Chelsea Natural Health Clinic

Person Centred Art Therapy by Nicola Croote at Chelsea Natural Health Clinic, Fulham Rd.,SW10

What is Person Centred Art Therapy?
Person centred art therapy can be used as a tool to help you discover more about yourself and bring any unconscious issues into your awareness. It works by helping you to get in touch with your right brain, the part of the brain that is more creative, spontaneous and playful.

What happens in a person centred art therapy session?
I will invite you to close your eyes if you feel comfortable to do so and will lead you through a relaxation exercise . I will ask you to allow an image to come up for you when I say a particular word, for example ‘flower’ I will ask you to notice everything that you can about the image eg. where is the flower? what does it look like? is there anything else that you can see? I will then invite you when you are ready to choose paper and pens, pencils, paints, pastels etc (whatever you feel like using) to draw your image. Once your image is completed I will go through your image with you asking you specific questions about it in order to help you make the connections that will help you to understand more about yourself and issues in your life. Whatever is in your unconscious mind and is relevent to your current or future situation will be portrayed in your image. My job is to help you discover this in a safe, supportive and creative way.

Why Person Centred Art Therapy?
Because every now and then we can get stuck in our lives and even talking about it doesn’t help. Person Centred Art Therapy is a way of helping you to get unstuck by making you aware of new possiblities or behaviours and feelings that are preventing you from moving forward.

But what if I can’t draw?
It really doesn’t matter if you think that you can’t draw very well as it is not about admiring the end product, it is about the process of making the image and finding out the meaning underneath. Lots of people I have worked with including myself held this belief to start with but I encourage you to trust the process and just have fun with it! Person Centred Art Therapy can really surprise you with what it can uncover.

How much is a Person Centred Art Therapy session?
Sessions are £50
or
a block of 6 sessions is £250

If you would like to try a Person Centre Art Therapy session or would like to book a block of 6 sessions to help you work on a specific issue book an appointment contact me on 07841 420067 or email me at ncroote@nicolacroote.com

We are not interested in your headache

by Craig Coman of Chelsea Natural Health Clinic, Fulham Rd, London, SW10

Find the cause of your problem….

Why? Because your headache is only the symptom. To get a different result in life you need a different approach – that is a principle of life. I am going to say something that may sound whacky but here goes…. your symptom (pain, signal, sign) is NEVER the problem. Now I know you should never use the word never, but that is my belief. AND….. The reason alternative medicine will never compete with orthodox or western medicine is because to take a pill or potion you do not need to change anything.

This clinic has been running since 1991 and although it changed location and name last year the health problems we see through the door remain constant. I myself like to see a variety of challenges because it keeps it interesting – infertility, digestive problems, children, low vitality are always more challenging than an ankle injury. They may in fact be related but that does not fit our western concept of everything fitting into a box that matches a piece of research, meaning it is proven. The way to find the cause will be what I call ‘peeling the onion’ – looking into the layers to find evidence and clues as to what the causes might be and from there a resolution is possible. A headache is not really a diagnosis, it is just a label to tell you the symptom the patient is complaining about and the reason they came through your door. The Osteopathic criteria has five categories that allow understanding and a clear path for treatment, these are:

1. Aetiology – or the cause if known. This may be an accident or lifting something heavy for example. “My back pain started as I was lowering the fridge into the car”, “ I felt something go….” Often the cause is unknown e.g. “I just woke with a sore neck this morning”.
2. Tissues causing symptoms – this helps you clarify whether it is muscle, ligament, vascular, organ etc. As Osteopaths we are trained to treat the different tissues but we first need to know what tissue is in trouble. A headache that is pounding suggests it is a vascular headache caused by the blood supply being compromised. This could be through dehydration, neck tension etc.
3. Predisposing factors – this is an important area because it tells you why and what led to a problem. Sometimes difficult to distinguish but very useful information because once someone knows what they did to make it happen they can avoid that in the future. If someone understands that their headache is caused by dehydration then they know they need to drink more – simple.
4. Maintaining factors – this is also extremely useful and often predisposing and maintaining factors are synonymous. If not drinking enough water led to a headache then the same reason will keep the headache from resolving itself.
5. Pathology – this is when tissues and cells are changing and is what we call a disease process or pathology. This is when the condition is getting serious and is always related to toxicity.

These criteria can also be used in any area of life. Why not try them and see if they work?

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