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'It's actually very Old-Age' Local therapist aims to reunite mind and body~  Valley Press Publications 
by Josh Wimmer Contributing Writer Published: Thursday, January 14, 2010

STILLWATER — Sure, Joni Polehna talks about “emotional components” and “energy meridians.” But contrary to what you might think, she says, there's nothing New Age about her work.

“It's actually very 'Old Age,'” said the recreational mental-health therapist, going on to explain how a 17th-century power struggle between the pope and the king of France led to an arbitrary separation of body, mind and spirit into different purviews. “Western medicine is a product of that part of Europe, and a product of that split, and we've kind of been trying to get back together ever since.”

Polehna, 55, has been a practicing therapist for three decades. But the holistically oriented work she focuses on now began in 2002, when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She learned about a therapy called Brain Gym, which combined yoga-like movements with mental exercise and, she was told, could be helpful to people with the disease.

The Stillwater resident's father died of a stroke before she was certified as a Brain Gym consultant, but nonetheless, she credits him with being the impetus for what became the next phase of her career. “I really feel like he led me to this,” she said. “I wasn't just doing it for him — I was supposed to take it further.”

She has. Besides using Brain Gym to help clients deal with depression, stress, relationship problems, addictions and other issues, Polehna also offers relief through techniques such as Touch for Health, a practice similar to chiropractic, but designed to be used by laypeople to “unblock” energy and “wake up muscles and tendons”; reflex integration, the point of which is to repair instinctive responses that didn't develop properly in the womb; and Emotional Freedom Technique, which involves tapping along particular zones of the body to improve energy flow through them.

“It's kind of like the circuitry in old TV sets, where you didn't quite know what blew — if it was a wire or a tube or whatever,” Polehna said of EFT. “We tap with intention. We clear old stuff, we put in new stuff, and we clear the emotional blockages that way.”

Because the health of the body, mind and spirit are intertwined, she said, not only can physical contact clear up emotional issues, but once clients start to deal with the emotions in question, they can experience physical relief as well. She mentions a woman whose feet were frozen with arthritis; a doctor had told her the sensation wouldn't return.

“We released some things in her thoughts that were related, and we did a couple other techniques that help muscles and ligaments reconnect with the brain,” Polehna said. “She stood up and banged her foot on the floor and said, 'Oh! Well, for crying out loud, do the other one!'”

Although Polehna says that woman isn't the only client she's seen who has experienced enormous relief in just one short session. But some — especially those with lifelong problems or who are more emotionally sensitive than average — do take several meetings to heal.

For others, it can be harder. “A lot of it has to do with how open people are willing to be, because sometimes they have secrets they don't want to let out,” she said.

Polehna says she is careful to be sure that she is the right person for a patient to work with. She checks with clients to determine if they've already sought help from a medical doctor, and in some cases requires they do so before returning to her. She said she is happy to work with clients who are on prescriptions for mental illness, but never discusses their medication or offers any opinions on whether they should be taking it.

While she's careful to respect those boundaries, Polehna said, she nonetheless understands that some people may be skeptical about her work . But she said she’s fortunate to have met M.D.s with an appreciation for what she does, some of whom have become clients or have referred their own patients to her.

One such doctor, Brendan Meyer of White Bear Lake, is an emergency physician at Fairview Lake Medical Center in the town of Wyoming.

“In today's world, it's easy to get off-balance, and Joni is pretty good at helping reset that,” Meyer said. “I do think there's quite a bit of power in complementary medicine, and Western medicine certainly has its limitations. And there have been good studies done that show that a positive mind-set will cause someone to heal better than someone who doesn't have one.”

Besides her own practice, Polehna is also founder of the St. Croix River Valley Holistic Practitioners foundation, a group of holistic therapists that came together in 2003, and also does speaking engagements and teaches classes for the cities of Woodbury and North St. Paul. When she's not working, she's reading — currently, she recommends “The Brain That Changes Itself,” by Dr. Norman Doidge — or gardening or spending time outdoors with her husband, Mike, who manages the Washington County park system.

Treatment with Polehna usually starts with a 90-minute initial session; her rate is $1 per minute, and she's most easily contacted by phone: 651-592-6181.