By Richmond Natural Medicine

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July 19, 2018

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by Lindsay Kluge, Clinical Herbalist & Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist

Herbal medicine is an incredibly complex discipline, often requiring years of academic and clinical training.  Here is what to consider when choosing the right herbal practitioner for you and your needs.

Over the past several years, I have talked to hundreds of people who are interested in taking herbal medicines and even working with an herbalist, however, they have a strong hesitation for three big reasons:

1. There just aren’t many herbalists (if any at all) in their area;
2. There are absolutely no regulations about who can call themselves herbalists. The general public has no idea who to trust and who is reputable because there is no licensing, no national testing, and no uniform academic training. This is obviously a valid concern. I wouldn’t want to go and see a medical practitioner that has had minimal training and clinical experience, and;
3. Their doctors discourage using herbal medicines and put fear into patients about seeing alternative practitioners because the doctors are not trained (and have not studied the “evidence”) in herbal medicines themselves. It is simply not included in most medical programs.

This is the dilemma with practicing as an herbalist in America, and the major obstacle of choosing an herbal practitioner. Herbal Medicine is an incredibly complex discipline, often requiring years of academic and clinical training.

After a few years in the field, here is my honest answer about choosing an herbal practitioner that’s right for you and determining their level of skill:

1. Herbal medicine is inherently a folk traditional profession. It is grounded in grass-roots practice on a community level, with an emphasis on using what is local, using simple remedies and treating the whole person (not just symptoms). This is what ANY budding herbalist is taught, and what any program will teach us. This is herbal medicine on a small, community-scale and excellent for those who rarely travel, live in outlying rural areas and have access to surrounding botanicals. Herbalists in these communities are quite often second, third, fourth (and beyond) generation herbalists who have learned from their families and passed the tradition along, using their knowledge of what has worked in the past with success.

2. Several community herbal medicine schools have popped up throughout the country which provides people with local programs to study herbal medicine. These can range from weekend workshops to even a year-long (or more). Unfortunately, none of these are accredited and do not provide a recognized degree for these students to utilize. These community schools range quite a bit in their academic training, from shamanistic to very clinical and, quite often, are led by highly skilled and highly trained herbalists. Students coming out of these programs are often well trained on the therapeutic potential of plants and are an excellent resource for the general public in choosing between several herbal remedies. Some excellent schools include: Sacred Plant Traditions in Charlottesville, VA; The Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine in Weaverville, NC; The North East School of Botanical Medicine in Ithica, NY; The California School of Herbal Studies in Forestville, CA; and the North American Institute for Medical Herbalism in Portland, OR.

3. With today’s demand for highly clinical and scientifically validated medical information, herbal medicine programs are few and far between. The Maryland University of Integrative Health offers a 3 year, accredited Masters level degree program for Herbal Medicine that is heavily based in physiology, pathophysiology and also the traditional and scientific study of herbal medicine. From my experience, this is the most clinical program I have found that bridges the gap between modern western medicine and traditional herbal medicine. Herbalists who graduate from this program are often the best option for more complex medical issues and source their herbs from wider (sometimes global) sources including Ayurvedic, Western and occasionally even Chinese medicines. They are often able to communicate more effectively with your doctors and medical providers which can ease the tension between modern medicine and “alternative” medicine when we all speak the same language.

*Note, all of the above programs are specific to Western Herbal medicine, not Traditional Chinese Medicine.

As you can see, there is a huge range of options when choosing an herbalist, and no one training is better or worse than another. I have friends who have studied in some community herbal medicine schools that are amazing and highly skilled herbalists who I would not hesitate to see myself or refer a patient to see. I also know herbalists who have incredible academic training in even the most complex pathophysiologies and cancers who mainly utilize herbal medicines and nutritional therapies, sometimes in conjunction with modern medicines and pharmaceuticals.

In order to license any profession, there must be an overseeing, governing body of people who decide what is important to study and what is not in order to make the academic training uniform. The very unique thing about herbal medicine is that there are thousands of years and hundreds of beneficial ways to practice, each with their distinctive positive qualities. With universal licensing, some of these fields would be excluded, which in my opinion, would be a detriment to the field of herbal medicine.

The most important thing to consider when choosing an herbalist is that you feel comfortable with their level of training and ask them plenty of questions. Check out where they have studied and even get a second opinion. Herbs are also drugs and certainly have strong effects within the body.

It’s incredibly important to trust your herbalist, and also do some research yourself to ask informed questions. For further clarification, check out some Frequently Asked Questions about herbal medicine.