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Foundations in Western Herbalism

In this sequence you will learn the tools, terms, concepts and methods of practice to effectively use a group of 150 herbs to aid more than 40 common conditions, including acute and chronic health complaints.

This program contains 3 courses:

  • First Course in Medical Herbalism

  • Practical Herbalism

  • Vitalist Treatment of Acute Symptoms

Course Materials include:

  • 569 audio files totaling over 44 hours
  • 779 pages of notes & slides

  • A PDF Library of 78 resources and classical herbal texts totaling over 22,500 pages

  • Total storage 3.07 GB

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Program Overview

We have been training clinical herbalists in teaching clinics since 1996, and we have a good vision of the skills and approaches we want our students to have when they are working professionally with a client. In your training at NAIMH, the very first course, and every subsequent course, is designed with this result in mind: an herbalist with deep personal experience-based knowledge of the plants, open-minded curiosity, flexibility, an understanding of physiology and constitution, and successful caring for self, family, friends, community, or the general public with effective healing methods and knowing the ways to continue to learn and grow as their experience expands.

 

This certificate program will give you immediate practical skills, but also establish a strong foundation for all your future study. In the First Course in Medical Herbalism, you learn the foundations of the Vitalist approach to healing, receive hands-on experience with 15 herbs, and learn basic formulation, and therapeutics. In the next course, Practical Herbalism, you continue the hands-on approach to studying herbs, you receive a virtual library of herbal reference texts, and you learn an additional 50 herbs and how to use them for yourself, family, and friends. In the final course, Vitalist Treatment of Acute Symptoms, you learn 75 more herbs, and how to combine them into integrated therapeutics for more than 40 medical complaints. ​​

NAIMH First Course in Medical Herbalism

First Course in Medical Herbalism

This is an entry-level course for the study of herbal medicine and presents the context of the vitalist approach to healing, nutrition, and lifestyle, and also a basic introduction to formulation, with case-based study, You will learn 15 herbs and how to use them to care for more than twenty different conditions. Most important you will learn how to study an herb, which will establish a foundation for effective future learning. This is a project-oriented course, you will taste the herbs, journal their effects, make your own tinctures, devise formulas, and study actual clinical cases. Do not mistake this to be a simplistic introductory course, it contains within it the inspiration, hands-on experience, tools, terms and concepts, and methods of application, and foundation in direct experience and case-based learning that many contemporary herbalists missed out on in their own education.

NAIMH Practical Herbalism

Practical Herbalism

This is full immersion into hands-on herbalism in the vitalist paradigm, where we study and use herbs in the context of a broad vision of harmony or discord in the diet, lifestyle, and constitutional individuality of the patient. You will learn how to use a set of 50 herbs to support nutrition, digestion, rest, skin conditions, pain, and common self-limiting infections and fevers. We cover in-depth the practical uses of the herbs, with attention to the all-important hot, cold, moist, dry, tense, and relaxed constitutional states of patients, conditions, and herbs.

NAIMH Vitalist Treatment Acutes

Vitalist Treatment of Acute Symptoms

The forces of life and nature tend inherently toward healing, restoration, and the preservation and evolution of life within an individual. Acute symptoms are an expression of that same life force, and are essentially healing in nature. In treating acute symptoms, the practitioner walks a fine line between relieving suffering of the chief complaint and suppressing the inherent healing forces of nature. This course demonstrates non-suppressive, supportive treatments for major symptomatic complaints. It is comprised of recordings of an advanced post-graduate apprentice seminar for recent graduates of a school of clinical herbalism.

Foundations in Western Herbalism Self Study Program

Purchase this program for your own growth and personal development. ​Includes audio lectures, notes, slides, supplemental readings, and a digital herbal library. No tuition costs, no faculty support and no certificate is earned.

Foundations in Western Herbalism Certificate Program

Earn a Certificate from the NAIMH for completing this program. Includes the cost of the course materials, faculty support, and tuition. You will submit homework and study questions to earn a certificate.

HOW TO LEARN

720-279-4824

inquiries@naimh.com

P.O. Box 25371  Portland, OR  97298

Copyright © 2025 North American Institute of Medical Herbalism. All rights reserved. 

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