Creative Healing had humble beginnings.

Joseph B. Stephenson was born in northern England in 1898 and at an early age knew one of his goals in life was to keep people from dying too soon.

Joseph was an intuitive healer.  He knew without knowing how or why his hands moved as they did.  He only knew to trust his hands and the inner voice that told him if someone needed help.  He felt in his heart his gift of healing came from God and never doubted what God told him as he knew it would be true.  This unerring confidence in his work as it developed would be one of the strongest attributes of his ability and he felt this was the CREATIVE principle.

Stephenson was a coal miner by trade.  Joseph's father and several other relatives were also coal miners. In the village of Wylam on Tyne where his family lived there were several coal mines.  When Joseph was small in stature but he went to the mines as well and became an accomplished engineer.  Later he became a pit boss with men under his guidance.  He left England when the mines were playing out in his birthland and immigrated to the United States with his wife in the early 1920s.  He was employed by the Berwin mining company in Windber, Pennsylvania.  In a freak mining accident, one of his legs was crushed and he was taken to the nearby Windber Hospital where he would spend 2 1/2 years waiting for the orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Wheeling to replace his femur.

After living in Pennsylvania for many years and after using his method on many people both in and out of a local hospital, he retired to Long Beach, California.

It was in California where he began to teach his work and this is where 'Creative Healing' was really born.

Much of Stephenson's work was recorded and documented by a small group of people so it could be distributed worldwide.  John and Patricia Bradley edited the original books which are still available on Amazon.com today.  If you are curious about the history of Mr Stephenson you can access the page here.

Rebecca A. Jackson and her husband Bill became students of Creative Healing in 1986.  She had a couple of different instructors including John and Louise Hunt.   She fell in love with the work and became a Master of Creative Healing. Becky later knowing she wanted to teach Creative Healing to massage therapists went to school to learn massage.  A native Texan, Becky moved to  Arkansas and opened her massage school in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1996.

• Brenda (Messling) Schwarzbach graduated from Becky's school (The Northwest Arkansas School of Massage) in 1999 and she became a Stephenson practitioner in 2000.
• In 2004 Brenda and Becky traveled to London, England, and taught a class for Dr. Gowri Motha Obgyn and her team of practitioners and midwives.  Today, Black Brook School of Massage LLC is the only massage school in the United States that teaches Stephenson's work.
• Since 2004 Dr. Motha and Brenda have been friends and have been dreaming of a Creative Healing/ Gentle Birth Method school or facility.  Brenda has been teaching continuing education classes for massage therapists in Creative Healing since 2002 and has had the certification class for Creative Healing including the applications specifically for the Gentle Birth Method approved by the National Certification Board of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork since 2016.
• In 2017 Brenda opened the Black Brook School of Massage in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and has included Creative Healing in her general massage program for all students.
• 2021 sees the first year the full 100-hour certification program in Creative Healing has been offered since 2016.  Two graduates of this class are planning to study with Dr. Motha when she has classes this fall.

"I am so grateful for my friendship with Gowri and her support in my work". (Brenda)