I saw five clients today, each with a different medical diagnosis: Squamous cell carcinoma of the vocal cords, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and ADHD. How can I best help them?
From the perspective of conventional medicine, these are five different disorders, with completely different causes, and are to be treated with five completely different protocols: one with radiation, one with surgery and chemo, another with Ritalin, and so on. The medicine prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis would be completely ineffective (probably even harmful) for ADHD or IBS and vice versa.
From a Naturopathic perspective, each of these clients will also receive a different course of treatment. Their treatments, however, will not be as radically different as in conventional medicine. Usually, their therapies will have a lot in common, especially in lifestyle improvements: nutrition, exercise, rest, stress reduction, and others. In fact, the bulk of their protocols will be identical.
One example that illustrates how many seemingly different illnesses can be treated by the same or similar therapies was Dr. Max Gerson’s nutritional protocol for cancer. Dr. Gerson was a medical doctor who practiced according to Naturopathic principles in the 1940s and ‘50s. At the beginning of his book “A Cancer Cure: Results of 50 Cases,” Dr. Gerson listed approximately 30 different diseases, all of which he claimed benefited markedly, and often healed entirely, by his intense nutritional regime. These included such seemingly diverse diseases as rheumatoid arthritis, MS, Lupus, migraine headaches, and ulcerative colitis. When asked by skeptics how it was possible that the same single therapy could benefit such an array of different illnesses, Dr. Gerson explained it was because his therapy was not directed against any particular illness; in fact, it was not against anything.
Gerson’s focus was primarily on restoring each person’s entire metabolism rather than a single isolated metabolic process such as the immune system, digestion, or hormonal balance. His protocol focused on the whole person and on what supports healing—rather than focusing on the patient’s so called “disease” and what destroys that disease. His protocol nourished and purified the whole body, and by so doing, strengthened the body’s general, non-specific mechanisms for self-healing. A stronger, better-nourished body could then heal whatever so called disease it had.
Whatever benefits a person in general will usually benefit, but not necessarily cure, whatever illness the person has. If the same patient had migraine headaches, asthma, or arthritis, their nutritional programs would still have much in common: Remove injurious substances such as food additives, hydrogenated fats, aspartame and so on, replenish trace mineral and vitamin insufficiencies, identify and remove allergenic foods, and employ cleansing and purification regimens.
Principle: “Treat the patient, not the disease.”
In conventional medicine, five different patients all with rheumatoid arthritis would presumably receive essentially identical medications; five with ADHD would all get Ritalin or some variation. In contrast, a Naturopathic approach to five different patients with rheumatoid arthritis could offer five unique, not entirely different, but definitely individualized programs. One person might benefit most from nutritional therapies, another by therapeutic exercise and structural therapies, and another by resolving the stress in their marriage or finances. Studying or diagnosing the patient, not their “disease,” is how you determine these individualizations.
While I will often recommend the same medicines as a conventional physician prescribes, my reasons are completely different. I value conventional medications as useful to control pain or symptoms; however, I would never consider them a complete or successful treatment. To me, they are only palliative. They are able to provide valuable relief while the patient engages in the lifestyle changes and natural, non-harmful therapies that actually address the causes of their illness. My goal is to get the patient off these harmful medications as rapidly as possible; whereas, to a conventional physician these medications may constitute the entire treatment.
Principle: “Vis Medicatrix Naturae” (The Healing Power of Nature)
Naturopathic physicians hold as an ideal the restoration of their patients to living in greater harmony with life. Meaning they would eat as nature designed them to eat, their movements would be relaxed, poised, balanced, coordinated, and in harmony with gravity. Likewise, their thoughts and emotions would be appropriate to what nature/life is doing in the present moment.
This is a common ideal or prescription for every patient. It is like the Ten Commandments in that the prescribed solution to everybody’s problems with life is the same. However, each person faces his own unique challenges to implementing these universal prescriptions. This is where the role of teachers, priests, and physicians comes in. A physician’s essential work is to teach her clients to correct their errors of living and guide them to living in harmony with the laws of the universe i.e., the way things work.
Principle: “Tolle Causum” (Find The Cause)
Whether a patient is implementing a program as rigorous as Dr. Gerson’s or simply trying to gain control of their sweet tooth, each person will face her own unique challenges in changing her deeply seated habits. On one level, the cause of a disease such as diabetes or obesity may appear to be due to sugar and sweets. Simply informing a client about the toxic effects of sugar, however, often adversely affects them and is seldom sufficient to discourage them from eating excess sweets. The superior physician must help her patient discover the causes that impel her to compulsively eat sweets. Then the patient must be trained how to strengthen her power to govern her appetites wisely. Mastering ourselves is the most difficult and most rewarding of all work; it is the foundation of all healing.
Naturopathic philosophy teaches that in order for a patient to be able to follow the doctor’s instructions, they must heal the three root causes of all sick behaviors: ignorance, indifference and lack of self-control. What heals ignorance is wisdom. What heals indifference is love. And the union of wisdom and love in action is self-control.
Principle: “Physician, heal thyself”
This principle instructs physicians that the greatest way to foster wisdom, love, and self-control in our patients is by example—by first developing these virtues in ourselves.
In summary, conventional medicine has diminished its effectiveness and done great harm by believing that both our health problems and their “cures” lay outside ourselves and are unrelated to the ways we live our lives.
In contrast, the principles of Naturopathic Medicine guide doctors to primarily study not illnesses but to study themselves and the unique individual who is their patient. A doctor’s first power is her confidence that if she were in her patient’s condition, she would be able to heal herself. Her second power is her understanding of, and love for, her patient. The study and practice of these two principles produce a radically different doctor—not one who “cures” supposed illnesses, but rather one who teaches individuals.
Teaching, not curing, is the high art of healing, which is reflected in a third principle of Naturopathic Medicine, “Docere,” a Latin term meaning “teacher.” The ideal Naturopathic Physician is the “Physician-Teacher.” A physician skilled not only in the use of medicines but one who is also capable of teaching a willing patient how to free herself from illness by freeing herself from her own ignorance, indifference, and lack of self-control.
About the author:
Dr. Charley Cropley graduated from National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon in 1979. Dr. Cropley is a Naturopathic Physician, teacher, and author based in Boulder, Colorado. For the last 27 years, he has trained hundreds of doctors, taught at medical colleges and universities, produced DVDs, published books, and created numerous courses on nutrition and self-healing. He uses no medicines. He teaches people to heal all types of health problems through highly individualized nutrition and mastering their body, mind, and relationships. He lives what he teaches.
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