Discover the fascinating journey of Jeannie Herman, a licensed professional counselor and energy healing practitioner, as she shares her experiences with holistic health, Lyme Literate Psychotherapy, energy medicine techniques, and her unique approach to counseling sessions through her practice, Ashland Holistic Counseling. Only on MysticMag!
Who is Jeannie Herman? Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?
I’ll start by saying that my interest in holistic health began at a very young age. I was always studying nutritional and herbal remedies and finding ways to help my family, friends, and loved ones when they were ailing. I went to an alternative school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, starting at the age of 12. That’s when I moved away from my family, as well. I was a young punk rocker in the early 90s and had all sorts of adventurous life experiences.
When I was in my late teens, I was referred to a shamanic healer. She did extractions and soul retrieval, and that experience was really profound and healing for me. I continued to work with her apprentice, who did Reiki for me regularly. It made such a difference for me as far as my mental health and dealing with past trauma.
I recognized that I needed to heal myself, my inner child, have healthy boundaries and treat myself like I was precious. That’s when I deepened my journey into working with the human energy field and spirituality. Gaining the skills and the knowledge and seeing myself grow and heal made me want to use these tools to help others. In my early twenties, I rode freight trains and hitch-hiked around the U.S. performing original music that I wrote and sang. I spent lots of time in nature, hiking, and connecting with plant life.
After a number of years of healing, having fun, playing music, and spending time in nature and with friends, I decided to move to the West Coast. I went to college via numerous scholarships and graduated at the top of my class. I received my Bachelor’s in Psychology and my Masters in Mental Health Counseling. From there, I became a licensed professional counselor and created a successful business called Ashland Holistic Counseling.
What is Lyme Literate Psychotherapy?
Lyme disease is a very serious illness when it’s chronic and can cause various health issues, neurological problems, mental health problems, complete disability, and sometimes even death. However, this disease is overlooked by the medical system. Recently, since COVID has come to the forefront, the medical system started paying more attention to chronic Lyme since there are many overlapping characteristics with Long Covid. Now, they’re investigating a bit more into Lyme and taking it more seriously. Prior to that, people with Lyme disease were often dismissed and sent to psychiatrists for their “psychological problems”. This was gaslighting and really unfair to people with Lyme.
Through my own journey with chronic Lyme, I learned a lot and went from being unable to walk and having all sorts of other problems to living a completely normal and wonderful life. That is until I got long COVID, which was a couple of years ago, and now I’m back to having health problems which I am addressing with herbs, supplements, PEMF device, and energy healing.
When it comes to Lyme Literate Psychotherapy, it means having a therapist who understands what Lyme disease is. In my case, not only do I have personal experience with the disease, but I have also gone through the research and I know the treatments that people are using. Therefore, when clients are talking to me about what they’re going through, I understand, and I understand what “die off” and herxheimer reactions are, as well as how Babesia and other tick-borne illnesses can cause certain mental health problems and that doing certain cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques might not be all that helpful. They might be to some degree, but what I see is that a lot of people with Lyme disease or other pathogen-based illnesses are given psychological techniques to use while ignoring that the underlying problem is biological.
That being said, there are a lot of ways to work with the nervous system and that is very useful for alleviating and managing some symptoms of Lyme.
What energy medicine techniques and modalities do you use?
When I was a kid, I developed my own energy healing modality. I spent time just looking with my mind’s eye at my body and my energy as I was laying there and picking out the dark or negative feelings that I was having within my body and allowing them to be absorbed by the Earth or taken elsewhere. I was also consciously filling up my body with light.
Then, as I got older, I realized that this was a thing, that this is actually something that many people do. After realizing that, I went ahead and had some shamanic work and Reiki done. My first formal training was in Reiki, and then, over several years, I became a Reiki Master and Reiki teacher. I worked with many Reiki clients and taught many classes on Reiki. It is a powerful tool.
I also use Touch for Health and Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine work which relies more on Chinese medicine, looking at the energy meridians that flow through our bodies and manipulating them to flow in the most healthy and optimal way possible. Sometimes energy gets stuck, moves in reverse, or emotional blockages develop and the energy flow stagnates.
