A free educational resource for people recovering from stroke. Research-grounded, quietly delivered, and built around what the evidence actually says about how the brain relearns movement.
I am Jeremy. I hold a Masters of Social Sciences majoring in Psychology from Waikato University, New Zealand. My graduate research — conducted at Deakin University in Melbourne under Professor Robert Cummins — examined what helps people not merely survive serious disability, but flourish. I also hold a Diploma of Solution-Oriented Hypnosis.
Over two decades of work in rehabilitation, imagery, and wellbeing, the question I keep returning to is this: what is the mind's role in recovery? Not in any mystical sense, but in the precise neurological sense. The brain is plastic. Mental practice activates real motor networks. These are not beliefs — they are findings, replicated across hundreds of studies.
This site brings together the research on guided imagery and stroke rehabilitation, and a free programme built from that evidence. Nothing here is a substitute for clinical care. What it offers is a complement — a practice you can carry into the spaces between therapy sessions, into the morning before you rise, and into the quiet before sleep.
Each practice follows the same three-phase structure — Ideal Being, Anatomical Pathway, Breath and Light — adapted to a specific target area. You can begin with whichever practice is most relevant to you.
When you vividly imagine a movement, your brain activates many of the same neural circuits it uses to actually perform that movement. This is not metaphor — it is measurable on fMRI. And it has implications for rehabilitation that are only beginning to be understood.
The adult brain is not fixed. After stroke, the cortex reorganises — nearby areas take over functions of damaged tissue. Mental practice drives and accelerates this reorganisation.
Imagining movement activates the supplementary motor area, premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex — the same network engaged in physical movement. Repeated activation strengthens synaptic connections.
"Mental practice added to physical practice improves arm and hand function after stroke more than physical practice alone."
Braun et al. (2006) · Systematic Review · Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationIf you or someone you love has recently had a stroke, you don't need to take in everything on this site today.
Reach out directly →Nothing on this site is a treatment, a cure, or a substitute for rehabilitation medicine. The guided imagery programme is a self-directed practice complement, offered freely on the basis of published motor imagery research. The three-phase integration used in these practices — while drawing on peer-reviewed science — has not been clinically tested in this exact form. Some people will find it helpful. Others will not. That is the honest position.
If you are currently under the care of a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, or speech-language pathologist, these practices are designed to work alongside that care — not to replace it. You may wish to share them with your therapist.