Inside Atlanta Healing Centers: One Approach to Integrated Wellness
May 01, 2025 06:00AM ● By Noah Chen
Ranesa House of Wellness in Buckhead
Across Atlanta, more and more businesses are offering healing services under one roof. While standardized industry terminology doesn’t exist, “wellness centers” and “healing centers” are terms that have been applied to them. It’s common to find acupuncturists, energy workers, coaches, yoga teachers and more at such places. And while each one offers something different, all of them aim to support mind, body and spirit.
What is a Healing Center?
For the purposes of this article, we’re calling “healing centers” those businesses that offer at least five different services. Specifically, they offer at least two services that focus on emotional or spiritual health, and the rest focus on physical care. Their focus is on addressing the full spectrum of health. People go to healing centers for grief support, clarity, and emotional grounding, as well as treatments targeting the physical body, such as chiropractic, acupuncture or reflexology. Of course, the lines between physical and emotional care can often blur, and that’s one of the advantages of going somewhere that offers a variety of modalities. In healing centers, emotional and spiritual wellness can take center stage, along with physical health.
To support a variety of modalities, many healing centers adopt a similar business structure; the business owner typically leases space to a group of independent practitioners. Depending on the center, the practitioners might co-lease spaces with others in their field; for example, two massage therapists might co-lease a massage room. Most healing center owners carefully choose who they lease to, cultivating a group of practitioners who complement each other’s services.
Mayuri Sobti
However, not every center rents out its rooms. Mayuri Sobti, owner of Ranesa House of Wellness, pays the rent on the space herself. She does so out of the philosophy that “true wellness care is offered in a space that puts the client’s needs first.”
Sobti says she puts a lot of time into carefully sourcing and vetting the practitioners at Ranesa. Her goal is to create a collaborative team that puts forth a “coordinated effort to help the individual get to wholeness. This cannot be achieved when you rent the rooms to individual practitioners because then the focus is on paying the rent, maximizing income, and not collaborating.”
While the practitioners on her team are not employees, the center offers patients and clients centralized appointment and payment services. With lease-oriented healing centers, on the other hand, clients deal directly with each individual practitioner.
What Brings People In?
Clients visit healing centers for all kinds of reasons. Many arrive with a specific goal in mind, like stress reduction, trauma recovery or support for a chronic illness. Sometimes, people come to healing centers because they have a certain problem, but they don’t know the solution. Sobti recalls a client “who was diagnosed with oral cancer, and she said, ‘Okay, I’m getting all the medical treatments. But is there anything else I can do?’”
In another case, a family brought in a child who had been diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus and wanted to explore all possible forms of care. Overall, Sobti speculated that 25 percent of her new customers require some sort of consultation to find the best modality to suit their situation. The rest, she says, book directly with practitioners through Ranesa House’s website.
Valerie Hudgins
Valerie Hudgins, owner of The Wellness Emporium in Woodstock, says clients often know what modality they’re looking for when they reach out. On the other hand, folks with a more general curiosity show up at the center’s frequent open houses and learn more about what’s offered there. These social events also serve as a great way to introduce clients to new forms of healthcare.
Clients’ ability to work with different practitioners and the ability of the practitioners to coordinate wellness efforts are two of the primary benefits of the center model, according to Sobti. “Because, if I went one place for massage, and then I drove to the other end of town for acupuncture, and then I saw a functional nutritionist somewhere else, nobody would know what the other person is doing,” she says.
“From the healing point of view, it’s very cohesive. It’s very effective.”
However, many come to Ranesa House and other healing centers like it because they started with one specific practitioner. Clients might end up trying other practitioners as well, either because they’re drawn by curiosity fostered by the shared center space or by a referral.
Cultivating Community
Healing centers often nurture a sense of community. On the practitioner side, it comes naturally from sharing a space and working alongside other practitioners. For the clients, it manifests in their relationship with the practitioners, the welcoming atmosphere and the group classes and events that many centers offer.Hudgins describes the Wellness Emporium as a place where practitioners and clients alike can feel connected. “We’re all kind of a community here,” she says. She also hosts community events, including meditation circles and art classes, and is currently developing a community garden.
While practitioners at the center operate independently, Hudgins explains that they actively support one another’s work. “We all refer [clients] to each other, and we . . . use each other’s services.” She says that a hypnotherapy client coming to her for weight loss, for example, might also be recommended to the center’s nutritionist.
Becky Arrington and Donna Futrell
Becky Arrington, co-owner of The Well of Roswell with Donna Futrell, says her business is similarly focused. Alongside the hypnotherapists, relationship counselors and polarity therapists, The Well also offers classes on topics such as reiki and astrology. Arrington makes sure to keep these accessible to newcomers, saying she and Futrell are “bringing the metaphysical to the mainstream.” By emphasizing accessibility, variety and personal wellness, Arrington explains that one of the “things we’re trying to do is really establish a community here, where people feel comfortable, they feel welcome and it’s all about their well-being.”
This desire to create communal and social experiences has led Arrington to host an “ancestral awakening tour” of Egypt, a place where she says many people have spiritual initiations or awakenings. For Arrington, this aligns with The Well’s philosophy on holistic health.
Supporting the Whole Person
Crystal Joy first came to The Well of Roswell for hypnotherapy sessions with Arrington; she had been her private customer before the center opened. In 2023, Joy was diagnosed with breast cancer and decided to integrate conventional treatment with natural approaches. Over time, she explored other services at the center, including sound healing, breathwork and akashic record readings.
“Number one, I’m going to go to the doctor, and I’m going to do what they say. But I’m also going to go to everyone that I know that has an alternative healing method, and I’m going to do that too . . . And I’m happy to say that’s worked out well for me.” Joy participated in a cancer recovery group at The Well, saying she was “also doing the emotional work. Because, as we all know, there are emotional aspects to getting sick.”
Her story isn’t unique. Many clients don’t just visit healing centers for support with health conditions; they seek out career guidance or spiritual insight or simply want to relax and recharge. Tracy Rud found The Wellness Emporium through a friend and stayed for the atmosphere. “And for me personally, I’m kind of on my own spiritual journey. So this is a perfect place for me to learn and experience new things,” says Rud.
Healing centers are not one-size-fits-all outfits. Some focus more on physical support; others lean spiritual. Their visual design can vary as well. Ranesa House of Wellness, for instance, has a minimalist, modern feel, while Hudgins designed The Wellness Emporium to embody a cozy, vintage aesthetic. But what they tend to have in common is a mix of services, a culture of collaboration and a desire to support the whole person, mind, body and spirit.
“Wellness centers with authentic wellness care—traditional forms of wellness care—are very, very important because that is where people heal,” says Sobti. “I believe that wellness centers are really the medical care of the future.” ❧
For more information:
Ranesa House of WellnessRanesaWellness.com
404.941.9544
The Wellness Emporium
TheWellnessEmporium.net
770.200.4223
The Well of Roswell
TheWellOfRoswell.com
770.778.2051
Noah Chen is a writer and journalist who covers health, culture and media. He splits his time between New York City and Atlanta. He's probably working out of a coffee shop right now.
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