Modalities
Naturopathy is the practice of natural medicine. Today one may find Naturopathic practitioners who use various combinations of healing modalities as well as Naturopathic doctors trained as medical doctors. At this point a distinction needs to be made between Naturopathic Medicine versus Naturopathy. Naturopathy practitioners do not need a medical license to be practiced their trade. Anyone who has used chicken soup to help overcome an illness like a cold or fever, has used Naturopathy. There are many schools that teach Naturopathy which may or may not include herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutrition, and constitutional hydrotherapy. A Naturopathic Physician on the other hand must attend an accredited medical school of naturopathic medicine and be licensed (in those states the require licensing. For more information on Naturopathic Medical Doctors the please visit the Naturopathic Medicine pages at this site.
One of the oldest healing modalities is Oriental Medicine also known as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This modality includes acupuncture/acupressure, oriental botanical medicine (herbs), cupping, Tui Na (a type of Chinese massage), Gua Sha (information at another site) , and similar techniques. Our TCM pages have more information on this modality.
Western Botanical Medicine makes use of plants. The pharmaceutical industry extracts the active constituent from plants, or synthetically creates them and uses them in what is referred to as "medicine" which typically comes in pill form. These extracted constituents have many side affects that can be a bad as the symptoms they try to alleviate. With Botanical Medicine, all the consequents are used, sometime the entire plant, bark, leaf or flower is used. Science is now discovering that sometimes the inactive constituents are as important as the active constituents for healing to take place as well as to prevent other side affects. More information about this modality can be found on the Botanical Medicine pages.
Flower essences - There are several essences available today including English flowers (info on Bach essences at another site) as well as Western flower essences. For more information visit the Flower Essence Society or The Flower Essence Services for more information .
Homeopathy - This a vibrational healing modality is based on the law of "similar's".
Constitutional Hydrotherapy - this modality uses alternating hot and cold to stimulate organs, increase immunity and heal in a very simple way that can be done at home.