Naturopathy

A holistic system of healing that emphasises the body’s inherent power of regaining balance and harmony.

A holistic, preventive therapy emphasising the body’s natural vitality and potential for self-healing. Encourages a healthy lifestyle, encompassing a natural, organic diet, relaxation, exercise and hydrotherapy.

A health practitioner who attributes disease to an imbalance of the natural forces within the body and treats disease by employing natural forces, such as air, light, heat, water, electricity, and diet.

A pseudoscience that is based on the belief that the fundamental cause of diseases is the violation of nature’s laws.

A drugless system of therapy, making use of physical forces such as air, light, water, diet, heat and massage.

A method of treatment of diseases and disorders which does not use medical or surgical means, but natural forces such as light, heat, massage, eating natural foods and using herbal remedies.

A philosophy of holistic health care that emphasizes the use of natural, noninvasive remedies. Naturopathy is a belief system based on the idea that the adoption of a healthy diet and lifestyle will lead to better health in general. Naturopathic practitioners include naturopathic physicians, massage therapists, chiropractors, herbalists, and others, all of whom believe in the wisdom of natural remedies whenever possible. These include the use of clinical nutrition, homeopathy, botanical medicine, and counseling. Naturopathy has long recommended that people eat a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and that they take selected vitamins and food supplements. Such naturopathic practices are now often endorsed by conventional medicine.

A system of medicine that relies upon the use of only “natural substances for the treatment of disease, rather than drugs. Herbs, food grown without artificial fertilizers and prepared without the use of preservatives or coloring material, pure water, sunlight, and fresh air are all employed in an effort to rid the body of ‘unnatural’ substances, which are said to be at the root of most illnesses.

The idea that, given the right set of circumstances, the body has the power to heal itself through its own “inner vitality.” Like many other systems of alternative medicine, naturopathy claims that disease is brought about by an imbalance in the working of the whole body. Naturopaths concentrate on the person rather than the disease, believing that the success of the system depends on their patients’ ability to heal themselves.

The origins of naturopathy go back more than 2,000 years probably to the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.E.), known as the “Father of Medicine,” who it is believed was the first to recognize nature’s own healing power. He laid down as a first principle of healing “first do no harm” which seems to fit well with the noninvasive ideas of the naturopaths. Modern naturopathy was pioneered in Germany in the early 19th century when various water cures, basically hydrotherapy, were developed. Patients came to outdoor baths that were built in the woods; they were encouraged to eat a simple diet and drink pure water to cleanse their kidneys by flushing out toxins. The treatment also included enemas and plunging into first hot and then cold baths to stimulate circulation. Since then, naturopathy has developed slightly differently in different parts of the world, with European and United States practitioners emphasizing slightly different ways to detoxify the body to bring it back to the point where it can start to heal itself. Europeans use more hydrotherapy and herbal medicine, while in the United States more homoeopathic treatments are used. But on both sides of the Atlantic, naturopaths recommend exercise, fasting, and special “natural food diets” with vitamins, and in addition some form of osteopathic and such chiropractic techniques as manipulation and massage.

A system of therapeutics based on natural foods, light, warmth, exercise, fresh air, massage, and the avoidance of medications. Advocates the belief that illness can be healed by the natural processes of the body.

A form of complementary medicine that upholds the belief that human beings possess an inherent life force that can be nurtured through noninvasive therapies, promotion of natural healing processes, and limited reliance on surgical interventions and pharmaceuticals.