Experience, training and background
initial training
After researching and visiting all of the acupuncture courses within the UK I chose to train at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading, not only for the integrative training I would receive in both 5 element acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine but also for the understanding of the impact of emotions on physical health, the biomedical content, high professional standards and rigorous training of the course. I gained a BSc (Hons) degree and a license to practice acupuncture.
experience
After graduating in 2012 I soon had busy private and community practices based in Oxford. I set up and ran an accessible community health project to support more people accessing healthcare with their financial, social, cultural and physical needs in mind. Part of this included a women’s acupuncture clinic called LifeCycles, an acupuncture clinic for pain, and a collaboration project with a nutritionist, chef, food producers, a herbalist and myself to create seasonal supper clubs and information on how to support health. I also brought in around 12 practitioners to offer other accessible treatments at the clinic too.
During my early days of treating, I found people sought support for many reasons including fertility, pregnancy, sexual functioning, anxiety, headaches and migraines, musculoskeletal issues, relationships issues and emotional distress. This guided my postgraduate acupuncture training into the areas of obstetrics and gynaecology, IVF and fertility support, mental/ emotion support, the impact of trauma and pain. To deepen my work further I also trained with the Centre for Psychosexual Health in London. I was drawn to this course for the deep appreciation of diversity and difference, and integrative understanding of human sexual and relationship wellbeing, with the body, brain, mind and heart connection, and their impacts on health.
With my practice now in London, I have worked in central London as part of a fertility focused acupuncture clinic that supported thousands of people through IVF and pregnancy, and in a private medical clinic receiving referrals from GP’s and Consultants particularly for headache and migraine sufferers, along with other conditions. Since COVID I now work closer to home in Bethnal Green at a well established and respected clinic in East London for mind and body therapies called The Plane Tree.
I work with people in their uniqueness, seeing them as carrying their own individual stories and histories. A major thread running through my practice is working with people who have a complex mix of symptoms (for example anxiety, insomnia, pain, IBS and overwhelm), working with those who often don’t seem to recover well with conventional treatment or want additional support alongside conventional care, or those people who have been through traumatic experiences in their lives that they are still carrying the memory of in some way. To support my work I continue to carry out ongoing postgraduate training in these areas drawing on classical healing approaches, contemporary insights and evidence-based research within both acupuncture and trauma work.
background
Before my role as an acupuncturist, I worked on building therapeutic relationships with children and young people in a therapeutic children’s home and in alternative curriculums in woodlands. I’ve worked on organic farms, in land-based growing projects, with community food groups, and as a natural cosmetics maker, and from early in my childhood, I had an interest in plants, traditional wisdom and mindfulness practices. Nature can be so deeply supportive for our mental, emotional and physical health and I still take regular time in nature to reflect, see what the seasons and elements are doing, how the plants are shifting and changing, and connect to the light and dark. Through my work as a 5 Element acupuncturist, I draw on my life long connection with nature and help people to build their own relationship with nature if they would like to as a way of supporting their health in an ongoing way outside of our sessions. I’m also currently involved with a project in London that supports communities accessing urban orchards called The Orchard Project and you can spot me from time to time pruning or planting fruit trees around East London.