Naturopathic Principles and Practices

There are six main Principles of Naturopathy which underpin the main philosophies that we as naturopaths believe in. The principles are:

  1. The Healing Power of Nature (Vis Medicatrix Naturae)
    • The body’s innate ability to heal itself and a naturopath’s role is to support and facilitate the body’s self healing, through identifying and removing any disturbing factors, to strengthen the body’s vitality
  2. First Do No Harm (Primum Non Nocere)
    • To provide treatments that have the least risk and use the lowest level of intervention of the therapeutic order, to bring about health and wellbeing
    • Avoiding suppression whenever possible
  3. Treat the Whole Person (Tolle Totum)
    • Understanding that disease and health are determined by a number of factors including the genetics, mind, spirit, emotions, body, social and environmental factors to name a few
    • The body must be treated as a whole, as disease is often a result of a number of these factors being out of balance
    • The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
  4. Identify and Treat the Cause (Tolle Causam)
    • Focus on uncovering and treating the cause rather than treating the symptoms so that healing can occur
    • We see symptoms to be like an oil light in a car, a warning that something isn’t quite right and that the body is attempting to defend, heal or adapt
  5. Doctor as Teacher (Docere)
    • We strive to educate clients and encourage clients to independently manage their health
  6. Prevention (Preventare)
    • Have an active role in practising preventative medicine through assessing risk factors, susceptibility to disease and hereditary factors as well as educating clients in ways to practise this in their life also

The Naturopathic Therapeutic Order, which governs how we practice as a modality, is as follows:

  1. Establish the Conditions for Health (identify and remove disturbing factors and create a more healthful regimen)
  2. Stimulate the Vis Medicatrix Naturae (the healing power of nature)
  3. Tonify Weakened Systems
  4. Correct Structural Integrity
  5. Address Pathology
  6. Suppress or Surgically Remove Pathology

The levels that we as naturopaths choose to intervene at are aimed to be the least invasive to achieve a therapeutic effect. It depends on a lot of factors such as the severity of the client’s state of disease to determine what level we choose to implement.