Medway and Millis January 2018

Page 8 Medway & Millis Local Town Pages www.localtownpages.com January 2018
Treat the symptom, or treat the person?
At The Balanced Path Wellness
Center in Medway, clients
can expect an approach that
not only identifies root causes of
their issues, but that goes beyond
Western medical approaches to
examine and improve their overall
function and well-being. Cynthia
Meeske, LICSW, CRMT
and Paul Gerst L.Ac. Acupuncturist
& Natural Health Practitioner
have combined their unique
experience and techniques to effectively
address mind, body and
spirit.
Paul Gerst L.Ac. is a licensed
Acupuncturist and Natural
Health Practitioner practicing
for over 20 years. With his skill
in the use of Neuro-Tapping
and AK Techniques: Neurolink,
NET (Neuro-Emotional Technique)
and Nutrition Response
Testing, he’s helped many people
overcome difficult-to-treat,
chronic health issues. A Certified
Professional Mediator and certified
Meditation Trainer, Paul
has taught classes to the general
public and other practitioners for
over 10 years. A published author
and speaker, Gerst has been
featured on radio shows, medical
conferences and has produced
his own cable television show,
“Health, Naturally.”
Cindy Meeske has practiced
in the mental health field for 18
years and has seven years’ experience
as a Reiki practitioner.
Cindy’s eclectic approach with
clients of all ages combines Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy with
mindfulness, meditation techniques
and energy work.
“There is a place for each type
of modality depending on what
people need,” says Meeske.
The Balanced Path Wellness
Center is the realization
of Meeske’s vision of bringing
different modalities together.
Meeske’s and Gerst’s different
tools and experience offer clients
a new depth of options.
“We can refer to each other,”
she says. “Someone might come
to me for therapy issues, but
maybe Paul can help them with
something I can’t. We can come
at it from different angles, and
they can benefit from that.”
“It’s a round table approach
to health care,” says Paul, “and
there’s a comfort in knowing the
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person you’re referring to and
how they work.”
Gerst explains that the Western
approach to medicine tends
to look at the mechanical, while
he looks at function. “When the
function is interrupted, or diminished,
a number of the things on
the outside of the body can happen.”
The way to get to the root
of a problem, he says, is to understand
all the causes of a disease
and the signs they manifest
in the body and in the spirit.
Getting to know their clients is
how both practitioners work best.
“We’re both adept at reading
people,” says Gerst. His own assessment
might look at “posture,
color of skin, expressions of the
face, the tongue, body shape,”
while Meeske’s considers psychological
manifestations of problems.
“People come in with real layered
issues, and my paperwork is
asking for all of their medical diagnoses,
their complaints, fettering
out all our different systems
in the body,” says Gerst. Often,
he says, a patient will note that
his treatment has resolved an
issue they didn’t even mention.
“A patient will say, ‘my allergies
are better, what did you do?’
And I’ll say, ‘why didn’t you tell
me you had allergies?’ That further
validates what we do, the
idea that you’re not treating a
disease, you’re treating a person,”
says Gerst, who offers both
individual as well as more cost-effective
group sessions. “A Patient-
Centered vs. a Disease-Centered
approach,” he says, “is going to
help (people with chronic health
issues) far more than going on
medications.”
Meeske turned to energy
medicine when she became disenchanted
with trends she saw
in mental health medicine. She
didn’t believe in diagnosing and
medicating patients too soon.
Reiki resonated with her, because
“I was always a believer that our
energy fields hold the physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual.
Say we have an emotional issue,
and as a result, there’s a physical
ailment that goes with it. We
need to treat the body as a whole
energy to (treat it). (Energy) connects
all things,” she says. Meeske
uses a “hands-above” approach
to Reiki for the comfort of her
clients who may not want to be
touched.
Gerst, too, found that his career
path veered from traditional
western medicine. “The more I
learned about western medicine,
the less I wanted to be a part
of it,” he says. “Although, there
are some things they can do
that nobody else can do, such as
emergency, surgical and genetic
medicine, they treat chronic disease
poorly.”
Gerst finds a reward in helping
patients resolve issues. “If you
can identify what they’re doing
that they shouldn’t be doing, and
what they’re not doing that they
should, it’s amazing how many
times the body will heal itself,
when people were told by western
medical doctors they’d have
to live with it the rest of their
lives.”
Meeske finds a similar satisfaction
in her work, creating a
rapport and safe space to facilitate
her clients on their journeys
toward healthy relationships, fulfilling
lives after depression, and
dissipation of symptoms of such
issues as PTSD. “I can see that
progression, and that’s rewarding,”
she says.
The Balanced Path Wellness
Center is located at 89 Main
Street, in Medway. You can
reach them at (774) 283-2726 or
find them online at www.yourbalancedpath.com
and on Facebook
at www.facebook.com/metrowesthealth/.
For psychotherapy,
Cindy Meeske takes many insurance
plans. Referrals can be
faxed to (774) 233-0037.