Philosophy
As is the standard across health professions; naturopathic doctors attend school, take a licensing exam, get licensed, and maintain their license with continuing education. (Here is a page with a more in depth breakdown.) What makes naturopathic medicine and naturopathic doctors different from other health professionals? Well, that gets a bit more complicated. The short answer is our philosophy focuses a more on the preventative and holistic side of health care and our training utilizes tools that reflect this.
We are founded on 6 Principles:
1. First do no harm
2. The healing power of nature
3. Identify and treat the cause
4. Doctor as teacher
5. Treat the whole person
6. Prevention
Some of these probably sound pretty familiar like first do no harm. Some of them are more unique to Naturopathic Medicine like the healing power of nature. We are taught to believe in the body’s innate healing abilities and to center treatment plans around this idea whenever possible. That means we want to make it so that whenever possible your body will do the healing itself. For example in general when you get a cold your immune system fights it off on it’s own – that is the healing power of nature. We want to help support that innate healing power as much as possible so we try to create treatment plans that will encourage a healthy immune response. For example fevers are one of the tools the body uses to fight disease and in a healthy adult without other risk factors, despite being uncomfortable, a fever can be useful and may not require immediate intervention with a medication (always check with your doctor if you have any concerns this is just an example of the immune system’s function not medical advice!)
Sometimes in order to keep our bodies healthy or to restore a healthy status we need to dive a little deeper into what makes our bodies tick. This often leads us to the foundations of health.
Foundations of health or determinants of health are the fundamental things that effect our every day health. This includes physiological needs like: food, water, air, sleep and psychological needs like: community, access to mental health care, acceptance/freedom from persecution. It also includes some of the things that we can’t change like: genetic factors.
Treating the whole person and treating the cause mean looking at the individual, their relationship to the foundations of health, and figuring out what their needs are. We also like to take it another step and educate patients so that they might be empowered to take ownership of their own health journey. This can look like coming up with a meal plan that best serves your nutritious needs or putting you on the life saving medication for your congestive heart failure.
Prevention is also a more subtle but important part of all health care. We want to help you get to a place where you are less likely to need our help because you are doing everything you can to prevent a disease state. Right now we are all working hard to prevent the spread of Covid-19 by doing things like social distancing, washing our hands, and wearing face masks. There are so many things that we can do every day to help prevent disease some of these things include: having a nutritious diet, getting plenty of sleep, and having good mental health.
We are also taught to follow a Therapeutic Order:
2. Stimulate the the body’s self-healing mechanisms
3. Strengthen weakened or damaged systems
4. Correct structural integrity
5. Use natural therapies to address pathology and symptoms
6. Use pharmaceutical or synthetic substances to stop progressive pathology
7. Use high force, invasive therapies, to suppress pathologies
As you can probably see from the list above which was taken from the AANMC (Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges) website’s article on the therapeutic order (https://aanmc.org/featured-articles/therapeutic-order/) there is a prioritization of lower level interventions.
Tools of the Trade:
Physical medicine: Naturopathic Doctors are educated in physical medicine. This includes things like osteopathic adjustments, hydrotherapy, muscle energy stretching, soft tissue manipulation, and electrotherapy.
Botanical medicine: Naturopathic Doctors are educated in the medicinal use of hundreds of herbs and can formulate botanical medicines as needed.
Counseling: Naturopathic Doctors receive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy techniques and have counseling shifts in their clinical training.
Nutrition: Naturopathic Doctors receive extensive training in macronutrient and micronutrient nutrition, and how to utilize nutritional therapies in relation to specific disease states.
Homeopathy: This is a bit of a controversial topic, but all Naturopathic Doctors are taught homeopathic diagnosis and prescribing. Personally I do not use this tool much in practice but would be happy to refer patient’s to specialists if they have a strong interest in this modality.
Resources:
AANP (American Association of Naturopathic Physicians) has an even more thorough and likely more clear explanation to all of this. I would highly recommend checking them out. In general they are also just an excellent resource for all things related to Naturopathic Medicine including a database of licensed doctors near you. Here is their website: https://naturopathic.org/
WANP (Washington Association of Naturopathic Physicians) is also a great resource for things in Washington State. Here is their website: https://wanp.org
NABNE (North American Board of Naturopathic Examiners) website: https://www.nabne.org
CNME (Council on Naturopathic Medical Education) website: https://cnme.org/
AANMC (Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges) website: https://aanmc.org/