PRACTITIONER PROFILE
Dr Rebecca Ridge
What has kept you practising for 30 + years ? Simply the love of my work . After 30 years I continue to learn both from training and courses as well as from my clients . I am never bored as each client is like a new country to discover and explore . How to treat and support them in their healing process is an honour and a joy for me .
What have been the most important changes to natural medicine you have seen during your career ? What I have enjoyed the most in our profession is the collaboration and integration of so many therapies and for the most part the generosity of all the pioneers in our many lineages who have grown the professions and offered so many modalities for us to work with to help so many people . We stand on their shoulders and share the vision . I am saddened though to see the demise of so many wonderful schools of massage and natural therapies . The era of such a wealth of opportunities has shrunk by moving these courses to TAFE or online formats , which I don ' t believe has provided the depth of training that we experienced in the 80s and 90s . Hopefully there will be a renaissance again . However on a brighter note , there is greater respect and reciprocity with the medical profession to embrace integrative and alternative wellness and natural therapies .
What changes in natural medicine would you most like to see ? I hope to see more collaboration and exchange of healing practices between allopathic medicine and natural therapies , to see hospitals and clinics offer more choices from integrative practices . I ' d love to see more young people once again choose the path of becoming professional in all the natural therapies as an altruistic calling to the field of healing .
What advice do you have for today ’ s emerging practitioners ? Stay the course , there is so much to learn and so many people to help . Money is not the reason to go into this profession but rather to be part of a healing and helping community . So many opportunities and still so much to learn and integrate . Keep learning and be humble in your approach .
Richard Gutwein
What has kept you practising for 30 + years ? The intuitive body ' s intelligence and psyche of consciousness that bring us to this point after 13,6 million years of earth ' s existence , is a frontier of wonder beginning in the constellations . My curiosity about experiencing a living creation became the real fascination that has taken me around the world 24 times , eventually settling in Australia in 1977 . I first discovered macrobiotics and did yoga in 1967 becoming one of the first Vegans , but naturopathy gave me a real understanding in 1980 studying at The Northern College of Natural Therapies . I later founded my own College of Advanced Massage for 19 years from The I Ching Clinic in Lismore .
I eventually found the road map to it all in Traditional Chinese Medicine , the longest 3000-year documented case study . To learn , heal , and help others , opened my soul journey for who I am bringing an unconditional love of humanity that I could not find doing anything else , besides music .
What have been the most important changes to natural medicine you have seen during your career ? Without a doubt , the science behind herbs and homeopathy , chiro , and acupuncture , classically developing better understandings in the age of modern education . While its commercialism has hindered many outcomes , the inevitable success of now having an apothecary from the best plants from all over the world , with shared data , even modern medicine has adopted many old traditions in hormonal therapy , cancer recovery , and many concepts of diet and health .
How do you envisage natural medicine developing over the next 30 years ? The truth is artificial intelligence will decode our diets and medications through our toilets and some of us will be happy . What I would like to see invested in is seed banks with associations taking the initiative for garden setups in regions given by negotiations with councils with the right herbs for each region . Coming back to wildcrafted organics instead of equivalent to standardised cloned remedies . Also , super clinics run by 15-year-plus practitioners in rotations with new students , overseen by doctors with access to pathologies . This is for graduates to get a real 10-year head start in clinical practice on all levels , all with modern facilities like in Asia , that is , ozone , Vit C and B , Glutathione in drips , real therapeutic massage not just luxury , and diet and fasting regimes in retreats for practitioners in sacred locations of clean water and air . Many five-star hotels would be happy to provide such venues . Yes , there are many with trade-offs for the treatment of their staff plus education ! etc .
What advice do you have for today ’ s emerging practitioners ? Work free with good 20-year practitioners in a variety of disciplines , and have a spiritual practice that works for you . Experience other cultures then specialize where your passion is in the community of choice so that you can make a huge difference in bringing the joy of something that is next to the oldest profession on Earth . The VIP of your life will become Value , Integrity , and Purpose . And the PhD you give to yourself will be Peace , Health and Divinity , as only you yourself can graduate this Soul intuition . Then you are humbled as the patients become your teachers .
JATMS | Autumn 2023 | 41