Grand Opening at The Healing Arts Collective

South Philadelphia Community AcupunctureTo help us through some of these troubles, we turn to places that offer reprieve, relaxation, physical therapy, or anything that may bring us back to our healthiest physical state. At The Healing Arts Collective, licensed practitioners can offer an abundance of help to center yourself and aide in healing our ailments.

The public is invited to celebrate the grand opening, and also to honor the third anniversary of Healing Arts Collective with a free Grand Opening Wellness Day and Open House on Saturday, April 21, 2018, from 12:00pm to 4:00pm.  

The Grand Opening will feature free community acupuncture, massage, bodywork, sound healing, Reiki, yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonic, meditation and more. The event will feature complimentary healthy and delicious bites and juices from Fuel, P'unk Burger and others. Artist Eddy Rhenals will also be on hand for the debut a new art show inside the Healing Arts Collective that day.

Per their mission statement, Healing Arts Collective (HAC) is owned and operated by health and wellness professionals, practicing a wide range of therapeutic modalities. They offer a multi-dimensional approach to wellness.  

I spoke with one of the owners, Lauren O. Buckley a Licensed Acupuncturist, who told me, “It was a great opportunity to walk into this healing center with all the other therapists, and that it is great to work with, combine, and compliment other healing services.”  

Owner's Adrian King, Lauren O. Buckley

Owner Lauren O. Buckley, LAc, MSOM is bringing her unique brand of community acupuncture and healing to the Healing Arts Collective located at (519 S. 9th Street) in South Street in the Headhouse District. This new location will join Buckley’s existing practices on 1532 East Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia, and 211 W. State Street, Suite 201 in Media, PA.

“I rent space out of this collective, but my business is South Philadelphia Community Acupuncture and that business has three locations; one of them rents space out of this Collective, which is what makes it different than the other two spaces. We’re just our own entity at the other two places but here we’re working amongst other providers which is really awesome,” stated Lauren O. Buckley.

South Philadelphia Community Acupuncture

As I walked through the various rooms and viewed what the HAC provides as treatment options, it was impressive.  There is plenty of room for the varying practices; I watched as Gail Kotel, a Licensed Physical Therapist who works in the HAC demonstrated how she treats clients with Therapeutic Pilates.  Gail Kotel explained to me that she treats a wide range of patients, and that she specializes in treating the pelvic floor. “I’d say that about 90% of my patient population is pelvic related, even if they don’t know it.  So they come in with back pain and it ends up that it’s not really your back, it’s really the back connected to the pelvis.”

Perhaps that is what might be going on with me, as I signed up to try out two of the services provided at The Healing Arts Collective.  I was asked if there was any specific area that I would like them to treat, and sure enough one was a small pain in my lower back.

I chose to have a Thai Massage and an Acupuncture Session.  The Thai Massage was performed by Lauren Newmyer (LMT, RYT).  For anyone curious as to what happens during this amazing massage, you lay down on a very comfortable heated mattress while the masseur positions your body, with permission to target and massage whatever is causing you pain.  In my opinion, this was like having a deep tissue massage, but better. They are able to give you an even deeper massage due to utilizing their own positioning in proximity to being on the mattress with you. For the record, this was the best massage I have ever experienced

 Media Event

Afterwards, as I waited for my acupuncture session, I spoke with Justin Sekelewski who told me he has been treated by Lauren Buckley since 2011 at one of her other locations.  He is a freelance upright Bass player who incurred an injury and went to multiple doctors who attributed his pain due to needing more strength. That is when Justin Sekelewski turned to Lauren O. Buckley for treatment of his injury, and told me that, “I have just found through my own experience that acupuncture has helped me to be able to resume my career, and do what I love and I wouldn’t be able to still do this if it wasn’t for Lauren because when you go to one of Lauren’s clinics, you’re not just a patient, you actually become a part of the family.  I feel like she genuinely listens to you and is trying to help alleviate any pain or symptoms you’re having.”

When I laid down to have my acupuncture session, I had the needles placed to address my own chronic issue due to a bad injury.  As soon as the needles were inserted, I could feel a residual tingling that emanated from it’s placement. For anyone who has a fear of needles, do not be afraid of acupuncture; there is no pain at all when the needle pierces the skin, nor did I feel like anything was puncturing me after they were placed.  The only thing I felt was positive energy and relief. And I would love to go back for further treatments, which brings up another concern: the cost of being healed through these methods.

“What makes us different is that we are a higher volume clinic, we are able to welcome more people in during our business hours and offer a sliding scale fee where people can choose their price between $35 and $50 which is brilliant. So that if anyone is interested in acupuncture they can afford it, and that way we get to treat all ages from 10 to 90-year olds.  We are able to treat all economic classes so with that we get a larger population and a larger cultural diversity than I’ve seen in private practice,” Lauren O. Buckley explained.