“Let food be thy medicine, and thy medicine food.”
Hippocrates.

What to expect from a Naturopathic Appointment:

A naturopathic case involves finding out how your body works, what has happened to you and your body from birth until now. This is usually achieved with extensive historical health and medical information gathering.

Ideally a naturopath will Identify the obstacles in your life that are preventing you from either overcoming disease and achieving homeostasis or preventing you from manifesting your most vital self.

Together the naturopath and patient agree on a treatment strategy that will be the most effective for the patient to achieve their goals.

This may include any or all the following;

  • Food as Medicine
  • Clinical Nutrition/ Diet therapy
  • Herbal Medicine
  • Dietary supplements
  • Flower essences
  • Functional pathology
  • Iridology
  • Health coaching

What Is Naturopathy At A Glance

Naturopathy or Naturopathic Medicine is a whole system modality. It is a complete system of health care that can stand alone or can interface with biomedicine for an integrative approach. Naturopaths work alongside your GP or other health professional to offer you the best patient-centred care.

Naturopathy is both an art and a science. We are prevention medicine specialists. Today naturopaths also use scientific evidence as well as traditional evidence in their practice.

Naturopathic case-taking often uncovers a dis-ease long before it has become a diagnosable pathology. Naturopaths treat both acute and chronic conditions.

Naturopathic care is well suited to anyone at any age. Naturopaths have many answers for common conditions.

Naturopaths use various modalities in their practice. These may include: herbal medicine, nutritional medicine, homeopathy, dietary and lifestyle advice or health coaching, and massage therapy.

Principles and Philosophy

Historically Seven main principals underpin naturopathy;

1. First do no harm or Primum no nocere; which is based on The Hippocratic Oath.

2. Identify and Treat the Cause or Tolle causam; practitioners seek to find and treat the cause of disease whenever possible, not just relieving the symptoms of disease. As symptoms are expressions of the body’s attempt to heal, but are not the cause of disease.

3. Vitalism or the Vital force;

4. The healing power of nature or medicatrix naturae; is that the body wants to achieve balance or homeostasis, and has the ability to establish, restore and maintain health. The practitioner facilitates this process, by identifying and removing obstacles to health.

5. Treat the Whole Person or Holism; this encompasses seeing the person as a unique individual to treat them as a whole person. Their body, mind, emotions, genetics, environment, social & spiritual aspects. All aspects of their internal & external environment.

6. The Physician as Teacher: or Docere; Naturopathy is focused on education. Imparting knowledge that inspires, informs and motivates. Through the empowerment of education and knowledge, the patient takes ownership of their health and prevention of disease. Transformative

7. Prevention: Is better than cure. Assessing any risk factors, genetic, hereditary or constitutional susceptibility to disease. Making interventions and education to create lifelong habits that builds health. The ultimate goal of any Naturopathic treatment strategy should include prevention.

The hallmarks of Modern Naturopathic Medicine:

  • Addresses the underlying causes of disease, going to the root cause of a disease, rather than treating symptomatically.
  • Naturopathy is a client-centered approach whereby the client and practitioner are in a therapeutic partnership.
  • It is holistic, addressing the whole person, not just symptoms.
  • Naturopathy believes each person is unique, with unique biochemistry, genetic and environmental factors and supports this unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
  • Personalization of healthcare: As each patient is unique, each treatment plan is also distinct and unique.  
  • Naturopathic Medicine practitioners spend time connecting with their patients.
  • Naturopathic Medicine practitioners have extensive consults with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease.
  • Naturopathic Medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
  • Understands how environmental and lifestyle factors influence the emergence and progression of disease, and the effect on multiple body systems.
  • Seeking a dynamic balance among the internal and external factors in a patient’s body, mind, and spirit.

“Empowering patients to to take an active role in their own health, with proactive, predictive, personalized natural medicine therapies”.

“Embark on a health journey to optimise your health and feel the BEST you have ever felt”!

What Type Of Education & Training Does A Naturopath Receive?

As Australian Naturopaths we have attended a Nationally certified Educational Degree program such as a Bachelor of Health Science in Naturopathy.

This degree is typically a minimum of 4 years study.

  • Anatomy and physiology; the human body, its systems and how each system functions. Such as the circulatory system, the integumentary system (or skin) the endocrine system, the immune system, the reproduction system, the nervous system.

 

  • Disease processes; we also study extensively what can go wrong with each system; the manifestations of diseases and symptomologies.
  • Other foundational units are chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology and integrated pharmacology; focusing on drug herb interactions, drugs affecting nutritional deficiencies.
  • We also do units on how to research effectively and evaluate the clinical significance of studies; as Naturopathy has adopted an evidence-based approach and the gold standard is the double blind placebo study.
  • Extensive nutritional, dietary planning and food as medicine as well as Advanced Herbal medicine acts as the foundation of our knowledge.
  • Extensive clinical application of this knowledge is also intrinsic to our education; that is many hours logged treating real-life patients.
  • Continuing education and professional development are required to be a member of licensing association such as ANTA or NHAA to provide health rebates.

“The Naturopath practitioner is a catalyst for healthful change, empowering and motivating the patient to assume responsibility for their health journey”