Holistic Health Schools

There was a time in the early 1990’s that homeopathy had a brief run as a kind of fad in the mainstream medical community. A business partner of mine’s wife had a great interest in the various treatments offered by homeopathy and swore by their results. Their entire family used homeopathic remedies and even took some courses from local holistic health schools. Homeopathic remedies are prepared with the thought that a small dose of something will help you build immunity and keep you or help heal you from a particular disease, condition or injury. This is similar to the theory behind vaccinations and many explorers who would ingest small portions of snake venom, spider venom or other poisonous substances to build up an immunity in the thought that if they were bitten or encountered poisons of any type during their travels that this therapy would prevent them from getting sick, injured or dying.

There have been numerous studies from mainstream institutions, medical facilities and prestigious medical institutions that have found that the amount of active ingredients in the vast majority of homeopathic medicines are either too small or non existent and therefore could not have any beneficial effects on the patients involved in the studies. It is the best interest of mainstream medicine that these studies show these results. It is difficult to believe that these medicines can have little or no effect when there are thousands of people that swear by holistic medical treatment and have achieved wonderful results with homeopathic treatments over the years. Unless you can attribute the placebo effect and chalk these results up to the power of the mind over body you need to see that homeopathy can be an excellent method of treatment when you do not want to keep pumping prescription drugs into your system.

If you want to try homeopathic treatments for whatever ails you, your best bet is to contact a holistic health school and ask for a recommendation on a homeopathic practitioner in your local area. Another way to find someone versed in the homeopathic art is your local natural foods store. You can also contact the Council for Naturopathic Medical Education or the American Holistic Medical Association for recommendations as well.

Before delving into homeopathy you should educate yourself on the holistic approach to medicine. An excellent place is the AHMA website and their founding principles is a great way to get versed on what holistic health care is all about and what holistic medical schools teach to their students. They have ten principles their organization is founded on. I am going to list several of them so that you can make an informed decision before getting into a holistic medical field like homeopathy.

Their first guiding principle is one of optimal health. To achieve optimal health you need to make sure your environmental, physical, emotional, spiritual and mental aspects are in a balance. A second principle is an integration of healing systems into the diagnosis of problems. You need to know about all of the available treatments and methods of diagnoses from a variety of traditions to achieve the best results for the condition in question. A third principle is a person’s innate healing powers. There are numerous stories and examples of anecdotal evidence regarding amazing incidences of people recovering from a variety of diseases in miraculous ways. It is the goal of the AMHA to make sure that a patient is aware of the power within themselves to aid in treatment.

Another principle is the healing power of love and the whole person aspect. Patients who are in a loving relationship or have a loving family usually have a greater prognosis no matter what the malady is that affects them. The whole aspect refers to treating a patient with regard to his mental and emotional well being instead of just what the body is showing or doing. Most modern medicine merely tries to affect the physical symptom the body is exhibiting rather than looking at the person’s personal situation as well. That is why we mostly recommend alternative medicine schools.

A final few principles that the AMHA ascribes to are relationship centered care and individuality of treatment. AMHA practitioners look at the relationships of the people in the patient’s life, taking into account that a patient’s trust in his practitioner goes a long way to a successful treatment. Individuality refers to the fact that while some diseases have very similar treatments and an individual may require different treatments due to their unique individual characteristics. If homeopathy or another aspect of holistic medicine interests you contact any board member at the AMHA to get a recommendation for holistic health schools.