PORTLAND, OREGON-BASED MASSAGE THERAPY, BODYWORK, AND CHINESE MEDICINE
Personalized, collaborative care that follows your body’s lead
How does your body experience itself?
That’s what we’re here to discover and care for.
Each of us lives inside an intricate, mundane, and magical vessel known as the body.
It manages thousands of processes you've never had to think about, registers your patterns, stores your experiences, and adapts to how you move through the world.
It also speaks up—in infinitely varied ways—that can be mysterious or painful. But with the time, space, and skillful curiosity to attend to what it has to say, change is possible.
This is creative, collaborative, and combinatory bodywork.
Here, treatment isn’t quite “massage.”
At the Moving Mountain clinic, you're getting something different from what you'll find at a spa or classic massage practice. Instead of an off-the-menu offering like “deep tissue” or “Swedish,” this style of bodywork is expansive, creative, and customized.
It involves skilled touch that works with your entire system—not just muscles, but the fascia that connects everything, the craniosacral rhythm that moves through your body, and even the way your physical body systems and your nervous system interact together. After all, bodies don't organize pain and tension in neat, isolated packages. They create patterns that weave through multiple systems, and effective bodywork needs to follow those connections wherever they lead.
During a session, all the familiar elements are there—table, touch, dedicated time—but rather than a standard massage sequence, you get bodywork that adapts to your experience in the world and what your nervous system needs.
The MMI Approach to Bodywork
I believe that skillful care bridges the gap between scientific knowledge and embodied experience.
Conventional medicine has given us valuable maps, but those maps are still incomplete—to rely on them alone is like trying to understand a river system from satellite photos without ever feeling the current. Bodies are trying to tell us things all the time, speaking through tension, pain, breath, and a thousand subtle signals most people aren't trained to hear.
That’s why I draw from different modalities like craniosacral therapy, myofascial release, integrated visceral techniques, acupuncture, and Chinese herbal medicine to more fully address the complexity of being human. This approach to care is oriented to and actually works with the whole person—your physical body, your nervous system, your history, your patterns, your unique way of being in the world.
Here, we’ll hold clinical expertise in one hand and skillful curiosity in the other, creating containers of care where shifts can happen at the body’s own pace. That way, your treatment is grounded in rigorous knowledge of anatomy and physiology, as well as perspectives that honor the less tangible aspects of how bodies hold and express themselves.
What To Expect
Core Principles of Care
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Connection
As your provider, I am always interested in you, your lived experiences, and what’s important to you about your care and health. Our work together flows from trust and belief in your experience of your body. Whatever information you might have gathered from tests or specialists is fair game, and yet we both know that’s not the full story, either. Your history, your lived experiences, your identity, your emotions, your sense of what might be going on… that’s all relevant here, too.
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Collaboration
Instead of looking for a diagnosis or a plan to “fix” you, we embrace curiosity. Through slow, respectful, nervous system-aware touch, we gather information your tissues offer up: tension patterns, subtle shifts, responses that don’t show up on scans. Bodywork is more of a gradual unfolding, an ongoing conversation within an intentional container, than a swift transformation. Real change happens at its own pace. When we try to rush, we override the body's natural intelligence. But when we slow down, we create space for genuine shifts to occur.
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Check-In & Adapt
You bring your own embodied wisdom into the room, and we treat that like the resource it is. You’ll often hear me ask, “What’s most important for us to work on today?” We focus on what you’re noticing, what you’re hoping for, and what feels possible today. This is collaborative work that’s about listening, adapting, and looking for meaningful shifts with you, not doing something to you.
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Genuine Care
I can’t promise “healing” or full resolution to whatever you’re experiencing. That’s just not true to many people’s reality. Bodies are changed by their experiences. But what I can offer is care that meets you where you are and helps your body find new ways of being with what it’s carrying. Together, we look for shifts that matter to you, and make our way down a path towards what “better” might look like.
