Havening Biography January 2025
I am a former Registered Nurse in both General Adult and Mental Health, working for 40 years in the National Health Service in Northern Ireland. This experience has equipped me with a sound knowledge and skills base in many illnesses and diseases both in physical and mental health.
It has also helped me understand what good health and wellbeing is and that prevention should be seen as just as important as healing from illness. In addition I worked as a Registered Nurse in General Adult and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for three years.
My experience as a nurse has given me a grounding in professionalism and ethical practice and behaviour, putting the needs of people first and providing patient centred care. Having worked in both general nursing and mental health has helped me understand that there is much more to illness or dis-ease than just physical signs and symptoms.
In 2011 I began to study Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture, believing that the body has a great ability to heal itself if only we could tap into the body’s natural resources. I studied in Dublin, Ireland for three years and as part of the course spent 6 weeks in China studying at the University of Nanjing, as well as working alongside the Chinese doctors at the specialist TCM hospitals.
This increased my understanding of how the body can heal itself. Acupuncture gives equal credence to both physical signs and symptoms and emotional signs and symptoms, recognising that the five main organs (in TCM) the Lung, Heart, Liver, Spleen and Kidney also have an emotional component, i.e. Grief, Joy, Anger, Worry and Fear.
Whereas acupuncture is thousands of years old, Havening is a more current modality. Following a particularly difficult period of time in my life, I came to Havening as a patient initially. I experienced anxiety and agitation after major surgery and sought help from a more holistic approach, rather via the more traditional Western medicine route of being given medication. After 4 sessions of Havening I felt much better and went on immediately to train as a Havening therapist.
I saw that Havening was based on the TCM principles of the meridians moving energy or Qi and that the therapy was a psycho-sensory modality utilising the body’s natural ability to heal.
Through the use of Havening techniques I have worked with patients who have presented with anxiety following marital/relationship break ups, bullying at school, troubling childhood memories and childhood trauma, producing good results where patients have found relief from their symptoms very quickly, often after only one treatment. Havening is safe and gentle, therapeutic and effective, with often patients saying that they were quite surprised at how enjoyable it is, not at all what they were expecting.
I find the use of humour beneficial and being patient and understanding helps to put patients at ease before the therapy starts.
I believe that my experience in all three of these therapeutic approaches (i.e. nursing, acupuncture and Havening) provides me with a strong knowledge and skills base to provide holistic and effective treatment in a thoughtful, caring and compassionate way.