Shanagh Telford

Shanagh joined The Centre in 2018 as a homeopath and Reiki practitioner and also on reception. Later the same year, she took over The Centre when Jacky and Gerry Milner-Walker retired.

Shanagh qualified as a homeopath in 1996 at the College of Homeopathy in London. While studying, she was commissioned to undertake a number of pieces of research looking at clients referred by GPs for homeopathy, osteopathy and acupuncture on the NHS under two different pilot schemes. She went on to become a member of The Society of Homeopath’s Research and Audit Committee and taught Research Methodologies to students at the London College of Classical Homeopathy, supervising students during their final year projects.

In 2003, Shanagh started her Reiki journey and went on to complete this over the next couple of years, hosting regular Reiki shares both while training and afterwards. As both work on an energetic level, she finds the two complement each other well.

In 2014, Shanagh started to explore Coherence Therapy, a methodology for helping clients to achieve breakthroughs in their understanding of their symptoms and has attended a number of courses to explore this further and integrate its techniques within her practice.

Shanagh originally studied microbiology at university, going on to write about drugs in development starting with those at the patent stage, then clinical trials and later writing for GPs and pharmacists. It was during the time that she began to question the approach. Alongside, she was also getting repeatedly ill and frustrated with the lack of support conventionally. In desperation she sought homeopathic treatment after a recommendation. It wasn’t overly helpful with the acute illnesses, unfortunately (the insight that changed that came later), but it had such a profound effect on other aspects of her life that she decided to look into it further. When she first started studying, she wasn’t intending to practice but what she learnt and the results she observed changed her entire perspective. While conventional medicine recognises susceptibility, the idea that some people are more likely to get certain illnesses, it largely ignores it in terms of treatment. Homeopathy places it at the heart – why this person, with this symptom, at this time? It is truly interested in the whole person – even the same medical diagnosis will present differently in each person and homeopathy is interested in difference rather than similarity.

As Practice Manager, Shanagh is interested in all forms of alternative and complementary medicine and how it can be used to help people improve their understanding of themselves and their health.  Homeopathy and Reiki are the modalities she’s trained in and she works collaboratively with other practitioners within The Centre, referring on where she feels another approach may be more appropriate either independently or alongside homeopathy and reiki. She feels strongly that the relationship between practitioner and client is an important factor in the journey  towards greater health and wellbeing.

To support Shanagh in her practice, she has supervision and attends courses to extend her knowledge and understanding. Shanagh is a member of the Federation of Holistic Therapists (FHT).