Massage Therapy, Bodywork, and Chinese Medicine in MMI’s Portland, OR Clinic
Appointments
First visit: $215
Follow-up sessions: $185
Sessions are a full 60-minute hour
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Digestive complaints including IBS and SIBO
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD)
Long COVID or COVID recovery
TBI/post-concussion care
Chronic or complex pain
Fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/ myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)
Nervous system and trauma support
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Craniosacral therapy
Myofascial release
Integrated visceral techniques
Acupuncture
Chinese herbal medicine
Facilitated stretching
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1215 SE 8th Avenue, Suite B1 Portland, OR 97214
To get started, please reach out via the New Patient Request Form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
Who This Is For
This approach to bodywork is particularly well-suited to people who are…
Experiencing Chronic Pain or Complex Conditions
Including Ehlers-Danlos and hypermobility syndromes, digestive disorders, long COVID, nervous system overwhelm, and more
Treating chronic pain and complex conditions benefits from a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach, and bodywork plays a real role in that.
Western medicine can often dismiss you if your labs look “normal,” or hand you a diagnosis without offering meaningful treatment. And at the same time, alternative care can sometimes overreach with stories that don’t feel true to your experience either. Here, we don’t take sides—we take what’s useful. If it helps you understand your body and feel more resourced, we’ll work with it!
When hands-on bodywork comes from someone trained in nervous system dynamics, who can also help you understand imaging or prep for a specialist visit, it stops being adjunctive and starts being essential. This kind of care helps bridge the gaps between systems and gives you a chance to be heard in a different way.
Exploring Their Mind-Body Connection
When you sense your body knows things your mind hasn't figured out yet
Bodywork can open up so much insight into how your body is experiencing itself. When you can make sense of what you’re feeling, even just a little, it changes the relationship you have with your body. You’re better able to make sense of your physical and emotional sensations.
Plus, we all deserve the knowledge, empowerment, and agency that comes from understanding our own anatomy and experiences within our bodies. These aren't specialized medical facts—we have a fundamental right to understand these elemental aspects of existence that are with us throughout our lives.
Who You’ll See
I’m Michael McMahon, LAc, LMT (he/him)
My path into bodywork began where many of my patients start—with my own health challenges. Anxiety in my twenties led me to therapy, which led to bodywork, which essentially changed my life. That personal experience of being truly heard and cared for shaped how I approach every person who comes through my door.
After 25 years of practice, what patients tell me they appreciate most is my genuine curiosity about their experience. I love bringing both clinical expertise and skilled presence to the treatment room, offering care that honors both scientific understanding and the wisdom your body carries.
It’s an honor to partner with you in your care!
Make an Appointment
Massage Therapy + Bodywork in our Portland, Oregon Clinic
New Patients
To become a patient at the clinic, please complete the New Patient Request Form and my office will be in touch with you as soon as possible. We’re glad to become a part of your care!
Existing Patients
You’re able to schedule a treatment in our online patient portal. If you have not received an email to set up your account, please contact Alicia: alicia@movingmountaininstitute.com.
What Are You Curious About?
Frequently Asked Questions
Billing and Scheduling
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Insurance has (unfortunately! absurdly!) turned healthcare into a system where both practitioners and patients have to spend more time fighting with companies than offering/receiving care, so that’s one reason why we don’t take insurance. We can absolutely provide you with all the necessary paperwork for reimbursement if your plan covers out-of-network providers, however.
On the plus side, not taking insurance means you get care that's actually designed around what your body needs, not what insurance companies are willing to pay for. I can offer the full range of my skills—bodywork, acupuncture, herbs, whatever combination makes sense for your situation—without having to fit our work into predetermined categories or time limits. This means you get more creative, combinatory, comprehensive care.
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A session costs $215 for the first visit and $185 for follow-up sessions, and payment is due in full at the time of your appointment.
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To become a patient at the clinic, please complete the New Patient Request Form and my office will be in touch with you as soon as possible.
If you’re a return patient, you can book an appointment online in your Patient Portal.
What to Expect
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Thank you for trusting MMI with your care! We keep new patient clinic appointments open on a rolling basis but because we have one clinician (that’s me, Michael), our overall capacity is limited. Once you submit the New Patient Request Form, sometimes we’ll need to book your first appointment a few months out. Once you’ve been seen for your first appointment, though, we typically have availability for once or twice monthly appointments moving forward. Thanks for your patience and understanding—I’m looking forward to working with you.
