Page 18 - Tracy Anderson Issue

Dr. Kristine Reese

Therapist and Educator
When you walk through the doors of LotusRain Naturopathic Clinic in San
Diego a sudden calmness comes over you. When I arrived for our interview,
my day had been a stressful one; making it just in time for our appointment
after being stuck in traffic for longer than anticipated. I sat down in the wait-
ing room looked around and calmly began to breath. At first I wasn’t sure
why, but in just a matter of moments, I realized that this environment Dr.
Kristine Reese created in her Clinic was the reason.
Dr. Reese has fashioned an environment, not only pleasing to the senses,
but one loaded with practitioners who have a common goal in making their
patients face whatever ails them in a positive manner and with definite inten-
tions.
Dr. Reese’s first job was not in the medical field. She began her professional
career as a teacher, who held an education and therapy social work degree.
When she was offered the job of running the first school for youngsters
who had been expelled from traditional learning environments for weapons
violations, she jumped at the opportunity. Dr. Reese started the first school
in Vancouver, Washington. She did a lot of ‘outward bound’ work, reach-
ing those troubled students with unconventional teaching methods, which
resulted in a population of youngsters who finally felt like someone cared
about them, they were not a throw away population. As a result, there was a
very low recidivism rate, below 30%, and Dr. Reese watched many students
go on to trade schools and community colleges and not back to the streets.
With the success of this school, she was called upon to set up similar
schools throughout the country. It was a rewarding career and one that she
looks back on fondly, but she soon felt that it was time for a change in her
calling.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next when suddenly it came to her in
a dream. Becoming a doctor had never been a path she sought: As a young
child with many medical issues, she had always felt that she wanted to stay
as far away from doctors and the medical field as possible.
What Dr. Reese soon realized was that becoming a Doctor of Naturopathic
Medicine was indeed, her calling. In her mind, doing the job correctly
required not only the medical side, but the teaching side as well. She never
18 wanted to just tell a patient to take a medication; she wanted to be able to
explain to her patients the reason for the medication and how it would be of

Photo by Dawn Nicoli