Photograph by Paul Myers
Dar Bertsch (left), a chiropractor and nutritional consultant, and Sydnie Smith, a clinical hypnotherapist and Reiki master, run the Saratoga Healing Arts Center.
Healing Arts Center offers mind and body treatments
Team hopes to add staff and services
By Rebecca Ray
Chiropractor and nutritional consultant Dar Bertsch has a vision. The Saratoga chiropractor and nutritional consultant says she would like to expand her treatment center to include more healing arts to treat the mind, body and spirit. In fact, she said, "The picture is really creating a place where everything is right here for everybody."
Last month, Bertsch began to meet her vision by hiring hypnotherapist and Reiki master Sydnie Smith. Smith, who refers to herself as a "coach for the mind," conducts hypnotherapy and Reiki sessions with clients to help them change certain behaviors.
Bertsch and Smith have also discussed adding more staff, including a massage therapist and an acupuncturist, and starting new classes.
To send the message that the center, at 14375 Saratoga Ave., suite 200, was incorporating more healing arts, Bertsch changed its name from Well Within Chiropractic to Saratoga Healing Arts Center.
During Smith's hypnotherapy sessions, clients enter a deep state of relaxation. However, unlike the cartoon characters who watch pendulums swing until their eyes close and then perform activities against their will, Smith says her clients are aware of what goes on around them and have complete control over sessions. In fact, hypnotherapists can't make anyone do anything against their morals and ethics, Smith says.
During hypnosis, Smith says, suggestions bypass the conscious mind and enter the subconscious mind. This allows the conscious and subconscious minds to communicate, which allows clients to obey the subconscious messages. For instance, when Smith sees clients who wish to avoid sugar, she gives them suggestions on how they can avoid sugar. The goal, she says, is for the clients to look at sugar and not want it.
"[Hypnosis is] really quite a natural state," Smith said. She added that people are in natural states of hypnosis when they wake up, and they know they're awake, but haven't moved yet, and just before they fall asleep.
After Smith conducts a hypnotherapy session with a client, she conducts a Reiki session, intended to help the client relax even more. Reiki, which is Japanese for "universal life force," is intended to align energy centers in the body.
In addition to being a chiropractor and nutritional consultant, Bertsch works with herbs and homeopathy, with the goal of supporting the body when it's out of balance chemically or emotionally. Homeopathy, which has existed for thousands of years, supports the body's natural tendency to heal and rebalance itself, Bertsch says.
According to Bertsch, instead of consuming flower essences in supplements, clients consume less of an ingredient by consuming diluted flower essences. This way, she says, clients consume just enough to activate the body's natural healing tendency, which reduces side effects, Bertsch says.
Bertsch, 50, a Santa Cruz resident, has practiced in Saratoga for about five years. Before that, she ran her business in Campbell for about six years. She said she moved to Saratoga because she wanted to practice in a smaller community and be closer to the mountains.
Before Bertsch asked Smith, 46, a former Saratoga resident who lives in Scotts Valley, to join her, she and Smith were friends. Smith says she joined Bertsch, because she wanted to be able to refer her clients to Bertsch for other aspects of their treatment.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
