The 6 Principles of Naturopathic Medicine

Ever wanted to know more about Naturopathy? Perhaps you’re considering working with one.  Or of becoming one yourself. Maybe you’re going on a date with one tonight and want to impress them ;).  Whatever the case, read on to learn some of the philosophy underpinning this fantastic healing modality.

But first, a little story (if you’ve read the My Story section of the website skip on ahead).

Part of My Story

In 2016, my long-term partner at the time and I had broken up and I was beginning to lose my passion for working full time as a university tutor. I knew something needed to change.  I was unsure of what to do and I felt so stagnant in my life. Without direct or purpose.

At the end of 2016 I began working with a coach/healer and started to get my zest for life back.  After our first session I looked at where my life was going. I didn’t resonate with that plan anymore.  I had wanted to learn and practise natural health for such a long time but I was waiting for myself to ‘get better’ (whatever that meant).  

I decided to go for it.  I was going to spend 2017 reading Leah Hechtman’s Clinical Naturopathic Medicine and Giovanni Maciocia’s TCM textbooks to decide if I’d go down the TCM or Naturopathic path.  

I got 8 pages into Leah’s book (I double checked the page number) and came across the Principles of Naturopathy.  I had this feeling in my body. This was it. This was what all my life experiences, beautiful, joyous and challenging had led me to.  I knew I wanted to study Naturopathy. I was so excited. I submitted an application the next day and began studying in 2017.

The 6 principles of naturopathy

The Healing Power of Nature

Naturopaths recognise the balanced and organised intelligence of nature.  As an extension of nature, we humans have this innate intelligence. Restoring and supporting this intelligence is the Naturopath’s role in facilitating healing.

Identify and Treat the Cause

All illness must have a cause or causes.  For health to be optimised these causes of illness must be identified and removed when possible and practical.  Symptoms indicate disharmony, they are your body’s way of letting you know something is amiss.

Treat the whole person

Look beyond where the disease has manifested.  Let’s say you have liver disease, we would not just look at the liver, but all the other bodily systems.  Not only that, but Naturopaths are also taught to consider emotional, mental, spiritual, social, familial and occupational factors.

First do no harm

Pretty self explanatory.

Doctor as teacher

The Naturopath seeks to empower their patients and encourage their learning.  

Prevention

Naturopathy can be used to prevent a current disease state from progressing and to prevent any new diseases from occurring where possible.

Putting it all together

As Naturopaths we are trained to look at the whole person, not just the disease.  Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely do consider the disease a person may be manifesting with, but that’s not where the story ends.  What got them to that state? What is keeping them there?

It is this thinking that means we may treat 2 people with the same disease in different ways.  Sometimes this treatment is similar, sometimes not so much.  Let’s look at the example above of liver disease. Perhaps one person got there by excessive drinking while another has never drunk alcohol yet has mould and mercury exposure.  We can see that there may be similarities in treating these two, like supporting the liver’s detoxification and antioxidant status, but also some differences, no use telling the latter to cut out alcohol.

We look for the root causes to problems when treating the person.  Does this mean we don’t treat the symptoms? Absolutely not. While we are working out the root causes or working on them we can still offer some symptomatic relief.

Have you ever seen a Naturopath? What’s been your experience?