our work together & trauma-informed acupuncture
In a way, our work together starts here on this website as you’re collecting information and possibly sorting through thoughts, listening to gut feelings, or making decisions about whether I’ll be a good person to help you on your way to health. I hope you will find alot of what you are looking for here, and you are welcome to get in touch if you have some questions you’d like me to answer. If we work together, I’ll always encourage you to ask any questions you have.
Initial Consultation and Acupuncture Treatments
Initial Consultation
You might find that the way I structure my consultation and treatment sessions is a little different from some other acupuncturists. I have developed my work for over a decade and find having the initial consultation separate from the first treatment supports a deeper level of understanding.
In an initial consultation, we will talk about why you have come for treatment, the symptoms you have, and what life may look like for you when you are well. We will consider how your body, mind, emotions, and spirit are, and how your external environments may be affecting you like work and relationships. The TCM and 5 element frameworks I draw on to guide acupuncture treatments both understand the body slightly differently from biomedicine, and I’ll ask you a wide range of questions that may seem unrelated to your main complaint, but this is to help build up a clearer understanding of what’s happening inside your body from a whole systems East Asian medicine perspective. I’m also informed by biomedicine and will ask you questions with this in mind, as well as considering how regulated your nervous system is.
The dynamic in a lot of healthcare settings can often be quite one-sided, where the practitioner takes information from the patient, at a pace they want, and without much time or choice for the person who is seeking care, and the treatment or procedure happens to them. Our work together is more balanced and collaborative and will be responsive to you and paced in a way to takes care of your needs in the sessions.
As we go along in a consultation, I will share with you the links I am making between the signs and symptoms you are experiencing, and how these connect up to patterns related to the different elements, organs, and emotions within the body. This wisdom is rooted in whole systems East Asian medicine and has been developed over thousands of years of observation, and has so much to offer in terms of supporting people in the connection with their own bodies and self, and where disease may be coming from. I hope you take and make use of what feels helpful to you.
Acupuncture Treatments
Acupuncture treatment sessions start with connecting on how you have been since the last session, what life has been like, how you’ve felt in yourself, and the symptoms you’ve had. We might also think about what you have coming up in life and what you might need in yourself as you go through.
Before the treatment, I’ll also ask to look at your tongue and feel your radial pulse on both wrists, at three positions on each side. I’ll not only be looking to feel the pulse rate through it but also the health of all the major organs in your body too. It’s possible to pick up lots of subtle shifts in the body through listening deeply to the pulses and I’ll keep coming back to taking it through a treatment session. After taking the pulses initially, I usually then spend some time talking with you about the type of treatments we might do and agree on how we’ll work together that day, as well as palpating some of the acupuncture points and channels for feedback from you and your body. With some treatments, the acupuncture needles are then quickly inserted in and out for a matter of seconds, and at other times, the needles are left in for much longer while people’s bodies rest and start to repair on the treatment couch. I’ll always be in the treatment room with you, and you are always welcome to ask me to take any needles out if you want me to for any reason. Alongside needles, I may also offer you other treatments in the session such as burning a herb close to your skin called moxa (it’s made from mugwort and is used to help nourish and warm the body), different essential oils or cupping.
The therapeutic relationship and working around trauma have been central to my work for the whole of my career as an acupuncturist and are deeply woven into the way I work.
HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS I’M INFORMED BY, RESPONDING TO AND WORKING WITH TRAUMA IN MY PRACTICE. THERE ARE SEVERAL MORE WAYS YOU’LL BE ABLE TO PICK UP FROM AROUND MY SITE
CENTRE, SETTLE AND SOOTHE
Bringing your body, self and nervous system into a centred, settled and soothed place at the beginning of our work together, and supporting your bodies innate ability to regulate, heal and repair during times of stress and overwhelm. Centre, settle and soothe trauma memory are key treatment strategies I come back to time and time again with clients,
TYPES OF TRAUMA
For me and the way in which I work, I consider how structural trauma, developmental trauma and traumatic events may be feeding into your health and wellbeing, and my work aims to take into consideration their impact. Also the role I have in our therapeutic relationship together, and if/how that could impact you and your treatments is a key part too. As a white person I am continually considering whether my way of working is anti-racist and if any racism may be showing up in my work or the treatment room. I’m also considering how attuned I am to you, and whether my nervous system is in a ventral vagal state in support of you.
THE EXTRAORDINARY VESSELS
These vessels in whole systems East Asian medicine are the first to develop in our bodies as we are growing and developing from conception and through childhood. They store information from our ancestry and from our lived history, and influence how we move forwards in our lives, Through working with these vessels in the body, acupuncture can shift stored memory and help open up new ways of being.
DECOLONISING MY CLIENT WORK
I recognise several areas within acupuncture to decolonise, for example, symbology such as emperor, armies and castles are used to help explain the function of some of the organs and as acupuncture point names. I use story telling of the points, organs and channels to reinforce the treatments I give, and unpick, reframe and find new ways to explain these references that won’t cause harm or extra work for my clients.
UNPICKING GENDER
Female and male, are often used as comparable terms for yin and yang, as binary opposites, but this is not what yin and yang are, they’re not binary opposites. Instead the are inter-relating, dynamic forces that contain some of each other, and are always shifting, yielding and asserting around each other. This understanding weaves through my work.
I also reference bodily function over gendered language when talking about hormonal and reproductive health for example, and won’t make assumptions about who you are and how you navigate in the world in relations to gender.
