Anasuya Batliner teaches several classes at the Acupressure Institute: Nutrition for Pain & Depression, Women’s Health, and Acupressure for Menopause. She completed the Institute’s Basic Training, in 1995, a specialization in Traditional Asian Therapy in 1996, and graduated from the 850-hour Acupressure Therapy Program in 1999. As a firm believer in continuing education, Anasuya became a certified Nutrition Consultant and also studied advanced CranioSacral Therapy. She has maintained a private practice in Berkeley since 1996 and twice a month offers therapeutic bodywork at the Cerebral Palsy Center in Oakland.

     Her acupressure training helps guide her nutrition consulting as she uses tongue and pulse assessments to determine each client’s individual eating plan. She believes that as health practitioners, “We need to recognize when a client is sabotaging their healing process by poor eating and make simple, healthy recommendations.”

Career Success Strategies
     Anasuya found marketing classes valuable for improving her business skills. She has worked with professional business coaches to get the support she needs to build her practice. She also hires a bookkeeper to keep her records in order.

     Anasuya started her healing practice with a chair massage business called ‘Office Shiatsu’ in San Francisco’s financial district. She contacted property managers of high rises to offer her service for their tenants. She told them, “It will cost you nothing, just the space to work and put up fliers.” Anasuya found that by giving away five minute samplers of acupressure in the lobby people wanted to sign up for longer sessions. Almost a decade later some of these same office workers are still her loyal clients now coming to her Berkeley office.

     Advertising and health fairs did not generate many clients for her; however, networking with other health practitioners was fruitful. She found a yearlong job at a doctor’s office this way, where she worked on ten people a day. Today many of her clients are referrals from doctors, chiropractors, and other healthcare workers.

     In Anasuya’s private practice, she sees twelve to twenty-two clients a week, charging $65 for forty minutes, $90 for one hour and $125 for an hour and a half. She uses Tui Na, Jin Shin, and Shiatsu, and integrates the knowledge of points and meridians with CranioSacral Therapy. Anasuya’s practice focuses on women’s health and chronic pain. Her own clinical research at a holistic nutrition school found that improving dietary habits reduced chronic pain and so she often incorporates nutrition counseling with her clients. This research also formed the basis for her class, Nutrition for Pain and Depression.

Meaningful Work
     One of her clients, a postal worker, suffered from chronic fatigue for ten years. He had been on disability and unable to do his artwork. Simple nutritional suggestions reduced his pain significantly. Following up with acupressure and more nutrition counseling, Anasuya saw gradual improvements, and after several months he went back to work, his creativity in art expanded, and he started a romantic relationship for the first time in a decade. He stands out to her because she realized “This actually works and makes a difference!”

     “I am very happy,” Anasuya says “to offer skills that are beneficial to other people, and to do something good in the world.” She especially enjoys the meditative quality of the work. “The care I give in the therapeutic relationship with clients is returned through their appreciation; it’s a very respectful, gratifying relationship.”

     “The body holds an incredible spiritual energy that thrives on being balanced and healthy. Acupressure, bodywork, and nutrition are ways to meet the challenges of human life, so we can shine forth and share more of our best qualities.”