I am a certified Yoga teacher and also use EFT tapping, which is tapping on different acupuncture/acupressure points with the intention to dissolve triggers and create lasting positive growth. Furthermore, something that I find very helpful is Qigong, especially when it comes to physical illnesses.
All of these different types of energy healing modalities have their nuances, but ultimately, they’re coming from the same source. Any regular person can hit upon these things themselves. It’s very good to be trained and to be able to use the Reiki symbols and things of that nature, but I think it’s good for people to know that energy healing isn’t exclusive to trained people.
Can you walk me through one of your counseling sessions?
First of all, all of my counseling sessions are virtual, so you can call me or e-mail me through my website and let me know what you’re looking for. I do therapy for clients in Oregon, where I’m licensed. I do energy healing coaching virtually, online, as well, and those appointments are open to people worldwide. Energy healing coaching is not psychotherapy, not addressing mental health or mental illnesses. It’s more about addressing the whole being with energy healing. Those are basically the two different groupings of clients that I see.
In my work as a therapist, I use mindfulness and some cognitive behavioral therapy, and I also use a technique that I created that’s called Inner Child Integration Therapy. I used this in both my psychotherapy practice in Oregon and my energy healing practice. This technique helps clients connect with their bodies and the emotion that is stored in their bodies, as well as reconnect with their inner child.
It can be seen in traditional psychology as the body being the unconscious. Through Inner Child Integration Therapy, we have a conversation with the client’s body and the unconscious, thereby bringing it into the conscious. In a way, this is similar to shamanic practice or soul retrieval, sharing the belief that part of a person separates from themself when going through a very challenging or emotionally painful event. In psychology, this is dissociation, but it’s the same thing, just different words and a different way of looking at it.
We want to bring that part of the soul or the inner child back and create wholeness and health within the client. Bringing that part of the soul or the inner child back can initiate wholeness and health within the client. It’s all about finding a place in the body where an emotion is stored and having a conversation with that part of the body.
I will ask a client when they become emotional, where they feel the emotion in their body. The client almost always immediately knows where they feel a situation or an emotion in their body. Often it is in the heart, in the belly, or in the throat area. I ask them to put their hands on the area and then I ask a series of questions based on my intuition and my observation of their energy. Almost always, the questions lead to an aspect of the client’s inner child. From there, we initiate a conversation with the inner child and eventually invite them to return to the client’s body in the present. The effects are profound. This type of wholeness and self-connection creates wonderous healing within the client. They leave my virtual office feeling like a new person.
What else can you tell me about the work you do through Ashland Holistic Counseling?
Ashland Holistic Counseling has gone through some changes in the last couple of years, especially since I moved back to Minneapolis from Oregon. I continue to see psychotherapy clients who live in Oregon virtually. Additionally, I am expanding more into the energy healing coaching sessions because that’s a lot of where my spirit lies. That is also something I found most useful in my personal journey. I also really like being able to work virtually with clients all over the world and give them something that they might not have experienced before.
Meeting with an energy healing practitioner or psychotherapist online in a virtual session can seem intimidating to some people, but over the last two years meeting virtually has become something people are used to. Furthermore, doing energy work really is effective online, just like it is in person. In the past, before I had done this, I was a little nervous, wondering if this will change things and if I’ll be able to get the healing across in an effective way. What I found is that it really doesn’t make that much of a difference whether it’s in person or virtual. There are even some benefits to the virtual sessions, as clients can be in their homes, in nature, or wherever they feel comfortable. Transportation is not an issue, either. On top of that, when it comes to my coaching clients, they can be anywhere in the world. Psychotherapy clients, on the other hand, still need to be in Oregon.
My goal as a practitioner has always been to walk the line between conventional and out-of-the-box thinking – expansive thinking. I am very professional as a therapist and as a coach, but I’m also very open to different ways of thinking and looking at life, health, and different goals. If you would like to talk about scheduling an appointment or have any questions, please email me at [email protected].
To learn more about Jeannie and her work, you can visit the Ashland Holistic Counseling website at www.ashlandcounseling.org