ANGER AND GRIEF
Emotions such as anger and grief are often hard earned, and often in response to situations that violate our rights and cause significant loses for our potential. This stored up anger for example, can present as Liver Qi Stagnation in whole systems East Asian medicine, and acupuncturist often look to clear away the stuck qi. Rather than automatically clearing this ‘pathology’ I aim to figure out what your body, mind and spirit need to be able to use this stored energy to create change or enhance your life. I don’t believe your anger is there for me to take away, it’s there as a fuel in your life.
some FAQ’s
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My approach when needling is to try and avoid shocking you and your body whenever possible, and I have a very gentle needling technique. I use ultra fine and ultra smooth, high quality Japanese and Taiwanese acupuncture needles, and can offer breathing techniques as well to help minimise sensations. As part of being transparent, it is important you know that you can experience some sensations from time to time. These are nearly always fleeting or temporary and aren’t necessarily painful. There is also the possibility of a bruise from time to time too from the needling. I’ve had lots of people start off afraid and anxious about needles that end up feeling confident and calm about treatment when they leave. Some people say they can’t feel the needles at all.
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TCM is an East Asian whole systems medicine drawing on thousands of years of practice and development. Acupuncture is part of this healing system (along with dietary advice, herbal medicine, massage and qi gong), and is based on the understanding that channels of Qi (or energy) run throughout the body connecting up different areas and bodily systems. When a person is healthy their Qi flows abundantly throughout the channel network but when blockages occur illness can arise in one area of the body, or more commonly, illness can occur systemically in the body impacting physical, mental and emotional health.
Certain lifestyles and environmental factors are seen to affect the free flow of Qi. Among them are emotional stress, physical strain, overworking mentally, prolonged exposure to damp, cold or hot air, poor nutrition and irregular eating patterns, and trauma. During an acupuncture consultation and treatment, identifying the signs and symptoms of the Chinese medicine patterns occurring and the root cause of illness happens through asking questions, taking the pulse on both wrists, and looking at the tongue. Certain acupuncture points are then stimulated to restore and balance Qi flow throughout the body, encouraging health to be restored
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With the law in the UK, acupuncturists can only say they treat a very small number of conditions which regulating bodies have decided there is sufficient, robust evidence for. These are overactive bladder syndrome, tension-type headaches, migraine headaches, lower back pain, neck pain, TMJ pain, and osteoarthritis of the knee. There is very little funding available for running randomised controlled trials, and how acupuncture works means that it isn’t easy to truly evaluate its efficacy in a research setting and so the list of what I can say I treat is limited to this list. However, I hope you have a good idea of me and the way I work from this website. You are very welcome to contact me to ask any questions to see if I can help you if you are unsure. I have also brought together a page of acupuncture research and studies too which maybe helpful.
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I have lots of clients in my practice who are mostly well and want to nurture their health and wellbeing.
There's clients who are working towards events or activities coming up and want to optimise their health and wellbeing, such as preparation for exams, shows, sporting events, weddings or giving birth.
Other people come who are well that want a 'top up' around times of the year they know they might struggle with stress or their immune system might need a boost, such as going into autumn and around Christmas time.
There's also people who are curious about personal growth and development, who want to learn about their bodies and emotions by working together.
Let me know if you want see to how acupuncture might be of benefit to you.
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The way I work takes into consideration who you are as a whole person and looks at the many things that might have fed into your health currently being at the place it is at, and for some people, trauma is a significant part of that, and for others it isn’t relevant. I work in a way that listens deeply and supports your autonomy. Alongside this, I also offer treatments that help to calm, centre, settle and soothe your system (and for some people treatments to brighten and energise) and then more specific and nuanced treatments depending on what you bring in and want us to work with together. Rather than coming in with trauma, you may just want help with headaches and to feel less stressed, and my treatments will help you with that too.
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No you don’t have to, only if you recognise that it is part of your story, that it feels important for you to share it with me and you feel safe enough to. I may ask at some point if something overwhelming or traumatic has happened in connection to something we are talking about to be able to place where symptoms might be coming from as I want to give you the right care and treatments as much as possible, but you don‘t need to tell me more than that something happened if you don’t want to. Some people decide they want to tell me about certain things as they get to know me and our work together. Some people never share with me and they can still benefit from treatment. You are always in control, and if you do decide to share your story with me, I will listen and be present, and help bring about balance in your body through our work together.
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No I'm not working as a sex therapist, only as an acupuncturist, and this training is to help support the work I do in areas of reproductive, genitourinary, emotional health and sexual wellbeing, along with centring consent, autonomy and pacing. I am sex positive in my work, and hold a space where you can talk about or reference all parts of your life and health in our sessions if you want to, without judgement or being pathologised. This might be queer sex, having kinks, taking PREP or PEP, lower arousal levels than you want, your body and sex after babies, having worked as a sex worker or currently working as one, pain during sex.
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You 100% do need to have an initial consultation with me before having an acupuncture treatment. Even if you have been working with another practitioner, you will still need to have this first session with me. The consultation helps us chat in depth about the many parts that are feeding into your current health picture, and we start to make connections about what's going on for you. Many people have fedback to me that they feel something shifts after this first session, and the work we do at the first treatment can be deeper or have more of an affect. It also means if you feel I'm not the right fit, or you're not very sure you want to work with me, that you don't have to go through the process of having a treatment, and if I think you might benefit from the care of one of my colleagues more than mine, I can thoughtfully refer you.
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I'm always happy to answer your questions when working together. Please send me a message through the contact form below and we can arrange a time for a chat.
working with you and your body in thoughtful and collaborative ways
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working with you and your body in thoughtful and collaborative ways //