I have just graduated from SNHS with the Higher International Diploma in Naturopathy, specializing in the branches of Nutrition, Herbalism, and Aromatherapy. I have also received diplomas from The School of Natural Health Sciences in Homoeopathy, Flower Remedies, and Acupressure: all of which I hope to incorporate into a comprehensive form of naturopathic therapy once I set up my practice in the London-Oxford area in the coming months. I came to SNHS to study holistic healthcare practices as part of my research into the nature of disease. I am currently writing an academic thesis in the field of psychology which explores the nature of disease and how it relates to the soul and psyche. Although as a student my career has not yet taken off because I have been spending most of my time underground, focusing on research and learning, I have worked throughout most of that time as a carer for elderly people, most of whom have had various forms of dementia, as well as also caring for many souls who suffer from a wide variety of degenerative neurological and physical disorders.
Although I have learned a lot over the years from conventional medical approaches to health and illness, I was still searching for some kind of knowledge that could provide a deeper insight into the state of the soul in serious illness. I honestly felt like an archaeologist looking for a lost treasure, for a kind of ancient wisdom about the body-psyche which I knew in my bones but which seemed to have been forgotten by modern culture! Once I started studying these holistic courses I began to remember the spiritual roots of disease, but in a way that was relevant to the discursive reality of today’s world, and to today’s way of thinking. Over time, the very healing principle of naturopathy, the healing power of Nature, became for me, in my research work, the underlying wisdom of my thesis. It became what Carl Jung calls in analytical psychology, the prima materia of the work: its spiritual substance. Studying at SNHS was like putting fresh spring water down into the dried up old roots of my thesis: once I began to soak up this wise, innate knowledge of the ancestors, my thesis began to flower again, and bear fruit! And for that I am very grateful! Now, I feel privileged to lay my clinical roots down in the soil of the field of Holistic Medicine, and I really look forward to putting all that I have learned into practice.
Many thanks to all the staff at SNHS, whose comments on my assignments were always encouraging and supportive. Thanks also to the course writers whose instruction was always concise, clear and expansive in its scope, covering all the essentials of the practice, in a very accessible way for the newcomer. Thanks to Julia Vaughan-Griffiths for setting up this low-cost school, this oasis in the desert of modernity, so that those of us who are thirsty can come and drink from the well of Mother Nature.
Kindest regards
Niamh Madden-Brennicke
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