Q&A with Dr. Pamela Zoller, owner and practitioner at Zollergy™. Prospective clients often have questions about this practice. We try to address the essentials.
Q. How is your practice, Reorganization Healing (ROH), different from conventional chiropractic therapy?
A. The primary difference is that conventional chiropractic therapy seeks to reduce subluxations (vertebral misalignments) in the spine, with the expectation that it will improve nerve flow. With ROH we seek to let your body release tension and stress, with the expectation that your body will decide when to release the subluxation and improve nerve flow and overall function.
Q. So is the practice more directly focused on nerves or muscles?
A. It’s more focused on your body globally to create strategies to release tension and stress focally. The idea is that the body created the subluxations as a way to deal with stress and tension. When the body releases a sufficient amount of stress, it will make global changes and improvements in function.
Q. Does part of what you’re doing involve retraining clients’ minds?
A. We’re helping to destabilize the over-engaged stress physiology response, and the brain is involved in that but not necessarily the conscious mind. It’s taking stress out of the system and then the brain can make the unconscious/subconscious decision that the body doesn’t need to operate in the same way because the stress is gone. This destabilization of the system stuck in stress allows for a reorganization to a higher level of function and energy.
Q. What are clients’ main reasons for seeking your care?
A. One of the main reasons is that people feel they can’t access their spiritual self, they feel unclear about their life. The second most common thing is seeking relief from physical and emotional pain.
Q. Is this life coaching?
A. No — life coaching is mind-centered, very cognitive. This is body-energy centered.
Q. The light physical palpations (touches) involved with ROH — how did they accomplish anything?
A. The idea behind it is that, thru this touch we are not seeking to fix or manipulate anything but to draw the body’s attention to the stored stress to reconnect with that energy, destabilize the holding pattern and reorganize to a higher function. The touch is more like holding a mirror up to the energetic state so that the brain/innate wisdom of the body breaks the rigidity then softens allowing a new more fluid pattern to evolve.
Q. If I’m a client, will you adjust my neck or spine?
A. Not often. In this work we do use an impulse, at times, but it’s done very differently than traditional chiropractic, where a practitioner is looking for the joint that is most stuck, or subluxated, and interfering with flow, and then manipulating that area to make it let go. In this work, we find almost the opposite of that point in the body that is open and flowing. So if the stuck place is between C2 and C3, say, the middle of the neck, on the right, we would likely find the opening on the left between C2 and C3 or between C3 and C4 and create an impulse there but the need to do this is very rare.
It can sound like a traditional chiropractic adjustment but it is very gentle. The premise is that we work with areas of the body that are receptive. We rarely go directly to a place that is aggravated.
Q. What happens during one of your client sessions?
A. Clients come in and lie down on a chiropractic table. An average session is 12-20 minutes. It could be shorter than that or longer, and it’s dictated by how your body is responding. This work is very different than going to a therapist and saying, “We’re going to talk about “X” today. Instead, we’re looking at a body-centered check list or flowchart. We are asking your body, by palpating and feeling your body’s response: What’s OK to work on today? If your body gets to the end of the list, it’s done. That could happen quickly or take 20 minutes.
Q. How many sessions do clients typically need to experience pain relief?
A. Because we’re working to affect the body globally, it varies widely among people. A lot of times people have some relief the first day but a lot of times people feel other positive changes happening in their life or body before they feel relief of the pain that is their chief concern.
We usually recommend an initial course of therapy of 6-10 weeks, with sessions twice a week. At the end of that time we usually meet again to talk about what clients want. The majority of clients decide to continue with this practice at some level for many years, because they adopt it as part of their lives, like yoga or exercise or meditation. Some come once a month, or once every other month, and some come twice a week for years to keep them centered and growing.
When UC-Irvine did its broad study of this work over the course of the three-year retrospective study, they found no leveling-off of quality of life benefits; people continue to experience an upward trajectory. And our personal practice has borne that out. http://www.networkwellnesscenters.com/media/1497-0041_retrospe.pdf
Q. What does a session cost?
A. An initial assessment is $95-$195 (infant, teen and adult prices differ for this). A regular session is $63.
Q. Does health insurance cover this?
A. If your health insurance covers chiropractic office visits, it may. ROH falls under the scope of chiropractic. You may pay with your HSA.
Q. Do ROH practitioners have to be licensed by the state?
A. By virtue of being chiropractors, yes, licensed by the chiropractic board of any state. And the Association for Reorganizational Healing Practice (formerly the Association for Network Care) certifies practitioners at three levels. We are certified on all three.
Q. Is ROH for everyone? Will some people not respond to this?
A. If a person wants to go to a practitioner who will “fix” them, ROH probably will not be what they want. ROH is a collaboration, and the client has to actively want to improve his life and heal. The healing doesn’t just happen during the time that the client is on the table.
