Natural Healthcare College has non-diploma courses that are appropriate for anyone who is interested in learning how they may be able to improve their own or their family’s health. These courses may also be appropriate for existing practitioners who would like to extend their range of knowledge in complementary therapies
On this website page you will find details of the following courses that vary from one-module to three-module courses:
Herbal Wisdom, Nutritional Essentials for the 21st Century, Self-help Naturopathic therapies, Coping with stress, Slowing the ageing process and Anatomy & Physiology
Herbal Wisdom
Herbal medicine goes back a very long way, having been used by people across the world for thousands of years. In recent years the Western world has seen a tremendous upsurge in the demand for herbal remedies but all too often people have a poor understanding of the attributes of herbs, or indeed how to use them safely and effectively
The Natural Healthcare College’s Herbal Wisdom course comprises four, colour illustrated modules that include:
- A brief look at the history of herbs
- Individual properties and actions of a number of commonly used herbs
- Making your own herbal preparations
- Safe dosages of herbs and checking herbs for contra-indications and interactions
- Common disorders associated with various systems of the body and the herbs that can be used to help treat those conditions
- Anecdotal herbal folklore and 'recipes'
The overall aim of the course is to give you confidence in the choice of herbs to help in the treatment of specific conditions. The course will provide you with a great deal of knowledge about herbs and how to use them efficiently and effectively
Successful completion the course will not give you a qualification to practice in herbal medicine. This is because ongoing discussions in the UK are moving towards Statutory Regulation of herbal practitioners. When those regulations come into place, titles such as Herbalist will be protected by law enabling only those individuals who have demonstrated their competencies to the registering bodies to use such titles. 500 hours of clinical practice has been set as the current standard for newly qualified graduates wishing to practise as Herbalists
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required. This course may suit:
- Non-practitioners who would like to use herbs in the home
- Practitioners of various therapies who would like to know more about herbs (the course is appropriate for CPD purposes)
- Staff of health food stores
There are no exams for this course; successful completion is dependent upon continuous assessment of your skills in the homework assignments for each module. On successful completion of the course you will receive a Certificate in Herbal Studies.
The fee for the course is £180
After I’d qualified in other courses, I felt that knowing a bit more about herbs was a good idea. It is a really enjoyable course, full of practical hints and tips as well as little projects that you can easily do yourself at home. It teaches you how to use a Herbal (herb encyclopaedia), and goes through both different health conditions and the herbs that can help them, as well as the different plant actions (uses) of individual herbs. At the end, I felt confident that I had a good understanding of how to recommend herbs in client work
Kim (Surrey)
Nutrition Essentials for the 21st Century
This introductory course to the most natural of healing methods will teach you basic facts about nutrition that can help you to improve or maintain your own health and that of your family. Many of today’s common health issues can be blamed on inappropriate diet and/or lifestyle so we’ll be looking at ways of obtaining an optimal diet through all stages of life – from pregnancy to old age. Some of the disorders you’ll learn about include digestive problems such as indigestion, constipation and diarrhoea; how to improve your energy levels; how to reduce the risk of premature ageing; nutritional approaches to alleviating symptoms associated with PMT and the menopause; avoiding and treating prostate enlargement; the relationship between diet and stress; improving immunity; weight control problems
The essence of Natural Healthcare College’s three colour-illustrated modules will be to help you learn about the benefits of appropriate nutrition. That information will be integrated with other approaches used by natural health therapists, including detoxification techniques and basic nutritional supplements. It makes no difference whether you are 80, 18 or 8, the essentials for optimal health are fundamentally the same and nutrition is the foundation of natural health
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required. This course may suit:
- Non-practitioners who would like to maintain or improve their health
- Practitioners of various therapies who would like to know more about the role of nutrition in health (the course is appropriate for CPD purposes)
- Staff of health food stores
There are no exams for this course; successful completion is dependent upon continuous assessment of your skills in the homework assignments for each module. On successful completion of the course you will receive an Introduction to Nutrition Certificate
The fee for the course is £90
Self-help Naturopathic Therapies
Naturopaths are trained in a number of varying therapies that may include nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, acupressure, stress management, massage and aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, osteopathy and chiropractic. Naturopaths aim to treat causes, rather than symptoms, and as such will use varying diagnostic techniques to try to assess the root causes of presenting symptoms. The combination of efficient assessment and appropriate therapies enables Naturopaths to direct
