C Cotter, L.Ac.
EDUCATION
SPECIALTIES Acupuncture, classical and traditional Chinese medicine, herbal medicine CONTACT ccotterlac@gmail.com instagram: ccotterlac Prices
Acupuncture • Herbal Consultation
75–90 minutes • $130 Sliding scale is available. Contact C directly for more information. |
A general practitioner in acupuncture, C’s passion for classical Chinese and traditional medicine is evident from the range and depth of their complementary skills and ongoing studies. In addition to acupuncture and related techniques like cupping, gua sha, moxibustion, and teishin (non-insertive needling), C is certified in herbal-medicine making and medical qi gong, is in training to be a flower-essence practitioner, and is even learning to translate classical Chinese medical texts with noted author and translator Dr. Sabine Wilms. C makes some of the tinctures, oils, salves, and essences that they use in their practice. They are also an amateur astrologer and incorporate the planetary weather (along with the physical weather) into treatments as appropriate.
C puts all of these resources to use in a sensitive, client-centered practice that is rooted in the idea of salutogenesis, or the idea that people and their bodies have the innate ability to move toward greater health. C’s goal is to support this movement by facilitating structural change and repatterning that will help patients flow with the natural rhythms of life. At the beginning of treatment, C guides patients in creating a list of shifts they would like to see in their lives—for example, in average daily pain levels, mobility, emotional wellbeing, or specific behavioral changes. They then develop a flexible treatment plan that uses the patient’s response to treatment to inform the future course of treatment. Follow-up appointments are scheduled at the end of each session. Checking in regularly, C helps patients track changes and progress and communicates their observations to them. Because deep repatterning and structural change requires change in habits and routines, C may incorporate dietary suggestions, lifestyle modifications, routine and ritual suggestions, ways to deepen connection to spirit and nature, qi gong and other movement practices, and mindfulness and meditation (to name a few). C has specialized skills in working with trauma integration, patients with mental health diagnoses (such as depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, bipolar disorder), neurodivergent patients, chronic inflammatory diseases (such as fibromyalgia, IBS, Epstein-Barr virus, Lyme disease, long COVID, mast cell activation syndrome, and other undiagnosed chronic inflammatory diseases) chronic pain, PTSD and complex PTSD, nervous-system activation, etc. While C does not treat Western medical diagnoses, they do use them (and lab and other diagnostic results) to provide patients with context and information about what is happening with their bodies. C’s work is holistic. “I do not separate the individual from the world we live in,” they say. “Disability, race, class, gender, and sexual orientation (to name a few things) impact our experience of health and wellbeing.” C is a queer non-binary transgender person. From Massachusetts by way of Oakland, the call of the desert brought them to Tucson. “I was ready to live in a smaller city with a quieter pace of life and access to more open space.” They have a deep animist spiritual practice influenced by their connection with plants, animals, water, and land and supported by their study of Buddhist and Taoist meditation and practices. |