Naturopathy for Beginners

Book excerpt: There are about 80 nations where naturopathic medicine is being practiced. There are now jurisdictions in North America, India, Europe, and Latin America that have enacted statutory regulation of the naturopathic profession. Associations must actively support and strive for regulation in order to become full members of the WNF. In addition, they should encourage the maintenance and improvement of educational accreditation and standards. Both naturopathy and naturopathic medicine are under the umbrella of the naturopathic profession. Despite some differences in educational approaches and jurisdiction-specific regulation and restrictions, the global naturopathic workforce has unanimously identified an overall philosophical as well as traditional knowledge framework as well as a set of core therapeutic modalities and practices as the foundation to naturopathic practice. It entails studying the effects of medical therapies in addition to investigating lifestyle, social, environmental, external, and genetic variables. Traditional naturopathic evaluation procedures like tongue and pulse diagnosis sit alongside conventional physical exams and laboratory testing as instruments used by naturopaths and naturopathic physicians. However, due to educational and regulatory variations across nations, naturopaths/naturopathic doctors in different locations may conduct different types of diagnostic tests, provide patients with different naturopathic diagnoses, and employ different therapeutic modalities and practices.