About Me
Qualified to practice acupuncture since 1996, I have successfully treated numerous patients with a wide variety of conditions. I enjoy bringing people to better health and try to work myself out of a job with patients by tapering their need to see me as their well-being returns.
My aim is to engage a person’s ability to heal through the use of careful assessment and specific treatment in a calm and caring environment. In-depth discussions with patients are an important part of my work as is liaison with other health care professionals when necessary.
During treatment I like to explain to the patient why I am doing what I am doing and to observe with them how capable the body is of responding to small stimuli with profound changes. For example, in response to one needle, breathing may become easier, the belly may relax or some long held muscular tension may begin to let go of itself. Patients remark on my use of metaphor during treatment. So, with a patient who works as a reporter, I may talk about how the needles, in a sense, have to ask skillful questions to elicit the most complete response. With a musician I may talk more about bringing the body into tune through its response to treatment.
My approach to treatment is holistic. In my practice of acupuncture I do not imagine that there is a linear or causal link between mental and emotional habits and physical symptoms. Recent medical studies suggest, for example, that men who lose their tempers frequently show a higher tendency to have heart attacks, which is usually interpreted to mean that anger causes heart attacks. From my perspective it is more accurate and useful to say that the kind of body that has heart attacks often houses the kind of mind that is easily angered. This type of constitution tends toward inflammation of one type or another. Find the underlying root and you may address both issues without blaming one for the other. This principle is fundamental to my approach.