think it's called. Uh, and that's the beauty of this work, is it really does, it's universal, and there's a way in. There's an entry point with everyone. And following the threads with each particular client is going to look completely different from one person to another. And that's what's so fun for me as a practitioner, is it's unique to each person and their stories and their experiences. Where sometimes the tissue work, especially with Rolfing, it's a recipe. That's what they call it when they teach it to you. It's a 10 series recipe that you apply on all your clients. And of course, you adapt it based on the person. But this work feels more fascinating and engaging to me as an individual. My mind enjoys the puzzle part of it.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

That's fascinating. Uh, you know, that approach of integration, right? The PDTR, and then you do you also have the role thing, which is more movement-based uh and fascia, you know, how do you find that they they merge and converge? How is that balance?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I love starting with the nervous system work so that we can get all the muscles responding appropriately. And when there's a weak muscle that turns on, I try to give the client some time to really integrate what that feels like. And I tell them to take the power back in this area, feel the connection, fire those connections, those pathways. It's almost like an electrical circuit that's coming back online and to have the awareness as it's happening, to come into that part of the body, bring the awareness in, color it in, and to then bring that out into the world as they're moving. You know, I'll give them some homework exercises for how to continue to activate that area and feel that powerful connection that's capable there.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

So amazing. Well, for those listening, if you'd like to learn more about PDTR, rofing, and the work that Aline does, you can find her at TrueBalancerolfing.com. Roalfing is both R-O-L-F-I-N-G. So TrueBalancerolfing.com. Aline, you've been a wealth of information. Again, I say this in many episodes with my guests on the podcast. It was like we're just touching the tip of the iceberg. But I love your passion. And I can totally see like how you really are excited about PDTR specifically. Really cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Thank you so much. And it's really such an honor to be able to share this paradigm shift with the world. And so I'm really grateful for the opportunity to talk about this work, to tell people about it. I encourage people to find their nearest practitioner, check out this work, spread the word. We need more people to learn about this way of thinking about body work, to treat the root cause, the weakness, the instability, not only look at the symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

So good. So good. So there you go, everyone. Eileen Walksmith, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

And for all those who are with us until next time.