The Holistic Perspective

We all know what it’s like seeing an allopathic doctor, right?

You wait weeks to months for an appointment, and finally the day comes. You get to the office and sit down with the doctor. All the time they have for you is 15 minutes, so you rush to tell them what’s been bothering you. They look quickly through your chart, come up with a few different options of what the diagnosis could be and then order tests to get more information to narrow those down. Sometimes they will prescribe a pill to deal with that diagnosis, or sometimes they will have nothing for you but the advice that you should lose some weight, or maybe it’s just anxiety and have you tried exercising more?

Rarely is any advice ever given on nutrition, or movement, or stress reduction. They won’t investigate how well you’ve been sleeping, or if you have any trauma history contributing to your current state of health. In fact, rarely do they do much to promote health – it seems the focus of the whole model is just to prevent death, and deal with disease.

And honestly, we need that sometimes! If I was just in a traumatic accident, or had a heart attack the only place I would want to be is at the hospital with highly trained doctors working hard to save my life. Doctors are also excellent at running tests and coming up with a precise diagnosis. There are so many great reasons to see an MD – but seeking out holistic care that focuses on you as a whole person and not just the sum of your individual parts isn’t one of them. They also can’t help you with building up your foundations of health.

Things are changing though, and people are beginning to recognize that there is more than just the Western model for building wellness and feeling better in our bodies. There’s a growing number of people each year seeking out alternative providers and achieving their goals with the help of these skilled professionals. And there are so many options to choose from!

Some of these options I think of as only a slight shift in the paradigm. From my perspective, functional MD’s and Naturopathic doctors still operate within that Western model. It’s definitely more holistic and does seek more of a root cause to disease, but you’re still going to run into a lot of expensive testing, supplements galore, and even pharmaceuticals. At the same time, you’re also going to get diet and lifestyle advice, and a true focus on the patient as a whole person seeking wellness.

Often, we can even find herbalist working within this Western model. These are the herbalists who design “protocols” that are one size fits all. They think of herbs as for particular conditions, this herb for high blood pressure, that herb for a UTI. I also see them often following trends in the alternative wellness world – everyone must go on a parasite cleanse, everyone needs fulvic acid, etc. There isn’t much room for the natural differences between each person in this model of herbal care.

Herbalists working from a wholly shifted perspective, from a true holistic model recognize the differences in each person’s body and lived experience. We recognize that each person comes to us with a different constitution (are they hot or cold? Damp or dry? Tense or lax?), a different history, different symptoms (even within the categorization of the same condition!), and, of course, different health goals. From this perspective we can really start to do some foundational work! We can look at this person as a whole, and find herbs that can start to shift things, to build more resilience. We can make lifestyle and nutrition recommendations to help build them up, as well.

That shift in perspective is a huge one! We are no longer looking for a named condition, and then figuring out what substance will work best to combat it – we’re looking at symptoms and the state of the body, and matching herbs and lifestyle choices to try and shift it back into a more comfortable state.

If this is something you’re interested in I’d love to chat more about it with you at my Sunday Tea & Chat events! They’re free, open to the public and super low key. Just show up with a nice cup of tea and lets discuss all things herby!