Helix House Natural Health Centre, Oxford, UK

Patients' Stories

The following is an excerpt from a letter written to Mr Clive Lindley-Jones regarding one of his recent Sunflower therapy patients:

Nicola's story

"Sunflower has helped me because I have changed. It has helped me with my attitude to life and taught me that my problems are not all physical. It has helped me put things into perspective and shown me how much will-power I have."

- Nicola

Nicola moved to Junior School full of her usual enthusiasm for life and ready to put in 110% as she always had. Nicolas has always been a very sensitive, caring and active child. We had not been without any problems in previous years. Nicola had suffered frequently from ear infections as a child which subsequently affected her speech. We had spent 2 years undergoing speech therapy quite successfully. In hindsight, I can see that although the speech therapy tackled the specific issue of sound formation we were not addressing the emotional side.

Nicola has always been extremely aware of what is happening to her and very quick to put pressure on herself when she does not achieve as she knows she can. This has been very difficult to cope with as the pressure was from within. We have always supported our children to work to their own potential.

After not achieving in Year 3 we were concerned and sought help. The School were not particularly helpful, ruling out worries of Dyslexia and we were told Nicola�s problems were not bad enough to be tested by the Educational Psychologist. Birmingham LEA does not recognise/support Dyslexia. However, they did agree to give her support with her handwriting and we continued for nearly half an academic year seeing little improvement and Nicola felt increasingly frustrated.

During the Summer of Year 4 we paid privately for Nicola to be assessed by the Dyslexia Association. We were told that Nicola had a well above average IQ and was quite obviously dyslexic. We were advised to make her teachers aware of the fact that Nicola was extremely able but had specific problems with presentation and spelling inaccuracy. Another area of difficulty was auditory recall, which could present problems in holding to memory lengthy verbal instructions or information.

School took this information with little regard, the SENCO of that time not believing in Dyslexia. This was followed by an extremely hard time for us all and I can only liken it to stumbling around in a fog, which was not particularly helpful to Nicola. After a number of explored avenues which involved tests, workshops, one-to-ones, etc. we found a private tutor who went a long way to restoring Nicola�s self-esteem and she started to believe in herself again. By this time, we were in Year 6! This tutoring looked set to follow Nicola through Secondary School. However, sadly Nicola�s tutor became quite ill and had to give up her teaching. This was in Year 7. Nicola had built up quite a relationship with Hilary and we were all really upset. This again left us floundering with Nicola adamant that she did not want another tutor. By this time, we were receiving quite good support within her Secondary School and I decided to leave it alone for a while. However, Nicola was still not coping with a lot of aspects of school life.

After about 6 months, I saw an advert of the Sunflower Trust in a family magazine and followed this up. We made our first trip to Clive in the summer holidays, the theory being that most of the treatment would be able to happen during this time. It has taken a lot longer than originally though but I do not regret our decision to follow this road.

Nicola was very wary of seeing someone else. However, Clive put her at ease and had her laughing through the initial tests. Clive had always explained every step of the way to Nicola and has helped her rebuild her self-image. It has not always been easy. When we discovered Nicola�s intolerance to dairy, we had to give up milk and chocolate (this was hard for the whole family) but Nicola did it.

Nicola is now a much calmer, more focused person, she is able to cope at school with the problems that she has. We have just achieved Level 5 in German, which is a higher level than she should be. As her SENCO told us at her last parents� evening, �I think Nicola is flying now� and we need to move her up an English group. We are really proud of Nicola and only wish we had found Sunflower and Clive earlier.

- Parent