The Ways We Heal

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The story below is from our July/August 2022 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you! 

A look at five types of therapies on the rise today.

For more than two years, the field of healthcare has starred in an outsized role in all of our lives.

From public health announcements to PCR tests, from facing chronic pain to grieving deeply for our losses, the global pandemic we are still battling has captured an enormous amount of our mind, body, and heart.

As grateful as we are to modern medicine, the quest to stay healthy has prompted some to seek therapies they might not have considered a few years ago. As a culture, we are stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed.

We can sense we need something more than diagnostics and prescriptions to soothe us.

Where do we find it? Sometimes we go back to ancient traditions. Sometimes we look for guides to help us. Sometimes we don’t understand how a therapy helps. We just feel that it does.

In our hurt, we are seeking healers. We are hoping to find the practices that will help us emerge stronger than before — physically, mentally, emotionally.

“It’s so important to be able to reach back to understand our resiliency and power. What is that ancestral knowledge we need in order to move forward,” asks therapist and co-owner of Mosaic Counseling Services Dr. Deneen Logan Evans.

“Because we are at a time in our country when we must look back to see what kind of skills our ancestors used if we ever going to be able to get through it.”

Below, find a tour of the variety of therapies on the rise today. See if they speak to you. See if, when you try them, the healing comes.

Because we are all searching for solace.

“It can be life changing when you’re not in pain anymore,” says yoga instructor Erica Austin.

MOVEMENT

Yoga • Qoya • Pilates • Tai Chi • Qigong

“Yoga is considered a mind and body practice, a part of holistic wellness,” explains Erica Austin, founder and owner of Roanoke Yoga, who has been teaching yoga in settings such as rooftops, retirement communities, vineyards, and people’s homes for the past seven years. “It’s not about breaking the body into parts but looking at it as a whole — physically, mentally, emotionally, and for some, spiritually,” she says.

What Yoga, Qoya (dance-centered therapy), Pilates (low-impact, core-focused workout), Tai Chi (Chinese, martial arts-based) and other movement practices have in common is an emphasis on training the body to use techniques that relax, shift perspectives and reveal inner truths — techniques such as controlling breath, focusing concentration and meditating.

“Yoga is about 5,000 years old,” says Austin, who began taking classes on a quest to lose 100 pounds. She chose yoga as a form of exercise open to all body types. While she lost weight, what she discovered was much deeper. “Through yoga, you’re able to look at the root of the problems in your life. It gives you tools and strategies. You can start to notice the stress as it’s happening.”

Austin says she teaches her students as she leads them through poses. “We talk about the energy that’s created from positive thinking and setting intentions,” she says. “We ask: What emotions are we feeling? What are we going to do about that? We want to pick the ones that are going to best serve us and let go of the others.”

To Austin, yoga is a way for many people to improve the quality of their lives.

“I really consider yoga the original cognitive behavioral therapy,” she says. “When you practice, you’re really able to look inside yourself.”

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Talk Therapy • Social Justice Training • Support Groups

“We are trying to be able to walk with our clients through their pain and their trauma,” says Deneen Logan Evans, founder and co-owner of Mosaic Mental Wellness and Health, the only African-American owned counseling group practice in Southwest Virginia. “We want to be in that space with them so they can find healing.” 

With 2020’s social isolation, racial justice reckoning, and economic stress came a flood of people who had been getting by — if imperfectly — that suddenly realized they needed professional help to cope. The result was a steep rise in those searching for talk therapy and other mental health offerings. In response, clinicians added hours, sought out new types of training, created services. Mosaic opened in 2019 with the goal of having “clinicians who represent our clients,” says Evans. That has meant seeking out therapists of color, transgender therapists, clinicians who identify as disabled.

At Mosaic, Evans says, therapists often operate in nontraditional ways, accompanying clients into their lived spaces to advocate for them. Therapists have called for meetings with school officials, transgender students and their families to address inequities. They have accompanied clients into courtrooms and doctors offices to help ensure fair treatment in those places.

“I was able to pull together a team who I knew would make social justice paramount to how they practiced mental health,” Evans says.

For mental health treatment to be effective, Evans believes clinicians must understand the stories their clients are sharing with them. They have to have the background and perspective to know why an event might be triggering or why some people might face a barrier to care.

