What is Naturopathic Medicine?
Naturopathic medicine combines safe and effective traditional therapies with the most current advances in modern medicine. It is a distinct approach to health and healing that is appropriate for the management of a broad range of health conditions affecting all people of all ages. In addition to the basic medical sciences and conventional diagnostics, naturopathic education includes therapeutic nutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, naturopathic manipulative therapy, pharmacology and minor surgery.
Philosophy of Naturopathic Medicine
The practice of Naturopathic Medicine emerges from six underlying principles of healing. These principles are based on the objective observation of the nature of health and disease, and are continually reexamined in light of scientific analysis. It is these principles that distinguish the profession from other medical approaches:
- The healing power of nature: The body has the inherent ability to establish, maintain, and restore health. The healing process is ordered and intelligent; nature heals through the response of the life force. The physician's role is to facilitate and augment this process, to act to identify and remove obstacles to health and recovery, and to support the creation of a healthy internal and external environment.
- Identify and treat the cause: Illness does not occur without cause. Underlying causes of disease must be discovered and removed or treated before a person can recover completely from illness. Symptoms are expressions of the body's attempt to heal, but are not the cause of disease. Symptoms, therefore, should not be suppressed by treatment. Causes may occur on many levels including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The physician must evaluate fundamental underlying causes on all levels, directing treatment at root causes rather than at symptomatic expression.
- First do no harm: Illness is a purposeful process of the organism. The process of healing includes the generation of symptoms which are, in fact, an expression of the life force attempting to heal itself. Therapeutic actions should be complimentary to and synergistic with this healing process. The physician's actions can support or antagonize the actions of the healing power of nature. Therefore, methods designed to suppress symptoms without removing underlying causes are considered harmful and are avoided or minimized.
- Treat the whole person: Health and disease are conditions of the whole organism, a whole involving a complex interaction of physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental, social, and other factors. The physician must treat the whole person by taking all of these factors into account. The harmonious functioning of all aspects of the individual is essential to recovery from and prevention of disease, and requires a personalized and comprehensive approach to diagnosis and treatment.
- The physician as teacher: Beyond an accurate diagnosis and appropriate prescription, the physician must work to create a healthy, sensitive interpersonal relationship with the patient. A cooperative doctor-patient relationship has inherent therapeutic value. The physician's major role is to educate and encourage the patient to take responsibility for health. The physician is a catalyst for healthful change, empowering and motivating the patient to assume responsibility. It is the patient, not the doctor, who ultimately creates & accomplishes healing. The physician must strive to inspire hope as well as understanding. The physician must also make a commitment to his or her personal and spiritual development in order to be a good teacher.
- Prevention: The ultimate goal of any health care system should be prevention. This is accomplished through education and promotion of life-habits that create good health. The physician assesses risk factors and hereditary susceptibility to disease and makes appropriate interventions to avoid further harm and risk to the patient. The emphasis is on building health rather than on fighting disease.
Components of a Naturopathic Medicine Practice
Naturopathic philosophy serves as the basis for naturopathic practice. The current scope of naturopathic practice includes, but is not limited to:
- Clinical Nutrition: That food is the best medicine is a cornerstone of naturopathic practice. Many medical conditions can be treated more effectively with foods and nutritional supplements than they can by other means, with fewer complications and side effects. Naturopathic physicians use dietetics, natural hygiene, fasting, and nutritional supplementation in practice.
- Botanical Medicine: Many plant substances are powerful medicines. Where single chemically-derived drugs may only address a single problem, botanical medicines are able to address a variety of problems simultaneously. Their organic nature makes botanicals compatible with the body's own chemistry; hence, they can be gently effective with few toxic side effects.
- Homeopathic Medicine: Homeopathic medicine is based on the principle of "like cures like." It works on a subtle yet powerful electromagnetic level, gently acting to strengthen the body's healing and immune response.
- Physical Medicine: Naturopathic Medicine has its own methods of therapeutic manipulation of muscles, bones, and spine. Naturopathic phsyicians also use ultrasound, diathermy, exercise, massage, water, heat and cold, air, and gentle electrical pulses.
- Psychological Medicine: Mental attitudes and emotional states may influence, or even cause, physical illness. Counseling, nutritional balancing, stress management, hypnotherapy, biofeedback, and other therapies are used to help patients heal on the psychological level.
- Minor Surgery: As primary care doctors, naturopathic physicians do in office-minor surgery including repair of superficial wounds, removal of foreign bodies, cysts, and other superficial masses.
- Pharmaceutical Medications: Naturopathic medicine aims to utilize which ever treatments are most effective for a given disease state. Certain conditions may require the use of pharmaceutical medications for appropriate management. Naturopathic physicians have a limited amount of medications in their scope of practice, and will help facilitate referrals to specialists if additional medications are necessary.