Integrative Medicine is a whole-person field of healthcare that draws on medical science, Functional Medicine, and a wide range of evidence-informed complementary, bio-energetic and mind–body approaches, used safely and thoughtfully within a clinical setting.
Rather than replacing conventional medical care, Integrative Medicine creates a broader framework in which different perspectives can inform and support one another, shaped around the individual.
Integrative Medicine as the wider field of care
As an Integrative Medicine clinic, The Forbes Clinic works from the understanding that no single approach can fully capture the complexity of health.
Functional Medicine plays an important role within this field, offering detailed insight into biological systems, lifestyle influences, and personalised health patterns. Integrative Medicine goes further by placing this biological understanding within a wider context that also includes mind–body medicine, psycho-emotional support, energetic influences, and the spiritual dimensions of health.
This allows care to be responsive, layered, and deeply individual.
A strong emphasis on mind–body and emotional wellbeing
A defining feature of Integrative Medicine is its focus on the relationship between mind, body, and emotional experience.
Stress, trauma, belief systems, emotional patterns, and life experiences can all influence how we experience health and illness. Integrative Medicine creates space to explore these dimensions alongside physical health, supporting awareness, regulation, and resilience.
This approach recognises that emotional wellbeing is not separate from physical health, but an integral part of it.
Integrative Medicine takes a broad and inclusive view of wellbeing, considering physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health.
Rather than separating symptoms from the person experiencing them, this approach recognises that health unfolds within the context of a person’s life, relationships, values, and sense of meaning. Care is shaped around the individual, their priorities, and their capacity for change.
Exploring the meaning and context of health experiences
Within Integrative Medicine, symptoms and health experiences are explored not only in physical terms, but also in relation to personal meaning, life context, and lived experience.
This does not involve diagnosing disease or assigning specific causes. Instead, it encourages reflective curiosity about how the body responds to stress, habits, emotional patterns, and life events, supporting insight and a deeper relationship with one’s health.
Empowering self-care and personal agency
At its centre, Integrative Medicine is about empowerment.
Practitioners work collaboratively, offering guidance, education, and perspective rather than prescriptive solutions. The aim is to support individuals in developing understanding, awareness, and practical tools that help them care for themselves with confidence and clarity.
Integrative Medicine encourages informed choice, shared decision-making, and active participation in health and wellbeing.
Within Integrative Medicine, Dr Anna Forbes has created a five-area framework to help make sense of complex or long-standing health patterns. This framework is used as a clinical lens, not as a diagnostic rule, and helps guide exploration during Integrative Medicine consultations and health assessments.
These areas include:
Nutrient status
Supporting optimal nutrition and absorption, recognising that dietary intake and digestive function can influence wellbeing.
Environmental and toxic load
Considering potential exposures such as mould, heavy metals, chemicals, and electromagnetic stressors that may place additional demand on the body.
Structural and physical influences
Exploring areas such as dental health, musculoskeletal alignment, posture, and chronic tension, particularly where these may affect the nervous system.
Psycho-emotional stress and trauma
Acknowledging the role of emotional stress, unresolved experiences, and long-term nervous system activation in shaping health patterns.
Epigenetic and individual variation
Recognising that each person’s biology responds differently to life experiences, environment, and lifestyle, influenced by their unique genetic blueprint.
This framework helps ensure that care is comprehensive, rather than focused on one area alone.
Integrative Medicine recognises that mind and body are deeply interconnected.
Emotional stress, trauma, and subconscious patterns can influence physiological processes such as immune function, digestion, and stress regulation. For this reason, Integrative Medicine at The Forbes Clinic often integrates psycho-emotional and energetic approaches alongside Functional Medicine and physical therapies.
This allows care to address not only biochemical and structural factors, but also the emotional and energetic dimensions that are sometimes overlooked in conventional models of healthcare.
Therapies used within Integrative Medicine at The Forbes Clinic
To support this whole-person approach, Integrative Medicine at The Forbes Clinic may draw on a combination of:
Functional Medicine and advanced testing
Including DNA-based insights, hormone testing, nutritional therapy, and Micro-Immunotherapy, where appropriate.
Traditional and herbal therapies
Such as Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, herbalism, advanced supplementation, and moxibustion.
Mind–body medicine
Including approaches such as German New Medicine–informed work, Integrative Hypnotherapy, and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Emotional and trauma-informed therapies
Including the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and psychoneuroimmunology-informed approaches.
Structural and physical support
Including acupuncture, PhysioKey, SCENAR therapy, red light therapy, and craniosacral therapy.
All therapies are selected and combined based on individual needs, preferences, and clinical appropriateness.
While closely related, these approaches have distinct roles.
Book a Discovery Call
If you’re curious about Integrative Medicine and want to explore whether this comprehensive, whole-person approach could support your wellbeing, we invite you to book a 15-minute Discovery Call.
This call offers an opportunity to:
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Dr. Anna Forbes is a UK-licensed Integrative Medicine Doctor specializing in chronic disease, gut health, autoimmune recovery, and hormone balance. With over 15 years of medical experience, she has helped hundreds of patients regain their health by combining the best of functional medicine, nutritional therapy, Micro Immunotherapy, and emotional healing.
Dr Sheila Richards is a UK-licensed GP, and advanced Functional Medicine practitioner with a special interest in psycho-neuro-immunology & systems biology for the management of chronic disease. She empowers her patients to overcome debilitating symptoms & optimise their health & wellbeing without the need for prescribed medications.
Dr Ayiesha Malik is a practicing UK-licensed GP, Nutritionist, Homeopath and Acceptance & Commitment Therapist. She has a special interest in emotional trauma, chronic pain and mental health. She works extensively with the mind-body connection, integrating talking therapies and life coaching to lessen the impact of debilitating daily symptoms and address the root cause of chronic pain.
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