Huntington College of Health Sciences

CAM practices, generally, are the wild west in most states.

In New York, Naturopaths operate practices without licensing at all. Most of the "legitimate" ones market their credibility by advertising the states that they DO hold licenses in. Vermont is quite common among those who graduated from accredited practitioners.

Beyond that, it's even worse than mental health practitioners as far as grey areas for people to operate. Just make something up and you can practice that without worry as long as you don't purport to treat or diagnose illness. The standard go-to is that you "promote wellness."

You don't need any degree to do this. "Wellness Coaches" operate with everything from no formal education whatsoever to doctorates (some in related fields, most not). I am aware of at least one RN who operates a CAM practice despite lacking any license to have any sort of practice.

I mention all of this because these notions of "properly arranged programs" preparing people to open a CAM practice is largely bunk. The Hypnosis Motivation Institute, currently on Show Cause with DEAC, purports to train you to open a hypnosis practice in a few months offering it as a handy alternative to becoming a mental health practitioner.

Business savvy will determine whether you can make a living at it. Not the specific snake oil you are peddling.

 

Integrative Healthcare in its purest form is about the marriage of science-backed methods that are and are not used regularly in the mainstream medical system. That intent has been bastardized by charlatans injecting fake therapies, but we need to understand that because some people have abused it that doesn't mean the core intent should be forgotten, nor has it changed.

There is a growing number of MDs that now embrace the use of psychology, yoga exercise, massage, and so on and are openly calling their practices "integrative" and providing those services under one roof. I've known of some personally that were strictly by-the-book pills and surgery pushers, but new information that they found for themselves made them change course, and they reject homeopathy, reiki, and the list of other nonsensical therapies that lack any kind of scientific proof of effectiveness. But I understand that since there are so many people out there pushing quack medicine and using legitimate terms it can become difficult to sort through and find who is really honest.

It's true that there is no state regulation on Integrative Medicine yet, but there are boards gaining traction and to get on them you have to be an MD, or some other type of state licensed healthcare provider at the RN or Doctoral level so there is a start.

Unless you want to hurt people, you really should have a mastery grasp of all the methods and therapies, chemistry and biology, human pathology and pharmacology, as well as nutrition, and that's what a proper program includes. So as far as needing a degree or not, I look at it this way: I wouldn't visit someone doing CAM or IH/IM who never had any formal education in it the same way I wouldn't visit a person claiming to be an MD who never graduated medical school, or a supposed lawyer who didn't pass the bar. At one time, a nut could make the excuse that there weren't enough programs available so they could just go to town taking risks with people, but like LA posted, there is plenty to choose from now even at the certificate level if a full degree is not the goal so there is no excuse anymore. There are patients that won't look into anything, but there are a lot more these days that will, so if you flash a fake credential or an unaccredited one, someone will find out sooner rather than later and out you online. If you have none at all, you probably won't get much business unless you're a master salesperson, but then again anyone who would go to a person with no formal credentials in something dealing with their well-being is pretty much asking for whatever trouble they get.