Body, Mind and Spirit

Written by Rev. Di Williams, founder of The Natural Healthcare Centre Circa 1988

When the Chaplaincy Centre was built 30 years ago, it was envisaged as a resource for staff and students ‘of all faiths and none’. Welcome, inclusivity, and care for the individual have remained a high priority. Throughout the years the Centre has sought to be an ‘open’ place of meeting, dialogue, learning, stillness, nourishment, celebration and care.

In keeping with that sense of openness and care, an already established massage therapy room became the venue for the University’s Natural Healthcare Centre. Therapists who until that time had been operating independently, from different places on campus, came together as a group of therapists working under a common code of good practice. The Chaplaincy offered the therapy room rent free on the basis that the group could then discount their rates for students. *

For the Rev. Di Williams, Anglican Chaplain and qualified practitioner, this is important. Students, who are making choices about their health care, need access to reasonably priced treatment. The Natural Healthcare Centre provides that. For many international students it is their usual and preferred type of health care. For a growing number of others, both students and staff, it offers a model of health care which is accessible, chosen, personal, and seeks to treat the whole self… body, mind/emotions and spirit.

In line with the general philosophy of the Chaplaincy Centre, those who come for therapies are ‘of all faiths and none’. All are welcome. The only agenda is personal care and good treatment.

* 2010 – The group now pays a subsidised rent for the room, still allowing discounted rates for both students and staff.