How to choose a practitioner

   Licensing: All acupuncturists in the State of Massachusetts are required to have an acupuncture

   license.  The exception to this regulation is for medical doctors.  They can practice acupuncture 

   without license or training.  All Physical Therapists are licensed in MA.

 

   Experience: There are benefits to choosing someone right out of school and for choosing someone 

   with experience.  Someone right out of school is fresh with information and energy.  

   Someone with experience can let you know directly if they have worked with your health concern   successfully or if they can tell from their experience if working with you could have a successful outcome.

 

Style: There are many styles of acupuncture.  Chinese, Japanese, Korean hand, and Five Element are most common.  Each has 

it’s own characteristics including: information requirements for diagnosis, how needles are used or not used, and the length 

of time needles are left in. How the practitioner understands their style and makes use of it, varies widely.  It is like painting.  

A number of artists can be given all they need to paint, and asked to paint the same image.   When you look at the completed 

work, it differs significantly from one artist to another.

I was trained primarily within the systems of Chinese and Japanese acupuncture and incorporate aspects of Korean Hand acupuncture and Five Element.  This has led to an eclectic style with 20 years of experience.  

I approach my work as a partnership.  I believe each person has great wisdom and knowledge about themselves even if it is not 

on a conscious level.  My job is to listen carefully, invoke participation, suggest methods, attend to feedback, utilize my skills, techniques and teachings, and support a person on their healing journey.  My highest goal is to help people experience the power 

of the healing they are capable of.  People experience their progress not in a linear way.  

Changes can happen quickly with a sense of delight and they can happen after small steps have been taken, with a sense of accomplishment.  Some of both usually occur. Physical Therapists also work differently.  My preference is to work with manual therapy techniques, exercises, and education.  I also make orthotics.

Why choose Heather to work with?

Choose to work with me if you want to experience an eclectic style within the premise that  participation is necessary, and a 

sense that healing is a process.

 

Do not choose me if your best match is to see someone who will fix you by doing something to you to make you better.  There 

are other practitioners who work that way and will better suite you.

 

Fees are on a sliding scale

 

  

Evaluation:   

                        Adults - 170$ to 200$  sliding scale and it will take 1 1/2 hours of your time

                        Children - 60$ to 85$ sliding scale and it will take 1 hour of your time

  

Sessions:    

                        Adults -    Each session is 1 1/2 hours of your time

                                           85$ to 110$ sliding scale  for a standard session

                                           100$ to 125$ When I am in the room for one solid hour

                                           170 $ to 200$ when I am in the room for a solid 1 1/2 hours

                        Children - Each session lasts up to 1/2 hour

                                            40$  to 60$ sliding scale

 

These are my fees.  I am most interested in working with those who are well matched.   If you come for the evaluation and for 

a first treatment and it is clear we would work well together, and the only thing stopping you from continuing, is your 

financial status, we can talk about what fees would work for you. 

 Healing Journey 

Healing can be seen as a change in ones symptoms or condition.  The human system 

has a natural tendency toward healing.  As an example, if you were to cut your finger 

when chopping vegetables, you would expect any bleeding to stop, and eventually the   skin to close. Expectations of a natural healing process also exist with the emotional 

and spiritual aspects of our being.  When our expectations are not met, when we feel  something is not quite right, when we are in pain, a healing intervention can be helpful. 

The discussion of healing has existed in every culture and human experience.  Plato, considered to be one of the fathers of western medicine, has a famous quote warning of the mistake when one allows a separation 

of the soul from the physical body as one contemplates healing.  In Chinese medicine, there is an understanding of three levels of healing. This concept dates back to one of Chinese medicines' oldest herbal texts and has been adopted by acupuncturists. 

The first level is to clear the physical symptoms of excess. Excess being something brought into the human system.  Examples include isolated acute pain from a fall, onset of a cold or flu, or a urinary tract infection. 

The second level involves supplementing and supporting aspects of the human system.  There is a balance of energetic levels, organ dynamics, emotions, stressors, or aspects of lifestyle to address in order for healing to take place. Examples of this would be whiplash from a car accident where the person is experiencing aspects of the trauma in their daily life in addition to the pain, chronic bladder infections, heartburn, re-injuring of problems, irritable bowel syndrome, or issues with infertility. 

The third level is to support the connection of ones spirituality in relation to physical symptoms, lifestyle, and path of living.  At this level, it is important to bring awareness to the innate knowing which we all process of how we are acting in our lives, and how these actions are affecting our health and fulfillment of our destiny.  Examples of this would include, low back pain which is evident while working in a stressful job which disappears when there is a job change.  Allergies, that disappear when a new relationship is formed. Depression which lessons when there is enough healing to go deeply into the self and find resolution in a chaotic relationship. Overlaid in any of these examples, is a felt sense of ones' own unique spiritual connection in life.  This connection differs widely in people.  Shamanism which has existed in every culture, sees energetic forces clearly as an important aspect in bringing about a state of change.  These forces vary from a relative who has died to an emotional dynamic we hold within ourselves which attracts energy from others. 

Shamanism which has existed in every culture, sees energetic forces clearly as an important aspect in bringing about a state of change.  These forces vary from a relative who has died to an emotional dynamic we hold within ourselves which attracts energy from others. 

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