06/20/2018
Speaking Out: Interview with Paulette Pettorino
by Esther Rosenfeld
Paulette, born in Brooklyn, near Coney Island, went to CCNY where she majored in Psychology and Art, and moved to the East Village for the duration of her college education, needing to move from the somewhat cloistered Italian community into which she was born.
She remembers being very curious in her younger years, and interested in exploring and saving stray birds or animals or dissecting interesting phenomena.
During the time she was growing up the career options for girls was limited to nursing, education , secretarial work or to finding a husband and getting married. She was drawn towards the helping professions and volunteered as a candy striper in a hospital.
The loss of her parents - both died before she was 25 - was one of the most profound experiences of her life - and as she understood her loss - she also gained the ability to work with people in pain.
She was drawn to the healing arts and studied Polarity, which led her to get licensed as a massage therapist so she could touch people as part of her Polarity work. And as she puts it, "one thing led to another" ... her exploration into healing led her to healing herself, which then led her to helping people heal themselves.
To this end, she studied Chinese medicine, which included acupuncture, herbology, cupping and moxa.
Looking back at that time, Paulette didn't realize that she and her friends were pioneers in a new way of looking at and working with the body. This was way before Complementary or Integrative Medicine existed. Paulette refers to her work as, 'Alchemical Acupuncture' incorporating flower essences, essential oils, sometimes dreamwork, and inner focusing. She uses many different methods of healing - all directed towards the client she's working with, and used the Five Elements of acupuncture, a classical style that incorporates color, sound, odor and emotion. She further explains that it's an intuitive process, and her first session usually lasts an hour and a half, where she performs a comprehensive intake process.
Paulette believes that acupuncture is about balance - and her work is to fine tune a person's energy - to direct that energy to help restore balance - and to help the body re-connect to itself.
She further believes that the elements of yin-yang - one cannot exist without the other - helps to restore the "flow" in the body - to find where the body is "stuck" and then move past that obstruction. Acupuncture, she believes, is about finding the energy points and the places where energy does not flow, and helping the body to release the blockage "stuckness" so the body can return to a sense of balance or equilibrium. In doing that, the patient experiences a release of pain and a sense of calmness.
When I asked about her passions - what moves her in her life - she thought about the restorative power of plants, of nature, her growing interest in photography, art, music and dance, interacting with all of her life as she continues on her journey.