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Your first appointment begins with me wanting to truly understand what brings you in for care—not just the diagnosis or symptoms, but how you experience what's happening and how it impacts your daily life. I trust that you know a lot about what's going on with you, and I'll ask plenty of questions to get that understanding out in the room.
Then I'll share my understanding of your situation and explain how I think we should start treatment, including what I'm curious to explore. I'll be honest about what we'll likely discover together through the work itself—because bodies often teach us things that intake forms can't capture.
I approach new patient visits with the understanding that we're strangers just getting to know each other. I won't ask you to reveal your entire life story in one session—if something is important, we have time to explore it as our relationship develops. You should never feel pressured to share anything that makes you uncomfortable.
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Sessions are a full 60 minutes. It’s important to me that you never feel rushed, so I don’t book sessions immediately back-to-back.
Most patients typically schedule an appointment once or twice a month, but the frequency is completely up to you. We can talk about this!
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A lot of the work we’ll do is best done on skin (especially myofascial release), so dressing down to your comfort level is preferred. Most folks will undress down to their underwear, while others bring shorts/ a sports bra/ etc. You get to decide what you’re comfortable with.
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I blend several modalities in my practice: craniosacral therapy, myofascial release, integrated visceral techniques, acupuncture, and Chinese herbs. What makes my care distinctive is that I don't treat these as separate, isolated approaches—I can blend them fluidly based on what your body reveals it needs.
This collaborative approach means your care is constantly evolving. What works best for you may change over time as your body responds and shifts, and we can adapt our course of treatment accordingly.
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Our clinic is located at 1215 SE 8th Avenue, Suite B1, in Portland, Oregon (corner of SE 8th Avenue and SE Salmon Street). We are the first business on the right, inside the building.
PARKING: There is one parking spot dedicated to our clinic. If it's occupied, you can park in other unmarked spots. Please don’t park in spots labeled for other businesses.
PUBLIC TRANSIT: The clinic is within 2-4 blocks walking distance of 4 major bus routes (#14 Hawthorne, #15 Belmont, #6 MLK, and #Milwaukee).
BICYCLE: If traveling by bike, you can lock up outside or bring your bike into the clinic. There’s plenty of room!
Health Considerations
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I often treat patients who are experiencing:
Digestive complaints including IBS and SIBO
Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD)
Long COVID or COVID recovery
TBI/post-concussion care
Chronic or complex pain
Nervous system overwhelm
Fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/ myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)
While I enjoy supporting these patients, experiencing pain or another health issue isn’t a prerequisite! I also regularly work with patients who use bodywork as a way to support their physical, emotional, and mental health. Therapeutic touch can help you process your experiences, connect with your feelings, support your senses, and more. If that sounds like you, you’re also more than welcome here!
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My approach to bodywork is particularly well-suited for people with complex conditions that reveal gaps in conventional healthcare—things like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, post-COVID symptoms, traumatic brain injuries, and chronic pain conditions that don't fit neatly into standard diagnostic categories. Because we work with the whole system rather than isolated symptoms, this care often fills gaps that other treatments leave unaddressed.
Bodywork absolutely can work alongside other treatments you're receiving, and I'm very collaborative in making sure our care complements your overall health plan. I can help you make sense of information from different specialists, translate between various treatment approaches, and coordinate with your healthcare team when appropriate.
In many cases, this work becomes more than just "adjunctive"—patients often find that bodywork helps their other treatments work better. For example, addressing fascial restrictions might improve how your body responds to physical therapy, or working with nervous system regulation might enhance the effectiveness of medication.
If you're unsure whether this approach fits with your specific condition or current treatments, I encourage you to check with your doctor. During our consultation, we can also discuss how bodywork might integrate with what you're already doing and where it might be most helpful.
Every person and every condition is different, which is why I always start with understanding your unique situation and what you hope to gain from care. The beauty of this approach is that it can adapt to work with whatever else you're doing to support your health.
Have Another Question?
Please reach out! Get in touch and I’ll be happy to answer.