Joanne Bechard

Throughout my life and varied career, I’ve had many people comment on how I’m such a calming influence on them, a voice of reason and objectiveness. This has been the constant in everything I’ve undertaken in my work and is the reason I chose to focus on practicing holistic therapy. I believe everyone has the ability to heal and be healed, it just takes the right circumstances and people in your life to facilitate it.

I’ve been very fortunate to have experienced life in many different countries and in a career that has spanned many years in the service industry, first in Hospitality after gaining my BA Hotel Services Management degree at Edinburgh Napier University. During my time managing restaurants, bars and hotels I found a passion in all things holistic to help manage my stress levels and studied Swedish & On-Site Chair Massage at the Lothian School of Massage in Edinburgh in 2000. I was honoured and humbled when I won the award for ‘Most Outstanding Graduate’ which confirmed that I really was living my passion.

And so I started my own business as a therapist working from home and in the corporate industry. I still felt drawn to continue my studies in the holistic field and so in 2014 I trained in Reiki I & II in the USA, eventually gaining my Reiki Master qualification in 2016. This opened up a whole new level of therapy and allowed me to really gain an intuitive understanding of anxiety and stress related issues in both young people and adults. I have treated military veterans with PTSD and TBI as well as children & young people with autism, anxiety and eating disorders. I use my skills as a holistic therapist to help my clients connect to their feelings and emotions, helping to release trauma on both an energetic and physical level. In the last year, I have added Sound Healing to my list of skills, using the vibrational energy of quartz crystal and Tibetan singing bowls to help induce a meditative state and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. I believe that a combination of therapies is an important part of the healing process and can access parts of the mind body connection that allopathic medicine has struggled to treat. Wellness is a journey and it is on this journey of discovery of self that we can understand how to nurture and heal mind, body and soul. I am proud and honoured to be working alongside some of the top health professionals here at TRC whose dedication to and passion for their clients’ successful recovery is unrivalled.