Naturopathy

What is holistic or alternative or natural medicine? Naturopathic medicine is a distinct primary health profession, emphasizing prevention, treatment, and optimal health through the use of therapeutic methods and substances that encourage individuals’ inherent self-healing process.

A traditional naturopath specializes in wellness. That is to say, teaching clients how applying natural lifestyle approaches can act to facilitate the body’s healing and health building potential. A traditional or classical naturopath does not undertake to diagnose or treat disease but recognizes that the majority of sub-health conditions are cumulative effects. An improper diet is most times the underlying cause of disease , as well as unhealthy habits and environmental factors that cause biological imbalances leading to a weakening of the body’s defenses and subsequent breakdown in health.  The practice of traditional naturopathy is not considered the practice of medicine and is legal in all 50 states; however, some states have made naturopathy illegal unless licensed. This is because legislature is grouping classical naturopaths with naturopathic physicians. Naturopathic physicians have a 4-year degree that includes pharmacology and minor surgery, which should require a license.

All disease is one and what medical doctors call diseases are only symptoms of a greater underlying problem. Disease is nothing more than a manifestation of our body trying to correct imbalances. Imbalances due to faulty nutritional patterns, improper rest, stress management and other lifestyle considerations, which over time, result in a weakening of the body. By the time disease appears on the scene it is very late in the game.

Our body tells us early on when there is a problem and we can either respond to this message or try to suppress the symptoms that the body uses to tell us there is a problem. You can take ibuprofen or other drugs to suppress the symptoms and they will help for a short time. However, unless the underlying problem (or “root driver”) is corrected, eventually the symptoms will no longer be helped by these drugs and one will need to take stronger and stronger drugs to quiet the body’s message. If the underlying problem has not been addressed, the body will begin to break down structurally. At this time modern medicine is finally capable of diagnosing that something is really wrong and offer interventions to fix the structure, but still medical doctors fail to address the underlying problem.

Naturopathy concentrates on identifying destructive aspects in lifestyles that lead to imbalances. Before symptoms manifest and long before a diagnosis can be rendered, these destructive aspects of our lifestyle can be identified and corrected. Once corrected, the body automatically corrects itself. Diagnosing disease and illness is totally unnecessary to correcting the underlying problems that result in disease and illness. A true assisting healer does not waste her time concentrating on naming diseases but rather on identifying those underlying factors that if not addressed result in the manifestation of disease and illness. These factors can be identified and corrected long before it is even possible to receive any diagnosis. Even after a diagnosis is made the same concepts of healing used by classical naturopaths are equally effective because once balance is restored the body automatically heals itself.