Changes

Here is our interview with Susan E. Cayleff.

I’ve researched and published on the intersections of women’s lives and the history of alternative healing and medicine for decades. I’ve focused on the 19th century cold water cure movement, patent medicines, self-help regimes, ethnic and racial folk healing ways and the stinging critiques levied against organized medicine by alternative healing sects: homeopathy, botanics, hydropathy, and women’s groups in the modern era. Around 1990, I was contacted by Cathy Rogers, N.D. (Naturopathic Doctor) then President of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians who had read my book Wash and Be Healed: The Water Cure Movement and Women’s Health (1987, 1992). Since water cure was a foundational component of naturopathic healing she asked if I’d be interested in researching their movement. This triggered my interest and all these years later has resulted in Nature’s Path. This text looks at the Naturopathic movement within a social context of culture wars between organized medicine and the naturopaths, the notion of relying on an M.D. as “expert” vs. health choices and self-determination, women’s empowerment and much larger critiques of power and authority that permeate American society, 1890s-present.

Today, to quote the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, naturopathic practice includes the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities of “clinical and laboratory diagnostic testing, nutritional medicine, botanical medicine, naturopathic physical medicine (including naturopathic manipulative therapy), public health measures, hygiene, counseling, minor surgery, homeopathy, acupuncture, prescription medication, intravenous and injection therapy, and naturopathic obstetrics (natural childbirth).” As in the past, naturopathy is a philosophy for a way of life, linking body, mind and daily purpose to stay healthy. (See [http://www.naturopathic.org/content.asp?contentid=59 The American Association of Naturpathic Physicians].)

Naturopathy differed from the 19th medical sects of eclecticism, hydropathy, botanics (herbal medicinals) and chiropractic in many ways. It is not a single cause/cure premise. Bodily wellbeing cannot be attained through any one healing system like these, most especially not through regular medicine. The best methods must be combined from many practices to create a healthy world and body. It does have in common with these named an insistence that the individual cannot be a passive recipient of expert-driven health care. Rather, health is predicated on personal responsibility. Naturopathy also relied and still relies heavily on women’s knowledge and expertise as both professional practitioners and domestic healers.

The Lusts were the premiere popularizers of the movement. Before and after their marriage in the late 19th century and first decade of the 20th century they founded the American School of Naturopathy in New York City, a health food bakery, numerous periodical publications, countless therapeutic texts, a hospital and clinic (of sorts) and three away-from-home agrarian health retreats all known as Yungborn (New Jersey, Florida and Cuba).

This political, legal, and financial harassment helps explain why seeking licensure became so critical for naturopaths and the profession. After tireless lobbying and planning, in 1929 and 1931 naturopaths joyfully embraced the passage of two Acts in the US House of Representatives legalizing Naturopathy in the District of Columbia. The Acts made naturopathy a distinct healing profession on par with osteopathy, chiropractic, and allopathy in Washington, D.C. There had also been some success in the Pacific Northwest. These precedents offered a foundation for other states, but provoked increased allopathic backlash.

Naturopathy’s root practices (botanics, eclecticism, water-cure, sun and air cures) were used nationwide. Naturopathy first grew popular along the east and west coasts and in Chicago, but it spread rapidly through national meetings, conventions, and Lust’s state-by-state lobbying for licensure. Naturopathy was first and foremost part of a nationwide populist movement. The desire for choice in medical practitioners and the relentless critique of invasive allopathic methods went hand-in-hand with the Progressive Era’s push back to industrialization, monopolies, and condemnation of capitalist greed, overbearing enforcement of expert-driven laws, governmental enforcement tactics of public health policies (forced vaccination) that removed agency from individuals. Naturopathy was part of the response to anti-immigrant sentiments and anti-Black racism that produced notoriously unhealthy slums and poverty.

Naturopathy grew again in the 1960s and ‘70s during the counterculture revolution. The biases and shortcomings of organized medicine were critiqued by the holistic health movement, anti-nuclear activists, feminist consciousness-raising groups, and health food industries.

Licensed naturopathy is thriving. The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, long housed in the Pacific Northwest, a regional stronghold for the movement, relocated to Washington, DC to facilitate lobbying efforts. It is licensed in 17 states (AK, AR,CA, CO, CT, HI,ID,KS,ME,MN, MT, NH, ND, OR, UT VT, WA, Washington, DC., Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands). Its seven accredited educational institutions are Bastyr in WA, National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Portland, OR, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences, Tempe, AZ, University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine, CT, National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, IL, Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine, Toronto, Ontario and Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine in New Westminster, British Columbia. They offer the same basic sciences training as traditional medical schools, along with instruction in integrative medicine, botanical medicine, clinical counseling, homeopathy, laboratory and clinical diagnosis, minor surgery, naturopathic physical medicine and nutritional science. There are also dual degree programs in which students study for an additional period to obtain a Master’s in an area of specialization, such as acupuncture and Chinese medicine, midwifery, or counseling psychology.

The national office provides guides and lobby kits, along with an annual “DC Federal Legislative Initiative” to bring workshops on political leadership and lobbying tutorials to increase the reach of the profession. These efforts resulted in the federally-sanctioned national Naturopathic Medicine Awareness Week celebrated for the first time in 2013. The Affordable Care Act holds promise for naturopathy and other complementary and alternative medicines. Insurance reimbursement remains a key concern: without it, only those able to afford the services out of pocket can consult a practitioner. The irony of this for a movement that has labored for inclusivity is evident.

[[File:National_College_of_Naturopathic_Medicine_(Portland,_Oregon).jpg|thumbnail|275px|National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon]]

:Many current licensed naturopaths are far more willing to embrace some of the benefits of biomedical medicine. This statement is complicated, perhaps overstated, but signifies an important shift nonetheless. Diminished are the carte blanche rejections of all pharmaceuticals (synthetic versus plant-based treatments) and vaccinations, replaced with a more tempered “weigh the evidence and outcomes” advice. Antibiotics are seen by some as having value, although a single-minded “fighting germs” approach still echoes as an inadequate theory of disease causality.