Forest Park’s Rose Mattax, a licensed clinical professional counselor, practices what she calls the “energy medicine of the future.”
If a client with anger management problems were to come to her, she would focus on the person’s gall bladder and attempt to balance the energies in that area. If someone came to her with low self-esteem issues, she would concentrate on the energy near the person’s liver.
“There’s a belief that whenever there is a problem – physical, mental or spiritual – there’s an energetic pattern involved,” said the 54-year-old psychotherapist.
“Every muscle is governed by a particular meridian,” she explained. “The body is a map of energy points that can be accessed or strengthened for optimal health.”
By holding certain points or using different breathing techniques, “you can sedate the energy or charge the energy” and make it balanced again, she said. Balanced energy makes for a healthy person, both physically and mentally.
This form of energy medicine and energy psychology stems from the power of the body-mind complex.
“There is a unique link between the two,” Mattax said. “You can’t always tell where one ends and the other begins. They are so intimately related.”
The most common example that shows the connection is the way stress can take a physical toll on a person’s body. Throughout this recession, Mattax said she has seen an increase in clients who suffer from problems related to financial stress, including job loss.
“What I can do is bring their energy back in balance and help that person reach their goals,” she said.
Most of the time people come to From the Heart Center, her practice in Forest Park, for help with mental or emotional problems, such as phobias or anxiety. The other 30 percent of clients visit because of a physical ailment they can’t seem to cure.
Mattax said she helped one client conquer a fear of public speaking and another’s fear of flying. She also helped a cancer survivor relieve the panic she had been feeling any time she had to get retested for the disease. Another woman, who had her large intestine removed because of Crohn’s disease, had been going to the bathroom roughly 15 times a day. After Mattax taught her a daily energy routine, the woman experienced relief in two weeks.
“It doesn’t necessarily happen that dramatically for everyone,” said Mattax, whose clients’ ages range from 10 to 70, “but these techniques really are effective.”
For that reason, Mattax said the relatively new field of alternative medicine needs – and deserves – more attention, more research and more money.
“It needs to become more mainstream and integrated with traditional medicine,” she said. “Even though we don’t have the research behind us the way traditional medicine does, we have a lot to offer.”
Nothing is more rewarding for Mattax than to see someone take control of his or her health.
“It’s so empowering to the client,” she said. “I really love people’s joy and surprise in how quickly they see change when they work with their energy.”
