Kamala Quale has spent over 30 years studying, practicing and teaching the integration of somatic psychotherapy methods with the richness of acupuncture theory and practice. She obtained her acupuncture degree from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Ore., in 1998. She is a certified therapist of the Hakomi method of mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy and was a member of their teaching staff for 25 years. Kamala has a passion for the depth of spirit that can emerge from focused inner work and acupuncture. For more information, go to www.moonandlotus.com/professional-trainings/classes-and-supervision/.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.