This story originally appeared in the 2025 Locals’ Guidebook featuring the Best of Jackson Hole. Pick up a copy today!
JACKSON, Wyo. — Because of the ultra-active lifestyles popular among Jacksonites, healing can be a major part of daily life here.
Over the past decade, an increasing number of health practitioners have brought the Jackson community into a new frontier of overall wellness by offering a multitude of innovative approaches to healing. Whether recovering from a physical injury, in need of mental health support or looking for alternative treatments, visitors and residents now have access to a wide spectrum of specialists.
Delve into the world of healing by getting to know an art therapist, a microcurrent neurofeedback practitioner and a physical therapist who considers a more holistic approach.
Victoria Babanuta helps the brain’s natural ability to heal
Victoria Babanuta, the owner of Simply Health Collective, became a certified IASIS (derived from the Greek word “iasis,” meaning healing) microcurrent neurofeedback (MCN) practitioner after suffering a concussion in high school.
“I spent over 15 years battling debilitating migraines that took a toll on every aspect of my life,” Babanuta says. “I tried countless treatments and remedies through the lens of Western medicine, but nothing brought lasting relief.”
Once Babanuta began studying MCN in Los Angeles, she says she learned how to heal her migraines. Babanuta says that MCN is an FDA-approved technology that gently helps the brain to reset and self-regulate by using tiny electrodes placed on the scalp to deliver microcurrents — low-level electrical impulses that stimulate the brain’s natural ability to adapt and heal.
“Most people don’t feel anything during a session, but the impact can be profound,” Babanuta says. “In today’s fast-paced world, stress and anxiety are more than just mental — they affect the entire body. When the brain is stuck in ‘survival mode,’ it becomes harder to think clearly, sleep well or stay emotionally balanced.”
According to Babanuta, chronic stress can wear down the body’s natural ability to heal. She described MCN as allowing the brain and nervous system to shift out of stress and into a more relaxed, regulated state. The treatment focuses on delta brainwaves, which are the slowest and most powerful of all brainwaves and are linked to deep relaxation, sleep and healing. Babanuta says that the treatments can help people who are feeling exhausted by chronic symptoms caused by migraines, insomnia, ADD, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, depression, addiction, autism and neuropathy.
Babanuta described one of her “most meaningful success stories during her many years of practice.” She says that a young girl had been suffering from severe, chronic headaches since middle school, and the pain affected her ability to focus, learn and fully engage in daily life.
“After completing a full IASIS microcurrent neurofeedback protocol, her debilitating headaches stopped,” Babanuta says. “She’s now thriving in high school, and although the headaches are no longer an issue, she continues to come in a few times a year — especially before stressful events like exams or big life changes.”
Leann Dzemske uses art to process emotions
Leann Dzemske, a trained artist, licensed professional counselor (LPC) and art therapist registered (ATR) practitioner, has been using art to help heal people of all ages in Jackson since 2020. The community has awarded Dzemske with the Best of Jackson Hole’s 2023 Silver and 2024 and 2025 Gold for best mental health therapist.
While Dzemske has always been creative, she says that she made the decision to pursue a master’s degree in art therapy and counseling after volunteering for at-risk youth in Minneapolis, MN.
“I would see children and teens’ entire dispositions change after an art-making session,” Dzemske says.
Dzemske says that art therapy can function the same way as talk therapy, with the added benefit of art processes and materials applied therapeutically.
“We aren’t striving for an artistic product but instead a catharsis, sublimation of our insight into our inner worlds,” Dzemske says. “Creativity allows us to explore emotions in an externalizing format, giving distance from the event/emotion being processed, which can calm our body’s alarm system (limbic system) and allow for sensory or emotional regulation or greater insight to develop.”
In her therapy sessions, Dzemske utilizes a variety of creative exercises including drawing, painting, watercolor, printmaking, eco art therapy, collage, found poetry, mandalas, body maps, emotional and coping skills color wheels, plaster molding, pearler beads and needle felting. She says that she also guides her patients through talk therapy and offers specific directives to focus on while creating. Dzemske says that many people learn to manage discomfort and think more clearly after expressing themselves during the creative process.
“Many remark how they enjoy it or that it helped them think about something differently, or that things don’t feel as pent up as they were,” Dzemske says. “When the body becomes calm by a self-soothing process like repetitive mark-making or externalizing a scene, it has the potential to allow the body and brain to calm. When we are in a calmer state, we tend to have space in our brains to process deeper.”
Dzemske says that during art making, Alzheimer’s or dementia patients can experience memory recalls, and stroke patients who are limited in body movement can find new ways to express themselves.
Dzemske encourages everyone to access their own creativity by exploring doodling, singing or humming the verse of a song, writing or taking in the expansiveness of the landscape.
“You create with your decisions,” Dzemske says. “This is a practice that you already do daily. My challenge to you is to try to become conscious of one joyful decision you can consciously make daily and observe what is created.”
Francine Bartlett offers electromagnetic therapy
Francine Bartlett, physical therapist, yoga teacher, athletic trainer and founder of Medicine Wheel Wellness and Sacred Athlete, has developed a more holistic approach to sports therapy.
After healing from two knee surgeries in high school, Bartlett traveled around the world to learn how to integrate modern medicine with the ancient wisdom of Indigenous cultures. She says that this led her to formulate a system of care that utilizes the medicine wheel’s “four directions” approach in Indigenous teachings to optimize the body’s healing process.
“I believe without approaching health, healing and happiness through all four aspects of well-being (spiritual, mental, emotional and physical), the root cause of stress, pain and ‘dis-ease’ is often missed, leading to incomplete or inefficient healing and sub-par sports performance,” Bartlett writes on her website.
After directing Medicine Wheel Wellness since 2015, Bartlett chose to expand her business by founding Sacred Athlete in 2024. In her new venture, she offers Himalayan salt healing, an infrared sauna and an outdoor wood-fired sauna, cold therapies, massage, physical therapy, a climbing and bouldering wall, infrared therapy and BEMER vascular therapy.
When injured athletes book a session with Bartlett, she often uses BEMER devices, a type of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy, as a tool to speed up the recovery process. Bartlett saysPEMF vascular therapy, which is a 20-year-old technology from Germany, can create movement and blood circulation in muscles before and after any type of surgery. Bartlett says PEMF increases the delivery of blood in the body’s microvessels, which are 76% of the body’s blood supply, and increases elimination of metabolic waste.
“In an 8-minute treatment, BEMER increases micro-vascular circulation by 30% bringing oxygen and nutrients to areas of injury and stress, which also has a significant anti-inflammatory effect,” Bartlett says. “This device encourages auto-rhythmic pulsations through the body to enhance the cardiovascular system’s function.”
According to Bartlett, depending upon the injury, her patients simply relax on a mat twice a day for eight to 20 minutes to receive the healing electromagnetic pulses.
Bartlett notes that professional skier Kai Jones became a BEMER athlete two years ago after using the treatments to recover from breaking both of his legs in a skiing related injury.
