I trained as an Osteopath and Naturopath in London, UK, graduating in 1988. I am not a licensed naturopathic physician in Canada, because of differences in the training and practice of naturopathic medicine here in North America, as opposed to in Europe and elsewhere. I do certainly utilize my naturopathic training as a background to my work as an osteopathic practitioner. If you need the services of an licensed ND, there are several people I can heartily recommend here in Victoria.

My work as an osteopath, or as we are required to call ourselves here in Canada, an osteopathic practitioner, has developed and evolved over the 30+ years of my practice. I help people work with all of the typical muscle-skeletal ailments and complaints that you might consult a chiropractor, physiotherapist, RMT, or other body-work therapist to address. As with those therapies, and indeed the approach of my osteopathic practitioner colleagues, I do use a hands-on approach - though one that a is deeply subtle and attuned to what the person/child/infant/animal’s body tells me directly. I work with people of all ages and, as a small portion of my practice, also work with some animals - mostly dogs, but cats, occasionally. I have worked with horses, goats and sheep - though rarely, in recent years.

A substantial part of my work is a form of counselling. That is to say that I deeply listen and attend to all that you relay in telling me your case history story, or in updates in follow-up sessions, as treatment continues. Combining that listening to what you relate about the problem to be addressed, with what I glean from deeply listening to what your body has to say, directly, I can then REFLECT BACK what it is your body needs to have heard, and felt (even if you do not have conscious access to whatever that is). I have put “REFLECT BACK” in capitals because it is at the core of what I offer to you as a patient/client/person. It is a kind of biofeedback, but without the usual equipment to monitor a particular physiological function. Instead, your whole organism, and physical energetic field is apprehended, just as it is, in that moment, and the reflection I facilitate is all that is needed for your body to begin to move toward better functional integration. The specifics of the change that a treatment can bring about, and the amount of energy you have available to process, integrate and consolidate those changes that become available through that process vary greatly. Reading those signs and staying attentive and respectful of them is also part of my job. I am still learning to go more deeply and ever-more-subltey into that place of presence that supports this attuned reflection. That will never cease as long as I continue to practice.

I trained as an Osteopath and Naturopath in London, UK, graduating in 1988. I am not a licensed n... Read More