Naturopathic Medicine
What is it?
Naturopathic medicine is rooted in the belief that the body's innate capacity for healing is the best possible medicine and that illness presents when obstacles stand in the way of that healing process. An obstacle may be a pathogen like a bacteria or virus out of balance in the body, a specific nutrient level or overall nutrition being too low, the stress of a fast-paced lifestyle leading to digestive imbalance, a loss of a loved one or other kinds of loss. Visits with Naturopathic doctors are generally longer than visits with conventional medical doctors, with extra time spent gathering physical, mental and emotional, social, and environmental aspects of your history and getting to know more about you as an individual. Treatment modalities that are utilized often include dietary changes, herbal and supplement recommendations, lifestyle or daily routine changes, and bodywork or musculoskeletal adjustments. Naturopathic doctors attend 4-year doctorate programs that include conventional medical subjects, diagnostic procedures, and pharmacology, and their education and training qualify them to practice as licensed primary care providers in 22 states.
Naturopathic Visit with Dr. Jessica
What to Expect
In a Naturopathic medicine appointment with Dr. Jessica Hebert, you can expect plenty of time to share your health concerns and goals, appropriate labs and testing, education and fresh perspectives about your concerns, and effective treatment plans. Dr. Jessica is careful to listen for challenges that are unique to you so that the treatment can be more tailored for you. The nutritional foundation plus the wide range of modalities that Naturopathic doctors are taught in their training help them to be especially skillful at working with people who have already tried a number of conventional approaches and not yet had success in their treatment. All these skills are also helpful in supporting people in creating lifestyles that prevent illness and help you optimize your health both in the short- and long-term.
Respect for the wisdom, theory, and usefulness of all systems of medicine is a particular perspective that Dr. Jessica brings to her practice. She knows there are many gifted healers practicing within all categories of healers, from conventional Medical Doctors to integrative medicine practitioners to Naturopathic Doctors to Ayurvedic practitioners, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, energy healers, and more. A metaphor that illustrates her philosophy about the wide variety of different systems of medicine is the story of three blind men each standing at a different part of an elephant--the trunk, a leg, the tail--and describing to the other men what an elephant is based on that position. Every system or theory must start with some basic assumptions to build upon. One important basic assumption of conventional medicine is that we are all separate beings, whereas a number of energy medicine systems are founded upon the principle of unity between beings. Regardless of whether either or both of these assumptions are true or false, Dr. Jessica has seen situations in which they are both useful, and depending on which one is guiding the practitioner, the assessment of the root issue and the treatments will be very different. Looking at your life and health through the lenses of different systems to gather additional perspectives is also an important part of how she practices. Importantly, that also includes learning about and supporting your personal values and philosophy about healing and medicine.