Naturopathy and Western Herbal Medicine: Principles and Ethical Practices

This essay discusses the principles of naturopathy and western herbal medicine and their relationship with ethical communication practices. It covers the six principles of naturopathy, including Do No Harm, Nature's Healing Power, Identification and Cause Treatment, Treatment of Whole Person, Doctor as a Teacher, and Prevention of Disease. The essay also explores how naturopaths use western herbal medicine to avoid harm to patients and preserve the local environment. References are provided for further reading.

Naturopathy and Western
Herbal Medicine

Naturopathy is a study that includes medicinal system covering natural remedies for the
body healing and the treatment itself. It embraces various therapies, herbs, acupuncture, as well
as counselling related to nutritions as well whereas western herbal medicines comes under the
clinical practice of a human using natural plants, natural materials etc. These medicinal studies
have been opted in the health care services over the globes for their practices upon education
and prevention of the problems occur in a person, that can be mental as well as physical or can
be both at the same time (McIntyre and et.al., 2019). Due to changes in social and culture,
naturopathy have become first choice as the complementary medicine in the health care system
in Australia as well.
In this essay, the study of naturopathy and herbal medicines have been introduced to
understand their principles within the Australian health care system. Furthermore, the
relationship of principle with the ethical or professional communication practices are also
included for the understanding purpose.
Principles of Naturopathy and western herbal medicines
There are six principles of naturopathy as well as the herbal medicines exists are defined here.
Do No Harm is the first principle idea and have three percepts to make avoidance from
harming patient. One is naturopaths utilizes the herbal medicines to minimize the harmful effect
at maximum time at the place of force and intervention. Second is to suppress the symptoms as
they can interfere in the healing process. Third percept focuses upon self healing process with
nature's healing power so that the harms to the patients can be avoided (Seely and Verma, 2019).
Nature's healing power is the second principle of naturopathy. It is a inherent healing
process that is self organizing in the nature in between the living system. It establishes, restore
and maintains the health. As per the role of neuropath, this process can be augmented by identify
obstacle to the health and supports the creation of external as internal environment creation
(Oates, 2019).
Identification and cause treatment is the third one principle and as per this illness can
not show occurrence without any specific cause although there origin can be anywhere. For the
complete and efficient treatment of a person identification by symptoms as well as treatment of
that cause is mandatory to eliminate the further diseases.

Treatment of whole person is the fourth principle, as per this total health is a
combination of mental, physical, social, spiritual health as well. Naturopathic physician treat a
whole individual by keeping all these factors in the mind such as for hormonal functioning
herbal medicines are used and for the spiritual one, personal development of the spirituality has
been done (Arentz, and et.al., 2021).
Doctor as a teacher is the fifth one, as objective of naturopathy is itself to educate
patients as well as emphasizes upon the health as being self responsibility. As per meaning of
doctor is also related to teacher and make the patient aware about their optimal health.
Prevention of disease is the sixth one defined in the terms of primary objectives under
the study of naturopathy. Diseases prevention as well as the attainment of the health optimally
can be achieved with education and healthy living practices. Naturopathic physicians do access
all the risk factors and make interventions to prevent the illness within their patients.
Do not harm principle related to ethical practice
Naturopaths are familiar with the framework of ethical principle used under the heath
care system that include four ethical principles such as beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and
the autonomy. All four together forms a framework that stipulate the aim to avoid doing harm,
do good, should respect the rights of patients to decide for themselves and to make ensure that
they are being treated fairly or not (Chatfield, 2018). This entire framework is known as
'Principlism'.
Do not harm is one of the best and prominent practice that holds the principle of ethics
towards the individual or the patients as well. Naturopathy combines various traditional
treatments as well with some modern science aspects within its practices in the world.
Sometimes in the global health care services they include the complementary medicines as well
such as herbal medicines, homeopathy etc. For this effective practice, Naturopaths tends to use
western herbal medicines for the patients to avoid any harm towards the health of a patient. In
the least cases only they apply force or interventions as per the ethical practice (Doolan, 2017).
For the practice of herbal medicines, preservation as well as conservation of the local
environment is done so that the harm towards the local community can also be avoided by the
practice of naturopath. With all the increasing scrutiny from this western herbal medicines,
neuropaths within Australia are centred towards the integration practice of scientific as well as

the traditional neuropathy, that is a base for evidence related study of the person within the
centred health care system. There are significant signs are also found as a greater integration
within the community pharmacies as well as the western herbal medicinal clinics in cities. The
whole system related to the research in Naturopath within Australia or over the world have
recent establishment of international research consortium. With the principle over Do not harm
practices, the neuropaths uses specificity within the treatment specially related to the physical,
they give herbal medicines, and further give the patient a right to decide that what is right for
them. Because somehow the patient right or the mentality towards the treatment gets positive, the
mental cause of problem can be treated easily.
From the above essay, it can be concluded as naturopathy and the western herbal
medicine plays important role in the treatment of a patient in the health care system across
Australia and globally as well. As among the one indicates study of natural science and other is
the medicine medium used by naturopaths to treat the patients. Moreover, all six principle of
naturopathy are briefly studied in this essay and Furthermore, their relationship with the ethical
practice is also have been discussed.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
McIntyre, & et.al., (2019). Consultations with naturopaths and Western herbalists: Prevalence of
use and characteristics of users in Australia. The Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine. 25(2). 181-188.
Oates, L. (2019). Naturopathic and Herbal Medicine Clinical Practice. Australian Journal of
Herbal and Naturopathic Medicine. 31(1). 1.
Arentz, S. & et.al., (2021). Herbal and Naturopathic.
Seely, D. & Verma, S. (2019). The Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians principles
of care guidelines.
Doolan, A. (2017). The right to health, naturopathy and Western herbal medicine in international
human rights law. Australian Journal of Herbal Medicine. 29(1). 34-36.
Online
Chatfield. K, 2018. [Online]. Available at
<https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2018/1903629/>.
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