Dr. Catherine Woodlock
Co-owner, Acupuncturist, TCM Herbalist, Miscarriage Doula, OBAAM, Shamanic Practitioner
Catherine is a Doctor of Acupuncture, Classical Chinese Herbalist, shamanic practitioner, and holistic miscarriage and birth doula. Her journey into medicine began through shamanism in 2007, studying with the Kimmapii Community in the Crowsnest Mountains. Years of travelling and shamanic exploration eventually gave way to a longing for more structured medicine, one that could give framework to her calling to serve. This led her to the 5 year Doctor of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture program in the heart of the Kootenays at the Academy of Classical Oriental Sciences.
After graduating in 2017, she deepened her studies in fertility, mental health, gynaecology, obstetrics, and internal medicine. Soon after starting clinical practice, she became pregnant with her daughter, and the harrowing pregnancy that followed shocked her into learning everything she could about obstetrics, so she could better ease her patients' path. Her birth blew her mind, its altered states, its healing potential, and taught her that birth can be a portal, one of the greatest ceremonies a woman can enter. She went on to complete the Holistic Doula program with Whapio and join the Obstetrical Acupuncture Association.
Catherine also walked her own path through fertility, trying to conceive a sibling for her daughter, and experienced three devastating miscarriages: one that broke her heart open, another that put it back together, and a third she's still making sense of. In communicating with those little souls, here and gone too quickly, she learned there is powerful, if difficult, medicine in that place of grief, and she hopes to offer others a safe space through their own experience of miscarriage.
She continues deepening her study of acupuncture, herbal medicine, and shamanic practice, recently completing a year-long mentorship with Sharon Weizenbaum of White Pine Circle on the Great Turnings of a Woman's Life, a classical framework that's reinspired her formula work and opened new lines of inquiry in her cases. Over the years, she's come to see that emotional and spiritual dimensions of physiology are often what truly hold a person back from healing, and so it's come full circle: she now offers shamanic healings and shamanic acupuncture in the treatment room.
Catherine is beyond excited to open Willow House with her sister in St. Albert, thrilled to practice alongside incredible colleagues and create herbal formulas on site.
Outside of clinic, she's obsessively learning and taking courses, listening to records and sipping tea with her family and cats, dancing in her kitchen, and watching in awe as her little one blossoms into a full human.
She looks forward to sharing stories, time, and medicine with you in the treatment room.