Dover – John Myerson of Dover gets up very early every morning and meditates. This isn’t just a way to relax before the start of a long day at work. Myerson is attempting to get in touch with multitudes of absent souls. He is already at work.

Some people would never suspect the unusual career Myerson has chosen. He seems like a regular type of guy. Myerson has three kids – one is middle school, one in high school and one a recent high school graduate. He’s been a coach in Dover and is a member of Boosters. And when new acquaintances ask him what he does, Myerson just says, “I’m a psychologist.”

If someone presses him to find out more, then he might reveal that he’s not just a psychologist with a doctorate in psychology from the Union Institute outside of Cincinnati. He combines psychology with acupuncture and shamanism, the ancient art of healing through entering altered states of consciousness. He’s also one of the founders of the New England School of Acupuncture in Watertown and a trained Zen Buddhist priest, though he doesn’t practice. But ask about what religion he is, Myerson says, “I’m a Jew,” even though he’s a Buddhist priest. “Nothing conflicts. That’s the shamanistic attitude,” Myerson said.

Myerson is a hard worker. He works to heal his patients, not only when he is physically with them, but frequently every day. He thinks about them a lot. And, in the morning, some of the souls he is summoning are the souls of his patients or those who might be affecting the lives of his patients.

Then he goes to work. His Framingham office is not your traditional psychologist’s office. The comfortable black leather chair in which he sits in the middle of the room is not that unusual. But not every psychologist has walls covered with colorful African shamanistic symbols and wind chimes, which he uses to summon souls, “It has an energy to it that I can use (to heal patients),” Myerson explained.

Nowadays, shamanism is somewhat more accepted than it was before. And acupuncture is mainstream.

With some patients, Myerson just talks or listens, since he practices traditional psychotherapy as well. With others, he adds acupuncture, or uses just acupuncture. And with some patients, he journeys into altered states of consciousness, sometimes using acupuncture to help patients relax.

Susan Reich, a massage therapist from Natick, lays on the acupuncture table and he puts a few needles into her. In the background, there’s the sound of drums being played over the CD to help her go into a meditative state. Myerson is also in a meditative state. He does not talk or move. “All the communication was psychic,” Reich said. “I was on a journey …He was there with me.”

It all seems so magical that there are people out there who might be skeptical of his practice. But Myerson’s days are full. His patients come from all over New England, even though he really doesn’t advertise. “It’s all word of mouth,” he said. People come to him because, he said, “I get results where other people don’t.”

In one instance, Myerson helped a woman who could not walk after being injured in a serious car accident. She had gone to see a variety of doctors and physical therapists and nothing worked. Using his healing techniques, Myerson was able to help her to walk again.

In another case, he used his healing techniques to help a woman named Tracy get pregnant. For months, she could not get pregnant. Doctors told her that everything was fine physically. She didn’t know what to do. Someone referred her to Myerson, who used acupuncture, partly to help her to relax. But he also talked with her. Soon, it came out that Tracy had once, many years ago, had an abortion. That was the key to her healing, Myerson decided, especially upon seeing Tracy’s emotional reaction to remembering the event.

Before she could et pregnant, Myerson said, she would have to let go of the soul of the unborn baby. He asked her to decide if the baby was a boy or a girl. Myerson also asked her to name the baby. Ultimately, Tracy had a dream in which she met the unborn baby, who appeared as an 28-year-old and forgave her for what she had done. She was able to let go of the soul of the baby and not long after that, was able to get pregnant.

These cases seem spectacular, but Myerson says he has outstanding experiences every day. Just last Friday, his 9 a.m. appointment was a professor at a major university – a woman who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks. She’d been doing traditional psychotherapy, but to no avail.

Recently, this woman had a dream in which there was, inside of her body, a terrified little girl. This, Myerson knew, was where her healing would begin.

“That dream is a doorway to other things,” Myerson said.

“What will happen is this: that little girl will lead her somewhere else … part of that little girl represents her anxiety.”

Modern medicine has realized for a long time the relationship between physical and psychological health. “Your mind has power,” Myerson said. He believes if your mind affects your physical health, then it should also be able to heal physical problems. And for him this seems to have worked.

His techniques are just as effective for psychological problems.

Three years ago, Madeline Masucci began a long and painful divorce. That’s when she began seeing Myerson.

“First we talk, then we go into acupuncture sessions,” with the whole thing lasting about an hour, she said. “It’s wonderful because the acupuncture helps to relax you.”

That is how Myerson, who was first an acupuncturist and many years later received his degree in psychology, began to combine the two. He noted many of the physical ailments he was dealing with were stress-induced, so it seemed likely that if acupuncture helped with stress-induced physical pain, it could also help with psychological problems.

Reich saw Myerson for both physical and psychological problems. She has done trance work with him, but most of her treatments have been with acupuncture, which helped with her hormonal problems. It also helped with her depression.

She is enthusiastic about all of her work with Myerson. “My experience of John is that he’s a very powerful man and he’s chosen to use his power in a healing and loving way,” she said.