Once these factors are better understood, a series of naturopathic treatments can help support the body through change, but above all Naturopathy is aimed at restoring a client’s autonomy so that they can rediscover who they are and their own individual needs, and as a result make better, more appropriate life choices that keep them in good health.

To achieve this, we must not only consider the physical body, but also other aspects such as psycho-emotional, energetic and spiritual health in an attempt to evaluate the person as a whole and dynamic system rather than as a series of moving parts. From this perspective, symptoms and disease therefore are not necessarily to be viewed negatively and suppressed, but instead to be seen as signs of a deeper imbalance which, once resolved, will lead to the natural resolution of the symptom in question. Of course, when the symptom is life threatening, we turn to an allopathic approach to deal with the acute situation, and modern medicine, with its roots in acute wartime care, has developed incredible life saving tools to this end. But even in these situations, we can always take the opportunity to reflect on why something has happened. In this way, allopathy and naturopathy are not in competition with one another but in fact have two very different and complementary roles. And this distinction becomes even more important as we have moved historically from a time of acute disease care to the long term, chronic conditions that dominate our current healthcare systems around the world today. As we consider the meteoric rise in chronic, long term diseases and the economic and social impacts arising from them, we need new approaches to help resolve these conditions at the initial stages before they develop into overt disease states, and Naturopathy represents a robust tool for achieving this goal.