Naturopathic medicine is a holistic approach to health i.e. diseases affect the whole person – mind, body and spirit and not just an isolated organ or system of the body. Each person responds in a unique way to his or her environment, each has individual strengths, weaknesses and needs. The naturopath searches for causes at many levels and attempts to eliminate the fundamental cause of illness. To achieve these aims, a Naturopath will use a number of forms of therapy. The Natural Healthcare College’s course will give you an introduction to some of these. The two colour-illustrated modules will include introductions to: acupressure, aromatherapy, breathing techniques, cleanses and flushes, detoxification, enemas, exercise, flower remedies, herbal medicine and medicinal spices, hydration, hydrotherapy, iridology, meditation, and stress management
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required. This course may suit:
- Non-practitioners who would like to maintain or improve their health
- Practitioners of various therapies who would like to know more about key naturopathic therapies (the course is appropriate for CPD purposes)
- Staff of health food stores
There are no exams for this course; successful completion is dependent upon continuous assessment of your skills in the homework assignments for each module. On successful completion of the course you will receive an Introduction to Naturopathic Therapies Certificate
The fee for the course is £90
Coping with Stress
Stress can be generated from external demands or from within ourselves, by our own expectations, fears, hopes and beliefs. What is perceived as stressful to one person may be an exciting challenge to another. Everyone is an individual and responds differently to each situation. A person will experience an event as stressful if the coping resources that are available to them are perceived to be inadequate, leaving them feeling that they cannot cope with the situation, either alone or with help.
When thebody experiences a stressful situation, be it mental or physical, e.g. illness or accident, it can very quickly gear itself to self-protect through the activation of nerve impulses to different parts of the body and through the release of stress hormones.
Poor lifestyle, nutritional factors, early life trauma, beliefs, parental loss, obesity, pollution, economic factors, marital status, hormonal factors, drug use, genetic predisposition and general health status are common triggers for neurological imbalance that can result in both short- and long-term disruption of the body’s neurological control centres. This course will take you through these common stress triggers and investigate how we can assess different degress of stress. A number of 'coping strategies' are included, such as:
physical and mental relaxation, meditation, dietary therapy, breathing techniques, time management skills and flower remedies.
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required. This course may suit:
- Non-practitioners who would like to maintain or improve their health
- Practitioners of various therapies who would like to know more about key stress management/psychosocial skills (the course is appropriate for CPD purposes)
The fee for this one-module course is £45
Slowing the ageing process
Over the last century, the average life expectancy has increased by 30 years. While the process of ageing is inevitable, its degenerative processes can be reduced. Most people would agree that there’s not a lot of point living to the age of 100 if you have a poor quality of life because of serious degenerative problems. Whatever your age or the state of your health, it's never too late to make effective changes. There is no Elixir of Life; no single supplement that can slow down or reverse the ageing process; no single item of food that will give you boundless energy or instantly repair wrinkled or sagging skin; no specific lifestyle changes that can guarantee you wont be prone to degenerative diseases. However, their combined effects can help you avoid premature ageing but first of all we need to understand the simplest structures of the human body, its cells. It is failure of the body to repair cells and replace those that are worn out that determines the process of ageing and our susceptibility to disease.
The secret to optimal health and the avoidance of premature ageing is like a jigsaw puzzle – the full picture will not be clear until you reach the end of the course. As the course proceeds, appropriate dietary, herbal and lifestyle suggestions will be made.
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required.
The fee for this two-module course is £90
Anatomy and Physiology
A sound knowledge of the anatomy (the physical structure of the body and the components which make the whole) plus the physiology (the functioning of the organisms within the physical structure) of the body forms the foundation of both conventional medicine and complementary therapies
The three colour-illustrated modules of the Natural Healthcare College’s course will help you learn about each system of the body, and as you do so you will find that each structure is connected to another. You will learn about conditions related to individual body systems and how they affect life. Self-help test are included to aid learning – you can do these to check your knowledge of the course content before moving on to the next section
Entry requirements, Assessment and Course Fee
No previous complementary therapy skills are required. This course may suit:
- Non-practitioners who would like to understand more about the workings of the human body
- Potential complementary therapy students who require a current Anatomy and Physiology diploma – this applies not just to potential students of Natural Healthcare College courses
- Staff of health food stores
- your skills in the homework assignments for each module
- a final exam
On successful completion of the course you will receive a Foundation Level Diploma in Anatomy and Physiology
The course fee is £110
