Seeking wellness help from holistic health practitioners and coaches is becoming a popular option as people take charge of their health and embrace alternative therapies.
Navigating the realm of holistic health practitioners can be confusing. If you are wondering who or what is a holistic practitioner, want to become one, or are overwhelmed by the multitude of practitioners, coaches and healers out there, you are not alone.
To make matters more confusing, the term holistic practitioner is often used interchangeaby with natural health practitioner. These terms cover a broad scope of people offering an even broader array of services.
A natural health practitioner offers alternative therapies such as energy healing, nutritional testing, herbal remedies, aromatherapy, and sound healing.
Holistic health practitioners also offer natural therapies. The difference is that they focus on whole person wellness, not a technique or a symptom. This may sound like hair splitting, but it is not.
For example, a conventional doctor would prescribe medicine for your headache or stomach ache. A holistic doctor might do the same. After learning more about you, he may also suggest specific dietary improvements, acupuncture, and/or teach you to soothe your stress with meditation.
Licensing, and its need and value is another area of confusion and contention when it comes to holistic health practitioners. A practitioner may or may not have a medical license. A license is not necessarily an indicator of more skill.
Licensing availability and viability vary by state and country. For example, licensed naturopaths in some states are not recognized in others. The Master Herbalist degree I earned in the U.S. from the Australasian College of Health Sciences gave me access to professional organizations, but not licensing. If I lived in New Zealand, I would have had the option to sit for the Medical Herbalist Board Exams. Such exams and designations do not exist in the U.S.
Holistic physicians and licensed practitioners include medical doctors with additional training, naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, massage therapists and physical therapists. In addition to the training in their licensed field, they may or may not have training in mind-body therapies or even healthy living.
With few exceptions, natural health practices are not licensed. Herbalists, energy healers and other unlicensed practitioners have varying degrees of training. Do not mistake the word license with knowledge about natural healing and healthy living. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true.
Some of the most gifted, knowledgeable, intuitive healers you would have the privilege to work with may have no formal training at all. They may have learned at a grandparent’s knee, from mentors, on-line courses, reading, and/or are self-taught. Many serious holistic health practitioners have spent hundreds or thousands of hours (and dollars) studying, taking courses and gaining experience in a variety of modalities. They often hold several certifications.
To learn more about natural healing and whole self wellness, sign up for the Natural Health E-Course. It is a great way to familiarize yourself with this site while getting a good educational foundation, and then some. Yours as a free "Thank You!" gift when you sign up for Val's newsletter.
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