Bolney Natural Therapy Centre Unit 2, The Dairy, Highlands Farm, London Road, Bolney, West Sussex. RH17 5PX Tel: 01444 882990 Mobile: 07976 936682 enquiries@bntc.co.uk www.bntc.co.uk

MISSION STATEMENT

About Alternative therapies

Over many years now we have been used to and become dependant of modern medicine for all of our health needs. We have grown up with seeing our doctor for any ill health that we maybe suffering and in a majority of circumstances being prescribed medication to deal with the symptom, but not actually questioning the cause of the symptom.
Modern medicine has a huge place in today’s world and without it many people would not be alive today without it. But some problems can be prevented if we take more responsibility for our own health. That means that we must learn about our selves and recognise the symptom of ill health and treat it before it becomes a full blown illness.
The health service today is extremely over stretched and means that there is little time for analysis of a patient’s problem. Medication is prescribed in many cases after just a short time in the doctor’s surgery. It is obvious that 5 or 10 minutes of a doctor’s time is not enough to get to the root cause of someone’s headache or inability to sleep which could be caused by the death or something traumatic that may have happened to that person over a year ago. With health resources being over stretched more and more people are awakening to the benefits of complementary therapies to aid their well being.
This is where Holistic medicine takes its place. Holistic meaning treating the whole person, the physical psychological and spiritual. This Holistic approach is the foundation of most alternative or complementary therapies. Alternative therapists believe that we are the total of all of our different parts of the body, which includes our emotions, lifestyles and our general constitution which can cause our ill health. Alternative practitioners have the time to explore these factors of the patient’s life instead of just treating the symptoms and the complaint alone and also to advise on health promoting practices.
Alternative therapies should not be a replacement for conventional medicine but the two should be able to work hand in hand with each other creating the term ‘complementary’. They also believe that the patient should be an active participant in there own health care as everyone has within them the capacity mentally physically and spiritually to aid their own healing.

History

The knowledge of alternative therapies has been built up over many thousands of years with writings dating back to the ancient Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. They were all practitioners and great documenters of medical discoveries of their age. As people, be it armies or travellers moved around the world, their medical skills, their plants and other forms of medicine went with them. All of these complemented other practices used around the world which led to the development and refinement of their treatments. Today there is quite a vast range of therapies to choose from which originate for all around the world.

Dates of development of therapies:

3000 B.C.E Aromatherapy, Chinese medicine and Healing.
2300.B.C.E Western Herbalism developed by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and later the Romans.
1000 B.C.E Ayurveda roots originated in Indian and Hindu philosophy.
370 B.C.E Nutritional therapy evolved from herbal based healing.
1700’s Homeopathy and Hypnotherapy
1800’s Naturotherapy.
1874 Osteopathy.
1895 Chiropractic.
1900’s Reflexology and the Alexander technique.
1930’s Bach Flower remedies. Acupuncture, shiatsu.