Approaches to Healing

In plants, Nature has provided us with medicine that is easily recognized by our body systems for gentle assimilation and powerful healing effects. Plants are life forms with vital energy, an expression of personality (think of a century old oak tree or a robust sunflower), and complex biochemical interactions like our own bodies. Therefore I choose to use botanical medicine, homeopathy, and diet and nutritional support as my main therapeutics.

Botanical

Herbs are complex medicinal compounds with a long history in traditional medicine. Our body recognizes plant medicine as something closer to food and indeed they often overlap. Our traditional cooking spices can be used as medicine and even substantial food plants like oats also have botanical medicine properties. This means herbs can provide us with powerful results and fewer side effects.

In my practice I often use herbs in a tincture form, meaning their medicine has been preserved in alcohol. I often combine several herbs into one specially formulated tincture. That way I can address imbalance in a number of different systems at the same time.

Sometimes I will prescribe an herb to help in an energetic way. This will have to do with the energy of the plant as it manifests in the world—the personality of a delicate clinging vine is different from that of a stubborn weed. In these cases, I am using the herb to help a patient achieve balance in an emotional or energetic way, such as helping a person feel more grounded. Flower essences and essential oils are some other ways I prescribe botanical medicine physically or energetically.

Nutrition

Whole foods—My preference is that patients get the nutrition they need from a wholesome diet and I work with people to balance and add healthful variety to their diets. I love food and hope to inspire people to make and appreciate good food so that processed food and other poor choices are less appealing over time. Choosing and eating foods should be a joyous prospect rather than a chore.

Supplements

Sometimes we need help to get the nutrition we need. Our food sources have become devitalized through cultivating and distributing practices. In some patients, the body has been depleted over a long period of time through diet practices or difficulty assimilating nutrition through poor digestion. While working to address these underlying factors, I use nutritional supplementation to help support the body in the short term.

Homeopathy

is powerful medicine for breaking patterns. When someone is caught in a story that they can’t see their way out of, and they are caught in reactions both physical (ie,symptoms) and emotional that aren’t helping them any longer, homeopathy can loosen that very tight knot so that a patient can start to see solutions for themselves. Symptoms are only a part of the overall pattern that can be affected by this very powerful medicine.