Dr. Patterson has been studying holistic
medicine for 20 years and in practice for the last 11 years. She incorporates many different healing techniques into her practice. Here
is a list of the techniques that she offers her patients.
Clinical
NutritionClinical
nutrition is an important foundation of healing in Dr. Patterson's
practice. Nutritional deficiencies are addressed by considering "food
as medicine", as well as employing pharmaceutical grade
supplements to provide balance and optimal health. Dr. Patterson
believes that each person’s constitution is unique; therefore, she
assists patients in discovering their own, extraordinary nutrition
plan. Last by not least, she specializes in helping patients find
their comfortable body weight: patients rediscover and implement a
healthy relationship to food, without the need for dieting. Dr. Patterson has been was an instructor of nutrition for over 5 years and loves sharing this modality with patients.
Botanical
MedicineDr.
Patterson works in close relationship to the plant world, helping to
support and nurture the body of each patient. Medicinal plants are safe and
effective; they support the body's healing process in a multitude of powerful ways. Dr. Patterson will often create custom-formulated herbal tinctures for patients, as needed. Dr. Patterson has also taught herbal medicine and has a deep love and respect for the healing power of plants.
Homeopathy
Homeopathy
is a safe treatment option for acute and chronic illness. Homeopathy
helps the body initiate the healing process by utilizing a "like
cures like" approach; naturopathic doctors work to find
characteristics symptoms specific to each patient in order to find a
correct remedy. Dr. Patterson uses both acute and constitutional homeopathic prescribing to help each patient find balance in their body and their life force.
Flower
EssencesFlower
essences are used to help treat emotional disturbances that affect
the patient. These essences soothe and calm the emotional body, while
transforming and healing whatever emotional issue(s) the patient is
working with.
Bio-Identical
Hormones
There
are times when one’s illness needs extra support beyond what herbs
and supplements can give. At these times bio-identical hormones
might be recommended. These are hormones that are identical to the bodies own hormones, and primarily come from plant
sources but have been made more readily available through laboratory
means. Depending on one’s condition Dr. Patterson will always try
to keep the time a patient is on the hormones to a minimum according
to the needs of the body.
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy
promotes deep healing by transforming subconscious memories that are
inhibiting the patient from achieving wellness. Often, these issues
affect not only the patient's emotional state, but also influence the
person’s physical health. Dr. Patterson incorporates three
different styles of hypnotherapy in her practice. The
hypnotherapeutic modalities that she practices are as follows:
Classical
Ericksonian Hypnotherapy: in this form of
hypnotherapy the patient is put into a trance-like state and are
given specific affirmation-like phrases to help induce change at the
subconscious level.
Holographic
Memory Resolution: In this form of hypnotherapy the
patient is taken back to a traumatic memory and shifts the energy of
the memory in order to hold it in a less constricted way in their
subconscious.
Body
Mapping: This hypnotherapeutic style taps into the
“body-memory” of the physical body to help give understanding of where and how
it is holding emotional memories in a somatic way.
Lifestyle,
Mind-Body, and Spiritual Counseling
Lifestyle
Counseling:An important part of the therapeutic
relationship are discussions about how the patient can change their
behaviors in order to bring more vitality and health into their
lives. With compassion, Dr. Patterson addresses what is holding patients back from achieving wellness and helps them to overcome the
challenges that arise as they incorporate healthy behaviors into
their lives.
Mind-Body
Counseling:
Dr. Patterson believes that listening to
her patients is an essential part of being a good doctor. Thus, she takes the time to listen and reflect back to her patients the crucial information they discover on
their healing journey. As she does this patients have a broader awareness of the deeper shifts that are happening in their life and how they want to move forward in their next steps of healing.
Voice
Dialogue:
Voice
dialogue is a counseling modality by
which
one identifies an inner part of themselves that is limiting (i.e. an
inner belief or voice) and dis-identifies from it so that they may
have more internal freedom inside of themselves. In this process the
limiting voice is first identified and then a dialogue with that
“voice” occurs so that the patient has a clearer experience of
the nuance, tone, emotion and energy of that specific “voice”.
With the help of guided facilitation the patient will then move into
adult consciousness. From the perspective of adult consciousness one
can get a clearer differentiation of the limiting voice and
understand how to dis-identify with it the next time it comes to the
surface. In essence it helps establish a practice of dis-identifying
limiting beliefs and patterns so that one can choose their true self
over the limiting thought forms.
Spiritual
Counseling:
Dr. Patterson maintains that healing is a
transformative journey, with the capability of changing a person’s
life to the very core. For those patients who perceive their healing
journey in this deep and profound way, Dr. Patterson is ready and
willing to hold them in the journey of deep spiritual transformation of realizing that "we are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but truly spiritual beings having a physical experience."
Energy
MedicineEssentially,
energy medicine seeks to clear and heal the more subtle aspects of a
person's being. This is done by aligning the person's energy with
their physical body, promoting integrated healing. Several different
styles of energy medicine (Such as reiki, polarity, chakra healing,
past-life healing, etc.) are incorporated which all work to bring balance and healing to the patient.
Medical
Intuition
As
stated in the FAQ, medical intuition is fundamental to Dr. Patterson's
practice, as it often reveals: the causes of a patient’s illness,
guidance and clarification about how to support the patient
appropriately, as well as the modality and specific treatment that
should be recommended to the patient.
Therapeutic
Medical and Intuitive Massage
Dr.
Patterson will occasionally incorporate therapeutic massage for
patients that have a specific physical or energetic issue that would
be more effectively addressed by this method. Dr. Patterson was a
certified massage therapist and massage instructor before she became
a naturopathic doctor and this modality can easily be incorporated
as needed.
Yoga
Therapy
Dr.
Patterson has also been a certified yoga instructor, and thus she can
recommend certain yoga poses, or “asanas”, as needed. These
asanas can help stretch, strengthen, and align the physical body,
while concurrently increasing one's life force, or “prana”, to
restore health.
Meditation
and MindfulnessDr.
Patterson teaches specific types of meditations and visualization to
patients to help increase vitality, decrease stress and anxiety, and
to quiet the mind. There are many different types of
meditations/visualizations that Dr. Patterson incorporates such as
grounding, chakra awareness, mindfulness, somatic meditation, etc.
Each is suited specifically for the needs of the patient.
How
do you incorporate so many different modalities?
As
you can see, Dr. Patterson has a wide array of modalities to choose
from in her medicine bag. Of course, each modality is not used on
every patient, every time; rather, each technique is used when
appropriate for the individual patient. The following describes how
Dr. Patterson determines individualized treatment plans for patients.
In
her practice, Dr. Patterson is constantly searching for the cause of
each patient's illness. What she normally finds are “percentages”
of why an illness is present.
For
example, let's take a theoretical patient with diabetes. The cause
of their illness is due to the following reasons: 50% diet, 30% past
emotional trauma, 10% stress/anxiety, 10% genetics. Therefore, the
treatment would begin by looking at and working with the diet and
related supplementation first. The focus would then move into healing the
emotional trauma by using hypnotherapy, voice dialogue, flower
essences, and possibly energy work. Lastly the therapy would decrease
stress and anxiety through: lifestyle counseling, incorporating
meditation, and nutritional and herbal supplementation to help calm
anxiety. In other words, the patient's treatment plan goes in order
of the largest causative factors of their illness to the smallest
percentage.
Thus healing is like peeling one layer of an onion at a time, slowly but surely coming to healing on the deepest layer...physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
