Naturopathy is simply another word for natural medicine. It is a very ancient science (the word ‘science’ means knowledge) that has its roots in the Indian and Chinese healing traditions. In the West, these traditions have branched out into many different disciplines, but at the core of all of them is naturopathic nutritional therapy, or simply naturopathic nutrition.

naturopathic schools

Naturopathic training today is divided into two types. The first type is sometimes known as “natural hygiene.” It involves eating fresh, natural (often raw) foods, internal cleansing, detoxification, and fasting. With this type of naturopathy, little has changed since the days before antibiotics, when Harry Benjamin, Henry Lindlahr and similar leaders practiced naturopathy in the natural health movement. It was a very real and often effective treatment option for deadly infectious diseases. Before the advent of antibiotics, diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and tuberculosis were the biggest public health problems of the day.

Today, chronic poor health in the form of arthritis, heart disease, or hormonal problems is our biggest challenge. Traditional naturopathy can sometimes help with these conditions, but it’s a ‘one diet fits all’ approach that can have limited effect.

The other type of naturopathic school tends to follow the model of conventional medical schools, with an increasingly strict adherence to what is known as the ‘evidence-based’ model. The teaching of important therapeutic knowledge acquired by teachers over many decades is often left out of these courses in favor of teaching the results of clinical trials on nutritional supplements and herbal medications.

These schools may also remove previous editions of books and include only texts that have been rewritten to omit so-called “unscientific” therapeutic knowledge, leaving only references to clinical trials and similar research. One notable example is the wonderful original edition of Rudolf Fritz Weiss’s ‘Herbal Medicine’, which oozed with pure gold for a physician whose priority is helping the sick. I have a copy of this book that I wouldn’t trade for 1000 copies of the latest ‘scientifically censored’ edition.

Restore people’s health

Unfortunately, it is now all too common for the most famous naturopathic schools to follow this so-called ‘evidence-based’ route. After a student has spent $100,000 and four years of her life on this type of training, the student may discover that she actually lacks a basic understanding of holistic health and does not understand why many patients do not respond to treatment.

After all, if your practice is based on the principle that a ‘significant percentage’ of women with PMS respond to a particular vitamin supplement, copying this treatment will only help the same proportion of your own patients. In medical practice, a ‘significant percentage’ just means those who did better than patients who received a sham treatment.

On the other hand, if you study with a teacher who is dedicated to finding the most effective clinical approach for everyone, either from his own experience or also by studying the advice of previous teachers, you are more likely to achieve what you originally wanted when you started. . he signed up for your course: for people to recover.

Remote naturopathy: a new training solution?

As I have been writing my books over the years, I have been wanting to start a training course that would help rectify some of the problems I have described. But starting a school is an important project, not to be taken lightly. I have taught many short ‘skill building’ courses for already qualified naturopaths, and these courses have always been well received. One thing I learned from my students was how stressful it was for them to travel to class. The UK is not a large country, but even so, the distance and cost of travel were prohibitive for almost everyone living more than 100 miles away.

But it would be a distance race be acceptable? After much thought and planning, I believed that I could make a distance naturopathy course as good as a course taught in class. The more he thought about it, the more advantages he saw for the student. Not only greater affordability and convenience, but also greater ease of learning and better contact between students and teachers.

When you think about it, how much student-teacher contact do you have in a classroom? You travel 100 miles to listen to lectures for a couple of days and raise your hand to ask questions. You can get the same information online and ask your questions in an online forum, where you will probably get a better answer because the teacher has had a chance to think about it. In class you have to try to write down the teacher’s answer and decipher it later. In an online forum, the answer is written for you in its entirety.

Online courses can now easily include video content to vary the learning experience, much better than listening to a lecture. It is well known that the average student begins to lose concentration after about 25 minutes and needs a break. If you have to attend conferences for a whole day or a whole weekend, frequent breaks are not possible. But they are online. Just pause the video and have a cup of green tea.

Accreditation for distance education graduates

After qualifying, graduates of a naturopathic course should be able to join a national professional association. This allows them to obtain the health insurance they need to legally establish themselves in private practice. Naturopathic health consultants also need professional insurance if they work for health food stores, health clubs, or vitamin companies.

This is why all professional training courses must be accredited by a national professional association recognized by insurers. Recently, many forward-thinking professional associations are beginning to recognize that a distance learning qualification from a good school can produce good professionals. (See the link at the end to find an accredited course.)

modern naturopathy

Modern naturopathy needs to incorporate the knowledge gained from modern research. But I don’t think this means forgetting what our ancestors taught us. Naturopathy is about understanding the human body and how it gets sick. Only then can the most appropriate treatment be applied. Unfortunately, this basic principle is being eroded in the main schools of naturopathy. I believe that some of the best training can now be found in smaller schools and learning from highly respected expert teachers. Naturopathic distance learning may well be the way to go.