York Clinic

Harriet Lansdown

MSc, Dip Ac, MBAcC, MHEA

Harriet Lansdown practises acupuncture in York. She is an experienced, professional and down to earth acupuncturist, who has helped many people regain their health and achieve a better quality of life.

Harriet has a lot of experience in treating pain, and sees many people with arthritis, sciatica, lower back pain, neck pain and all sorts of joint and muscle problems. She has developed an effective method of treatment that uses acupuncture, massage and sometimes, heat treatment and cupping. Lifestyle advice and recommendations for exercises and techniques to use at home also form part of her work. This combined approach to treating pain gets good results.

As an academic, she has worked for many degree programmes in Chinese medicine, and has been involved in research studies, particularly exploring whether acupuncture is effective for osteoarthritis of the knee.

Acupuncture is really useful for infertility, pregnancy and managing pain and problems in labour. Since working with Sophie Carr, a yoga teacher who specialises in yoga in pregnancy, Harriet has gained a lot of experience in treating pregnant women. Particularly popular, is help with nausea, tiredness, backache, delayed labour and a simple treatment for turning breech babies.

Professional acupuncturists treat all sorts of health problems, because they focus on treating the person rather than the disease. Although Harriet has particular expertise in certain areas, she also sees many patients with problems such as fatigue, menstrual and menopausal problems, headaches and migraine, digestive disorders, insomnia, anxiety, depression and many others. Some of these conditions are discussed in a little more detail on her website www.acupunctureinyork.co.uk and include patients' comments on their treatment.

Professional Membership

Harriet is a member of the British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) which regulates professional acupuncturists in the Uk. The BAcC requires adherence to Codes of Practice and Conduct and supports  a CPD programme.

Academic work

Harriet became involved in teaching in 1998, and has taught extensively for a number of colleges and universities. She says ‘working with students, teachers and other health professionals has been a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge, and to extend my understanding and skills across a wide range of topics.’ Over the last 10 years acupuncture education has undergone considerable development and is now taught at degree level. These courses now involve research, professional practice education, extensive understanding of Western medicine, a minimum of 400 hours in clinical practice as well as a deep and thorough knowledge of Chinese medicine.

Harriet has worked with the following teaching institutions:

  • London South Bank University
  • Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China
  • Leeds Metropolitan University
  • University of Lincoln
  • University of Salford
  • Northern College of Acupuncture
  • College of Traditional Acupuncture
  • College of Naturopathic Medicine

After teaching acupuncture and massage for students on the MSc degree at the Northern College of Acupuncture, Harriet moved to the University of Salford, as course leader for their BSc (Hons) acupuncture programme. In 2004, she took a group of students from Salford University to China, to study acupuncture and Tui Na at the No. 1 Teaching Hospital, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Tianjin. She says ‘It was a real education to see Chinese medicine used on such a grand scale. We worked in several of about 20 out-patient acupuncture clinics running all day 6 days a week. The hospital also had 3 floors of in-patient wards, as well as herbal, Tui Na and physiotherapy clinics.’

Harriet is an accredited site visitor for the British Acupuncture Accreditation Board (BAAB), and was previously a member of their Accreditation Committee. She served on the Executive Committee of the British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) and worked with the Code of Safe Practice Committee helping to develop new codes for the profession in advance of statutory regulation.

In 2007 Harriet was awarded an MSc in Health Services Research at the University of York. Her research project concerned acupuncture treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee. The research was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

For more details see the website: www.acupunctureinyork.co.uk