“If you don’t understand how people are struggling, you are failing your community,” she says.

THE ARTS

Painting • Drawing • Pottery • Dance • Poetry • Music

“There’s something about creativity that brings hope,” says Katherine Strickland, chief development officer at Carilion Clinic Foundation. “Perhaps that’s the power that the arts can bring to a healing experience.” 

In 2013, Carilion Clinic launched the Dr. Robert L.A. Keeley Healing Arts Program. Today that program includes a garden, a labyrinth, annual art shows, a Burden Boat ceremony, and three short-term artist residencies that allow writers, painters, musicians and performing artists to interact with patients and their families.

Artists visit patients in their hospital rooms with a lump of clay, for example, that can ease boredom and create space for conversation. A harpist or cellist might play a piece of music in a hallway that can be heard  throughout a hospital wing or floor, introducing beauty to a sterile environment. Printed poems are left in waiting rooms to speak to nervous families not sure of the news that awaits them.

“The premise of the program is that it supports the whole human experience of staff, patients and families,” Strickland explains.

She cites research that states that art in a hospital setting can reduce the need for pain medications, shorten recovery time, reduce anxiety and lower blood pressure and heart rate. More than 2,500 hospitals nationwide offer arts programming to support patients.

This summer, artist-in-residence Bryan Hancock is hosting monthly gatherings at Morningside Urban Farm, where participants are encouraged to reflect on their healing journey through creative writing, poetry, movement, or music.

“We’re always looking for cool new ways to provide arts to our patients and our employees,” Strickland says.

ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES

Acupuncture • Chiropractic • Massage • Herbal Medicine • Sensory Deprivation

“Acupuncture is a beautiful medicine from beginning to end,” says Katie Clifton, founder and owner of Queenpin Acupuncture in Roanoke’s Old Southwest neighborhood. “It truly treats the whole person. You may be here for back pain or digestive issues, but when you come in, we talk about everything that’s going on with you and then we craft a treatment.”

From acupuncture’s needles to the healing hands of massage and chiropractic therapists to herbal teas and tinctures to sensory deprivation tanks, there is a growing awareness of the value of certain therapies to complement Western medicine.

“At Queenpin, what we want to do is support the current healthcare system,” explains Clifton. “Doctors make regular referrals to us.”

Acupuncture works by inserting hair-thin needles into some of 2,000 points within the body.

“Each point has a very distinct purpose, yet they all work together,” Clifton says. “Kind of like a string of Christmas lights. If one light is out, the whole strand won’t light up.”

Acupuncture has shown to be particularly effective with chronic pain. Clifton says she is seeing some long-haul COVID patients now, because their symptoms can be disparate and hard to treat. Acupuncture’s more holistic approach can be helpful. “These patients want all their issues treated at the same time,” Clifton says.

Clifton has recently begun monthly Wellness Rodeos where providers come together to bring a variety of health care services to underserved communities.

“It’s consistent care,” she says. “Once a month you know you’re going to be treated with respect and get great care.”

ENERGY THERAPIES

Reiki • Therapeutic Touch • Magnetic Healing

“A lot of it starts with stress. If you can reduce stress, you can reduce a lot of the issues going on.”

Jen Marie Cliff, a Reiki Master Teacher and Shaman practitioner, worked as a nurse but became disillusioned, practicing within a system set to respond to brokenness rather than one built to create wellness, she says. She was introduced to Reiki through a massage session and was immediately attracted to the calmness she felt.

Reiki, Therapeutic touch and other energy therapies work to harness a universal life force. The energy flows through the practitioner’s hands into the patient’s body.

“A lot of people are more logic-based. That blocks them from understanding the other side of healing, the other side of being well. When I provide these services, it opens them up to possibilities,” Cliff explains.

Four years ago Cliff launched JMC Healing and Wellness Academy, a one-stop shop for holistic practices including Reiki, Shamanism and guided meditation.

She sees her role as that of a mirror to reflect back to her clients their uniqueness and inner power.

“I provide answers channeled from spirit, help them understand their self-worth, connect with their own supernatural powers of intuition,” she says.I

The story above is from our July/August 2022. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!