Professional Impact – Teresa Bozikis

In her orofacial work, involving articulators, breathing and feeding habits, Teresa examines the entire oral and nasal cavity space inclusive of areas in and around the mouth and neck. From picky eaters and infant feeding struggles to speech disorders and airway concerns, her work is extensive and interconnected. With the school-age children that make up the largest segment of her clients, she would see the sleep lost from mouth breathing and airway issues manifest as dysregulation and behavioral issues in the classroom. For her picky eaters, she’d see sensory challenges emerge. For her thumb suckers, she found they had trouble finding calm and regulation.

“I think about how many kids might remain in therapy their whole life, because we’re just treating symptoms and not the root cause,” Teresa shares, pointing to her mission. “The whole philosophy behind my practice is getting to that root issue. I collaborate so much in what I do because I’m one piece of the puzzle. Some of these kids need a team approach.”

As a private practitioner, Teresa understands well that her work is hardly in isolation. She joined a quarterly study group where professionals from dentists and doctors to PTs, OTs and chiropractors discuss orofacial concerns. The topic of tongue ties, she points out, touches the work of several of her peers to be comprehensively addressed. One of her peers invited Elizabeth to a meeting to introduce the work behind Thrive and the concept of RMTi as a supportive modality. For Teresa, another piece of that puzzle clicked into place.

“Knowing what I know about the nervous system, I was like ‘wow’, this is a huge missing piece we need to address,” she shares of considering reflexes more deeply. “Once I could calm the nervous system, in a sense, the therapy was so much more effective.”

Teresa followed up with Elizabeth to learn more, eagerly taking part in one of Thrive’s workshops and applying that knowledge with her own infant’s challenges. She started to implement what she had learned from the workshop in her work as well. Teresa offers her clients the choice for a ‘movement break’ guided by specific RMTi selections. The results were profound.

In one case, a young client struggled with sensory, feeding and textural issues. He’d feel sick at the sight of something as common as a runny nose. Upon selecting an RMTi exercise with Teresa, he embraced the passive movement for several minutes, continuously asking for more. Over and over, she saw clients seem to crave the exercises. Drawing from the collaborative insights of her study group, Teresa embraced the modality as a welcome and necessary compliment to her work.

“It was never taking away from our therapy session. If anything, it was enhancing it,” she says. “I have no problem spending time doing these movements with clients because then they’re then in a place where they can be productive and respond to therapy.”