When we’re choosing herbs to help someone, knowing their medical diagnosis isn’t enough: we don’t choose herbs for a diagnosis. As herbalists, we actually need more information! A medical diagnosis is a specialized vocabulary which creates a shorthand so that people who already know what it means, how it happens, and how to fix it, can speak more efficiently about (whatever it is). It’s not an objective truth, though: it’s a descriptive label that is useful in a specialized context. Herbalism is a different context.
That’s why it’s not very practical to try to look up something like “herbs for neuropathy caused by a herniated cervical disc” – because we can’t actually make that list without leaving gaps large enough to drive a truck through. The name of the problem isn’t enough information for us to choose herbs, we still have to get more data! We need to understand what the diagnostic term means in absolute terms, and we need to know what the person’s experience of that diagnosis is (because not everyone with a certain label has the same experience), and then we need to figure out what herbs or what series of herbs have the actions we need to work toward a resolution.
So here’s how we think that through – taking this example, and asking: what does “neuropathy caused by a herniated cervical disc” mean for an herbalist? Where exactly can we dig into that to make an impact? What other information do we need to allow us to pick the right herbs to support this person?
This process for thinking everything through will work for any problem! It’s all in this episode.
This example came up in one of our live Q&A sessions last week. Those are a perk enjoyed by every one of our students – whether they’re enrolled in a full program like Family Herbalist or Community Herbalist, a single course like Neurological & Emotional Health, or even one of our free short courses such as Herbal Study Tips. Anyone who’s learning from us can ask us questions directly at these sessions, twice a week. And if you can’t make it live, we keep an archive – there are more than 500 archived Q&A sessions for you to look through! (Don’t worry, there’s a searchable index so you can find what you’re interested in.)
Everything we offer is presented in self-paced online video courses, which come with lifetime access to current & future course material, the twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
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