We don't just treat the pain,
We change the response driving the pattern underneath.
Clinical treatment for pain that keeps coming back.
Chronic Pain is rarely random.
Finding what keeps it going is where we start.
Manual therapy addresses structural tension and restriction in the tissue.
Acupuncture works on the nervous system response underneath it.
Targeted exercises help you move more freely again and build stability and strength.
For long-standing or complex pain, treatment works alongside the Shift the Field Method.
As a new client your first appointment is approximately 90 minutes long to go through your consultation and your treatment.
The Shift the Field Method
From Autopilot to Agency
Acute pain and chronic pain are different problems. With a new injury, we step in quickly so your recovery completes while the tissue is still repairing.
Pain that keeps coming back has become a learned response. When pain returns persistently, your nervous system learns to expect it and starts protecting you early, tightening and guarding before anything has happened. Think of a smoke alarm that goes off every time you make toast. Treating the tissue helps. Retraining the alarm means it goes off for a real fire, not simply for a piece of toast. Think of a dog that pulls on the lead because he's so excited to get to all the smells, his primal response drives his behaviour but entirely without your control. If we tighten the lead, it may interrupt him momentarily but he pulls harder to fight it. To train him out of it longterm, we have to make his pulling more effortful than it would be to follow nicely on the lead. So we steadily turn him back the other way in a loop, so he has to come back to go forward. Soon he realises by pulling he actually gets there slower than if he didn't. Your back pain is the dog pulling - it's' the most efficient response it has because it simply hasn't been trained out of its' habits - it pulls without any of your control. You simply never quite know what your back is going to do, until it does.
Most treatment people are offered works on only one aspect. When the response has already happened. Like running an F1 Car, changing the tyres and the oil but never running the diagnostics to discover the a sensor is off, jeopardising how safe it is to drive the car because now the brakes don't work. Hands-on treatment works on the body but that's only half of it. The Shift the Field Method works on the nervous system from both ends at once: brain and body. This is a dual approach because we believe one without the other would be incomplete.
The Shift the Field Method is in practical written and audio guides for immediate download on purchase. Begin today to start creating long term change tomorrow.
Mission
Everything we offer is built around one principle:
when the nervous system has a bridge to safety, change becomes possible. That means creating the right conditions
for the body to allow change, recovery, repair whilst also respecting that making the body work harder
does not equal a better outcome. Quite the opposite. An inflammatory response is essential to healing and repair,
but excessive or prolonged inflammation can work directly against the desired outcome.
That's why we believe "Less is more" and why we treat both the body and skin the same way.
Building strength and capacity takes time. Being forceful and aggressive can hinder this process rather than help.
This is also why we consider "no pain no gain" outdated and short-sighted. It lacks finesse.
After all, it is easy to inflict pain than to achieve results without it.
From our clinical treatment and framework method Shift the Field,
each layer of intervention is designed to facilitate change and re-train the system
to adapt and build capacity, because when life changes, what we need changes with it.
Our skincare and products are also designed by this philosophy.
About
After gaining my MA in Philosophy at St Andrews and my master's in International Law at Edinburgh, I moved to London. Whilst completing my further law studies there, I decided to change direction completely. I felt I wasn't going to be helping people the way I'd imagined, or the way I wanted to. I came back to Edinburgh to help care for my terminally ill grandmother. I was applying cream to her legs to make her feel more comfortable and she simply said; "The law is all very well and clever dear, but you really should be doing something with your hands." For once I listened, and retrained as a manual therapist and acupuncturist. Drawing on 14 years in clinic, Shift the Field is my answer to the question clients kept asking: why does the pain keep coming back? All the while, I'd been asking myself another question for years: why do we need to respond a certain way? The method brings the two together. It's about changing the state from which we operate in, to retrain the automatic threat response in persistent, complex and chronic pain, as well those recurring in other areas of life.
Anne-Martine Dicke, MA (Hons), LLM
"Out of your vulnerabilities
will come your strength."
Get in touch:
tel:07713135395
"Woodlands", Beech Avenue,
Ladybank, Fife, Ky15 7ng
Monday - Thursday : 8.30am - 4.30pm
Friday: 8.30am - 3pm
Strictly by Appointment Only.
Important Notice:
All services are provided by a licensed therapist & acupuncture practitioner.