Gabriella Doran LicAc. MBAcC, acupuncture practitioner, is Neighbourhood Enterprise Centre's longest-term resident, having been at the centre since its inception in 2004.

What I love about my practice here at Neighbourhood Enterprise Centre, is that it is right in the heart of the wonderful diverse community of W9. Many of my patients travel much further to see me, but it is also important to me that I am serving my community making this profound system of medicine available to locals from all walks of life.

I practice a style of acupuncture known as Classical Five Element Acupuncture (CF-EA) which was pioneered in the West by the late master of this tradition, Professor J. R. Worsley. What is unique about it, is that it aims to determine the root cause of disease, illness or imbalance in each person, so treating what each individual needs to return them to good health, rather than having a particular formula for each symptom or condition. For example, many people suffer from migraines, but instead of having one formula for ‘migraines,’ there are many possible ways I can treat that condition, and all of them are determined by what the individual person that I am treating needs, so ten different migraine sufferers would receive ten completely different courses of treatment from me. This makes the treatment entirely focussed on the person, who in turn feels the benefit of their symptoms disappearing, as well as a greater sense of well-being.

I see symptoms as signs of deeper distress in a person. Everything is connected; we know this because we cannot go out to work and leave our backache at home. Often people will come to me with half a dozen problems, and ask if I can do anything about all of them or if the treatment will be geared towards one symptom only. I reply that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t help but to treat all of them as I’m treating their whole. It’s almost like giving the patient’s body a tool box to go and fix its problems with.

There are many reasons people seek help from me, from physical discomfort to emotional breakdown to being stuck and unable to move on with their lives. For some, my clinic is a last resort, as they have found medications have fallen short of really helping their condition, or simply that their over-worked GP doesn’t have the time to really listen and find out what is going on beyond the physical symptoms. I love my job because I know that I can really be there for every person who comes to see me and because of that, and of course the profound system of medicine that I practice, they get real improvement in their health and well-being.

If you have any questions about acupuncture please do send me an e-mail on Gabriella@5-element-acupuncture.co.uk or call me on 0781 314 1098.