Naturopathy is one of those words many people have heard but few could define. Is it a therapy, a philosophy, a diet, a profession? In truth it is best understood as an approach to health, one with a long history and a simple central idea: that the body has a genuine capacity to heal itself, and that the practitioner’s task is to support that capacity rather than override it. This guide explains what naturopathy is, the principles behind it, and how it relates to modern science.
This article is educational and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Naturopathy is a complementary approach that works alongside, not instead of, conventional medical care.
What Is Naturopathy?
Naturopathy is a system of healthcare that seeks to support health and wellbeing through natural means, chiefly nutrition, lifestyle and the body’s own healing processes. Rather than focusing narrowly on suppressing symptoms, the naturopath looks at the whole person and asks why the body’s balance has been disturbed, and what conditions would allow it to recover. Nutrition sits at the very centre of this approach, which is why serious naturopathic training is, in large part, training in nutrition.
The Core Principles
Across its long tradition, naturopathy has been guided by a handful of enduring principles:
- The healing power of nature. The body has an innate tendency towards health and self-repair. The naturopath’s role is to remove obstacles to that process and provide the conditions it needs.
- Treat the whole person. Health is seen as the balance of the whole individual (body, mind and circumstances), not a collection of separate parts.
- Address the root, not just the symptom. Symptoms are read as signals of a deeper imbalance in the body’s “terrain”, and it is that underlying terrain the naturopath seeks to improve.
- First, do no harm. Gentle, non-invasive measures are preferred wherever possible.
- Prevention and education. A great deal of naturopathy is about teaching people to sustain their own health.
Dr Plaskett’s teaching adds a characteristic emphasis: that all of this ultimately comes down to the living cell. Health, and its opposite, are phenomena of every cell in the body, and it is at that cellular level that good nutrition does its work.
The “Life Force” and Vitalism
Older naturopathic writing often speaks of a “Life Force”, or vital energy, animating living things, an idea known as vitalism. You will find echoes of it in the naturopathic view that fresh, whole, living foods carry something that heavily processed foods lack. It is best understood as a guiding idea, a way of talking about the organised vitality of living systems, rather than as a measurable substance. Held lightly, it captures a real intuition: that food and health are about more than the sum of measurable nutrients.
Naturopathy and Science: Not Opposed
Naturopathy is sometimes dismissed as unscientific, and it is true that its early practitioners often worked from intuition and observation long before there was any biochemistry to explain their results. But one of the most important themes in Dr Plaskett’s work is that this apparent conflict has been overstated. As he puts it plainly, “naturopathy has, and always had, a biochemical basis.”
The naturopath’s traditional emphasis on detoxification, for example, once dismissed as vague, maps remarkably well onto the genuine biochemistry of the liver’s Phase I and Phase II detoxification pathways. The best of modern naturopathic nutrition does not reject science; it uses it, bringing together the naturopath’s whole-person insight and the biochemist’s precision. That marriage of the two is exactly what a rigorous naturopathic education sets out to teach.
What Naturopathy Is Not
Being clear about the limits matters. Naturopathy is not a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment, and a responsible naturopath will never tell you to abandon necessary medical care or claim to cure serious disease. It works best as a complement to conventional medicine: supporting the body’s resilience, addressing diet and lifestyle, and helping people feel and function better, while leaving diagnosis and the treatment of illness to the appropriate professionals. Anyone promising miracle cures is not representing genuine naturopathy.
Naturopathic Nutrition in Practice
In day-to-day terms, the naturopathic approach to nutrition tends to mean:
- A foundation of whole, unprocessed foods, with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, pulses and wholegrains.
- Attention to the gut and the body’s eliminative processes, explored in our articles on gut health and the microbiome and food and detoxification.
- Individualisation: recognising that people differ in their constitution and needs.
- Working with the body’s own regulation rather than against it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What diet do naturopaths recommend? There is no single “naturopathic diet”, but the emphasis is consistently on whole, minimally processed foods, plenty of vegetables and fruit, adequate but not excessive protein, and minimising refined sugar and heavily processed items.
Is naturopathy evidence-based? Parts of it, particularly naturopathic nutrition, rest on well-established science; other traditional ideas remain hypotheses. A mature naturopathic approach keeps what the evidence supports and holds the rest lightly, always working alongside conventional care.
Is naturopathy the same as nutritional therapy? They overlap closely. Naturopathic nutrition is the nutritional expression of the naturopathic philosophy, and it sits at the heart of what is taught in a nutritional therapy training.
Key Takeaways
- Naturopathy is an approach to health built on supporting the body’s own healing capacity through natural means, above all nutrition.
- Its principles include the healing power of nature, treating the whole person, and addressing the root rather than the symptom.
- The traditional “Life Force” is best held as a guiding idea, not a measurable substance.
- Naturopathy and science are not opposed: as Plaskett taught, it “has always had a biochemical basis”.
- It is a complement to conventional medicine, never a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment.
Learning Naturopathy
If this way of thinking about health resonates with you, it can be studied properly. Plaskett College’s naturopathic approach runs through every course, from the Certificate in Nutrition and Health for those beginning their journey, to the Professional Diploma in Nutritional Therapy for those who wish to practise. You can enrol here when you are ready.
References
- Plaskett, L., Plaskett College Nutritional Therapy course material
- Murray, M. and Pizzorno, J., Encyclopaedia of Natural Medicine, Simon and Schuster (2012)
- Lindlahr, H., Philosophy of Natural Therapeutics (1918)