• Holistic medicine
• Humanistic therapy
• Holistic Western Acupuncture

Holistic medicine

My primary interest has been in taking a holistic approach to helping people who are dealing with health problems, particularly pain, stress-related illness and those whose illness defies medical diagnosis or treatment.

I have based my work on these principles:

• Health is not just an absence of illness, but the positive balance of all aspects of a person - body, mind, emotions and spirit. Accident, injury or stress (physical or emotional) can throw this balance out and lead to uncomfortable symptoms or disease. Often, symptoms can be recognised as a message that something is not right in one's life.
• Recognise the body's own ability to heal and re-balance itself, and design treatments to stimulate and support this function and thus strengthen it for the future.
• Focus on the individual, his/her unique way of life and response to their condition (rather than on the symptom or disease).
• Recognise that individuals need not be isolated; each of us is connected to others, to society and our environment in complex ways.
• Help each individual to regain control and the power to optimise their well-being, by means of respect, information and skill-building, thus avoiding inappropriate dependency on drugs or the services of others.
• Everyone has creative ways of dealing with the stresses of their life. Aim to help clients use that creativity in a positive way to recreate situations as they would want.

This leads to an approach that is:

• as natural as possible: the aim is to reinforce the body's own natural healing resources wherever possible, rather than override them
• complementary to other treatments, including orthodox medicine: I would recommend another therapist if the two therapies will work well together
• alternative: where diagnosis, drugs or surgery are unacceptable or have failed, it can be valuable to explore alternative strategies
• holistic: I see each person as a whole individual within a complex context, not just a symptom or problem;  where the sense of wholeness has been fractured the aim is to restore balance between the different parts of the whole.

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