FOUNDATIONS IN WESTERN HERBALISM PROGRAM

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Skill set: In this sequence of 3 courses, 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.

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Background

Because we have been training clinical herbalists in teaching clinics for more than 20 years, we have a good vision of the skills and approaches we want our students to have when they are sitting with a patient. In your training at NAIMH, the very first course, and every subsequent course, is designed with this end 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 successfully 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 course sequence 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, learn basic formulation, and therapeutics. In 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 Vitalist Treatment of Acute symptoms, you learn 75 more herbs, and how to combine them into integrated therapeutics for more than 40 medical complaints.

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First Course in Medical Herbalism See full description

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 foudation in direct experiece and case-based learning that many contemporary herbalists missed out on in their own education.

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Practical Herbalism: A Course in the Practical Uses of 50 Herbs   See full description

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.

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Vitalist Treatment of Acute symptoms See full description

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 the major symptomatic complaints. It is comprised of recordings of an advanced post-graduate apprentice seminar for recent graduates of a school of clinical herbalism. This 12-lesson course covers the physiology, pathology, nutrition, pharmacology, herbal actions, and vitalist and constitutional considerations for acute symptoms whether as primary complaints or part of a larger presentation of chronic disease. You will learn non-suppressive and supportive treatments for digestion, tooth and gum problems, heartburn, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, hemorrhoids, dysbiosis, blood purification, acne, eczema, poison ivy/oak, wounds, minor burns, boils, skin ulcers, fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety, pain, excess mucous, cough, sore throat, asthma, allergies, eye problems, fever, colds, influenza, urinary tract infections, menstrual complaints, and support for pregnancy and lactation.

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About This Program
 
Hours:           156 
Term:       56 weeks
Materials     $376 
Tuition:    $699 (optional)

To complete this program and earn its certificate, purchase the individual course materials and enroll in the program courses one at a time in the order on this page. You will pay tuition for each course one-at-a-time as you enroll. Not all at once. You will earn a CE certificate for each course you complete even if you do not complete the program. If purchasing all the course materials at the same time, you are entitled to a discount on the cost.  See the Product Bundle for this course in the store. On completion of all the courses within a program, you may submit an application for your Program Certificate.

On-site program

This program may be taken in an on-site classroom format, with additional material, lab and field work, and direct clinical experience at the Acorn School of Herbal Medicine in Nevada City, CA. See more details at our Affiliated Schools page.

Online program  
The material in this program, along with substantial video enhancements and supplemental information can be studied in an internet-only format from the Southern Institute of Medical Herbalism, which also offers a more substantial Diploma in Herbal Medicine. See more details at our Affiliated Schools page.