The Consulting Corner #1: Depression

As more and more student work comes in I realize how very important it is for us all to share our experience with clients - tips, methods and whatever else comes to mind. The things that I share in this column will be directly related to student work and client work they have done and are posted as a response to that work. If you would like to comment on my posts or to add some information of your own please feel free to press "reply". We have a wonderful group of students here - many are already practitioners of some type - we have the potential to help each other out in so many ways.

Tip #1: Clients and Depression

While depression is a very real and often scary or harmful condition, many clients are overly fearful of their depressions and can be calmed (or even healed in some cases) by seeing that depression can be normal, effective and healthy. Remind clients that feeling bad or being depressed is normal. We are like the seasons around us. We have a winter, spring, summer and fall. Melancholics experience the winter/fall more than spring and summer and that is OK. That is normal and fine for her. She does not have to feel guilty or depressed about being depressed now and then. Of course, it is good to make sure depression is not running your life and shutting you down, but it is also healthy to let her know that sometimes it is OK to just lie in bed all day or feel bad. Sometimes ALLOWING yourself to fully experience the emotion and the pain and the fear will get rid of it faster. By suppressing it or feeling wrong about having it…sometimes it lingers because it cannot be fully resolved.

Kristie's Consulting & Seminar Trip Dates

Consulting & Seminar Trip July 2008: Kristie Karima Burns, Mh, ND

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Student Excerpts: Healing Gargle

Assignment: Try out one of the remedies below and track the results over days or over hours. If the situation is emergency (like a burn or small asthma attack) then track the results and show improvement (or not) over the span of 6 hours. If the situation is acute only (like a bruise) then track the results over a week.

Student Answer: The remedy I tried was gargling with salt water for a sore throat. It seemed to soothe my throat right away and the results lasted a couple of hours. I then repeated the gargling every couple of hours when my throat started hurting again, and the next morning, my throat was not sore at all! It seemed to work better if the water was as warm as I could tolerate it.

Teacher Response: You have discovered the secret! I dislike gargling but this remedy is so effective I can’t not do it. I have tried so many remedies for sore throat and this is the only one that REALLY works!

Student Question: Books on the History of Naturopathy?

Just wondering. I have only done so far, 3 or the herb classes and am trying to work through the Iridology and am going to go back to the Nutrition. Just wondering. In any of the classes, do you cover Naturopathic history, philosophy and principles? If not, do you have any information on this? Thanks, J

Dear J,

I do have a wonderful old book written on the topic that I downloaded offline. I will send it to you...skim it and tell me how close it is to what you need. Then I can send you more links depending on what you say. There are so many books on the topic it is hard to tell what you might enjoy reading. There are also many many historical fiction books on the topic that I have greatly enjoyed. Have you read "The Physician" by Noah Gordman? The history of medicine in it is very accurate and the book is amazing.

I will send you the other book in the next e-mail so if you don't receive it please tell me.

Blessings & Health,
Kristie Karima Burns, MH, ND

www.TheAvicennaInstitute.com

How Many Credit Hours for the Courses?

I hope everything is going good with your new computer.
Just wondering. Do you know how many hours you Naturopathic program is?
I will have enough education in total (I believe, someone is about to look over all my work) to register as a Doctor of Natural Medicine. I am including that I am working on your program, so they want to know how many hours all my programs are, so I thought I would include that as well.

Thanks, J

Dear J,

You can see details about the course credit hours here:

http://naturopathichealing.weebly.com/credit-hours.html

Blessings & Health,

Kristie Karima Burns, MH, ND

Student Letter: How do I do consulting?

I still have to finish the Nutrition course (stopped because was having trouble in understanding, but now that you have added the video, I am excited to be able to try again.
What I am wondering is, as you know I have completed a MH program and a Nutrition & Diet Therapy Specialist program, and I am doing my clinical for my Homeopathic Practitioner program as well as the Rosemary Gladstar Herbalist program. The problem is that, I don't feel that my MH program gave me a good enough consultation info. My Homeopathic program teaches that, but again, I am still not feeling as good as I hoped, mostly I believe because I have only worked with my family so far, but still. My Nutrition program defintely didn't teach consults, I also feel it didn't teach anything about taking what a persons current diet is and then determining a healthy diet for them. So, I am wondering if your Nutrition course teaches how to take a persons diet and determine what the appropriate health diet for them is. As well, is there a course on how to do a consult and intake? Although I have learned this, I want to learn more about it because I am very uneasy about this part. I am ok with working with family, but am not confident for me starting my practice to work with non-family.
Thanks, J

Dear J,

I have an entire unit on consulting which I have been considering making part of every unit of the course. Right now it is part of the ENTIRE naturopathic healing course. It is Unit 12. I also feel that this is a very important aspect of learning - you can learn as much as you want, but learning HOW to apply that is very important.

I am not sure if you have access to unit 12 right now. However, I would be happy to give you access (as some time in the next year I will be adapting it to go with every course anyway) and I would appreciate having some feedback from someone with your experience. I have designed the consultation part of the course to give people confidence with consulting and to give them a lot of resources and ideas about how to consult. However, I would appreciate hearing if it actually does accomplish that and if not, how I could improve it.

So, if you have access to unit 12, we can work on that together. If you don't, please tell me, and I will send it to you.

Additionally, when I was first starting out I was in a similar situation. I found I had completed a lot of courses but was not sure how to go about consulting. What you have learned in the homeopathic program might not be enough, but it will help you. It helped me get a base to build on.

Other things that helped me were learning iridology (this is entirely a diagnostic method) and studying typololgy and temperaments as an entire unit of study. Both of these methods helped me immensely in evaluating and seeing clients and their needs.

Blessings & Health,

Kristie Karima Burns, MH, ND

STUDENT QUESTION: The Energetic Properties of Herbs?

Dear Kristie,
For some reason, I cannot quite understand what you want here. Can you rephrase it or give me an example?

Assignment 201:2

1. Using the first article please list 2 ways you can decide what herb to use by knowing it’s energetic properties. List 2 more ways you can decide NOT to use an herb by knowing it’s energetic properties.

Blessings, R

Dear R,

A simple example would be if you know an herb has an energetic property of cooling you might choose it to use for a fever. If you know an herb has an energetic property of heating you would know NOT to use to for a fever or for anyone who was anxious, or for someone with a choleric (fire) personality or condition.

Hope this helps!

Blessings & Health,
Kristie