About Diana Powers, PT

For the Person Who Has Run Out of Explanations That Actually Explain

Maybe you found me searching for a physical therapist. Maybe you were looking for craniosacral therapy on the Central Coast and were not entirely sure what you were looking for, only that something needed to change.

Either way, you are here, and I want you to know something before you read another word: I am not going to tell you the imaging looks fine and send you home with a printout. I have been doing this work for more than twenty years. I know what it looks like when a body is trying to say something that does not show up on a scan.

Who I Am

I am Dianna Powers, a licensed physical therapist in Cayucos, California, and I have spent more than two decades with my hands on people, learning what bodies say when no one is rushing them.

I started in outpatient orthopedics in 2001, training in manual therapy at a time when the field was already moving toward protocols and machines. I learned early that the best thing a clinician can do is pay attention, not just to the structure, but to the person inside it.

In 2007 I moved to the Central Coast and spent the next stretch of my career in home health, walking into kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms converted into recovery spaces. I treated people after falls, people who could no longer get themselves to the bathroom, people whose worlds had narrowed to a few rooms. That work taught me something an outpatient clinic never could: that pain is never only mechanical. A body carries what a life has carried. And the fastest route to healing is often not force, but attention. I have held that understanding in every session since.

My Training and Credentials

I am a licensed physical therapist in the state of California License #25949

I have been in active clinical practice since 2001. My background includes outpatient orthopedics, manual therapy, and extensive home health experience with older adults navigating complex recovery.

In 2023 I completed Craniosacral Therapy Level 1 through the Upledger Institute, one of the most respected training organizations in the field. In 2025 I completed Craniosacral Therapy Level 2, also through the Upledger Institute.

These trainings changed how I practice. I can now find a pain pattern, follow it to where it actually lives in the body, and help the body repattern it, gently, without fighting it.

I also hold Reiki training, which has deepened my ability to be present and steady in the room. I want to be clear about what that means and what it does not mean.

I am a licensed clinician with real hands and real clinical judgment. The Reiki work made me a better listener. It did not replace anything. It added to it.

Licenses and Certifications at a Glance:

• Licensed Physical Therapist, State of California, active since 2001

• Craniosacral Therapy Level 1, Upledger Institute, 2023

• Craniosacral Therapy Level 2, Upledger Institute, 2025

• Reiki Training, completed

• Extensive postgraduate training in manual therapy and orthopedic physical therapy

What Makes This Practice Different

Most physical therapy is built around a problem to be fixed. You come in with a diagnosis, you get a protocol, you do the exercises, and if you are lucky, it works.

If you are not lucky, you get discharged anyway and told to keep doing the exercises at home. That model works for some things.

It does not work for the person who has done everything right and still wakes up bracing. It does not work for the person whose pain started when something hard happened in her life, and who already knows, somewhere in her body, that those two things are connected. I built this practice for that person.

I bring the full clinical range: gait assessment, manual therapy, movement prescription, hands-on orthopedic work. And I bring craniosacral therapy, which listens to the body at a level that most clinical models do not reach. The two approaches do not contradict each other. They work together because a body is not divided into the structural parts and the other parts. It is one system, and it deserves to be treated that way.

Many clients who come to me have already tried conventional physical therapy. Some have seen multiple providers. Some have been told their imaging looks fine. Some have a diagnosis that accounts for some of what they feel and not all of it. They arrive here cautious, sometimes exhausted by the process of trying to get help. What they find is that someone is actually listening. Not managing. Not redirecting. Listening, with trained hands and two decades of pattern recognition behind them.

Who I Work With. I work with women at midlife who sense their body is carrying more than the diagnosis accounts for. I work with people in chronic pain who have been through the conventional system and found it insufficient. I work with older adults who are determined to stay mobile, strong, and fully present in their lives, and who refuse to accept that decline is the inevitable plan. I also work with people who are navigating significant transitions: loss, caregiving, recovery, the kind of life events that live in the body long after the event itself has passed. If you have been through something hard and your body has not been the same since, that connection is real, and it can be worked with. You do not have to frame it a certain way to come see me. You do not have to have the right vocabulary or the right referral. You can come in with a hip that hurts and a feeling that something more is going on, and we will start there.

Who I Work With

I work with women at midlife who sense their body is carrying more than the diagnosis accounts for. I work with people in chronic pain who have been through the conventional system and found it insufficient. I work with older adults who are determined to stay mobile, strong, and fully present in their lives, and who refuse to accept that decline is the inevitable plan. I also work with people who are navigating significant transitions: loss, caregiving, recovery, the kind of life events that live in the body long after the event itself has passed.

If you have been through something hard and your body has not been the same since, that connection is real, and it can be worked with. You do not have to frame it a certain way to come see me. You do not have to have the right vocabulary or the right referral. You can come in with a hip that hurts and a feeling that something more is going on, and we will start there.

A Little More About Me

I was born in 1960, and I am the least sedentary person in most rooms. I ran my first Spartan race in my fifties. I completed a sixteen-mile Ragnar trail relay a few years later. After that, ,I got certified in scuba. Then, I took up AcroYoga. And by the way I LOVE AcroYoga!

I am a mother of two and a grandmother of three. I tell you this not to impress you but because I think it matters that the person asking you to trust your body with her actually lives in hers. I am not standing at a remove from the conversation about what it means to stay strong and capable and alive as you age. I am in it.

I also have an enormous laugh and a redheaded Standard Poodle named Lucy, and I have a genuine silliness that tends to disarm people right before my hands settle them into a stillness most of them have not felt in years.

Clients often tell me they did not expect to feel so calm so quickly. They also sometimes say things on the table they have not said out loud before, because something about the work creates that kind of safety. That is not an accident. That is what twenty-plus years of paying attention looks like.

Ready to Find Out What Your Body Is Actually Saying?

If any part of this page felt like recognition, trust that. It means something. You can click here to schedule a session. One conversation is enough to know if this is the right fit. I work out of Cayucos, California, serving the Central Coast, including Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo, and the surrounding communities. Your body has been waiting. It does not have to keep waiting.