Naturopathy - the Basics (1)

Today we make a start on the basics of Naturopathy, Natural Medicine or Nature Cure as it used to be called. I firmly believe that every practitioner of complementary medicine should be aware of the basics tenets of naturopathy.

Definition : - It is a system of medicine that seeks to facilitate and promote the body's inherent physiological self-healing mechanisms by means of exercise, massage, hydrotherapy, nutrition, diet, or manipulative therapy. Naturopathy is one of the world's oldest system of medicine and is based on four main principles.

• Recognition of the individuality of the patient (or client). Allopathic (orthodox) medicine has a tendency to 'clump' patients with similar symptoms as being the same and they are often given exactly the same treatment. Each person is an individual with different  physical, chemical, emotional and spiritual make-ups. We each live in different environments and have varied external stimuli. Each one of these should be taken into account before treatment commences.
• That one should attempt to establish and treat the cause of the condition and not just treat or palliate the symptoms. Allopathic medicine, in part, may also state this but naturopathy goes much deeper into the possible causes which are not always apparent, because of the different basic philosophy from allopathic medicine. An example of this would be the treatment of 'frozen' shoulder. Allopathic medicine would use analgesics, physiotherapy, exercise - all naturally assuming that the cause is a mechanical one. Natural medicine would give scores of other possible causes - including dietary imbalance (too many refined foods) that cause constipation, emotional upsets such as anxiety and lack of free expression.
• That one should recognise the whole person and not just the locally affected area. This means that we should look at the patient in an holistic way - mind, body and spirit - and appreciate that a symptom is simply an expression of imbalance within the whole. It is the person's way of attempting to express their energy imbalance.
• That everyone has the ability to heal themselves. Hippocrates called this 'vis medicatrix naturae'. It simply means that we should never suppress symptoms but allow the patient to heal themselves by their own built in energy system

More next time - JRC