I graduated in 1991 with a foundation degree in Medical Physics and Physiological Measurement. For the last 27 years, I have worked in the NHS as a Cardiac Physiologist. 

As a mature student, I returned to university to explore my great love of art and graduated with a BA hons in Photography in 2005. 

 

My introduction to reflexology, was from a doctor who specialised in chronic pain management. I was so surprised that he used this therapy, as I had put it in the category of woolly stuff or hocus pocus. However, he asserted that he found it effective in alleviating some of the symptoms and in aiding pain reduction. Although interested, it was not until several years later that I used it. While on holiday I suffered an horrendous attack of gallstones (biliary colic). I had no medication and it was 3 am. Writhing in agony, I remembered the doctor’s words and I applied pressure to the gall bladder reflex. Much to my amazement and relief, the pain reduced a notch or two, and I could get some sleep. Months went by, and I struggled with bouts of trigeminal neuralgia. Again, caught without medication, I turned to reflexology for pain relief. The same reduction in pain occurred. Once could have been coincidence, twice raises curiosity. By then, I was convinced that there was something in this therapy that I had to discover and learn more about.

 

I did extensive research to find the best course and the best teacher. The Level 5 diploma in Clinical Reflexology (equivalent to an associate degree) is currently the highest qualification in reflexology in the UK. It is specifically aimed at health professionals. My tutor Hagar Basis is a world-renowned teacher whose educational lineage goes directly back to Eunice Ingham the ‘mother’ of modern western reflexology.

 

 “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.”

Hippocrates

 

Well-being is not 100% science, nor a pure art from it inhabits the space between, and this is where reflexology lives.