Richard Whelan ~ Medical Herbalist

Now let me return to medicine and the world of 'health' that I have lived in all my adult life because this world, as we know it, has been very much designed and developed by my kind, by men -- who, given a choice, generally prefer fathomable explanations over mysterious complexity any day of the week!

Overall, men like there to be a logical ‘cause-and-effect’ for things, especially when there is a problem, where we believe if we can work out the why, then we will likely work out the what to do to fix it.

Consequently, if you look up any of the common problems that relate to women, you will see a whole world of ' cause and effect'. The reasons for everything have been explored in such detail that it would seem that all must be understood and that the ‘mystery’ I am talking about was merely the ignorance of an earlier, less enlightened age.

I am speaking from some experience here; having lived in that world of ‘explanations’ for everything, having read innumerable books, articles, journals and studies on the subject of women's health, having attended many courses and conferences where the theme was one or another of the health problems that commonly affect women, you can believe me when I say there is no shortage of people who say they have the answers when it comes to women’s health!

You should know that I am emphatically not anti-science and not at all against the learning and use of medical knowledge. You should also know that the women who I am usually talking with in my practice, do not have problems that have gone away by themselves, and in the majority of cases they have not gotten better with the solutions that have been offered by conventional or traditional medicine.

The reason all this has become so important to me is that I see a great danger in the path of ‘reductionism’ whereby in seeing one part of the pattern we convince ourselves that we have understood the whole picture, when we really haven’t at all.

For example, I have seen time and again how a woman is given a label, a diagnosis, to explain why she is ill and then it is as if all real thinking just stops from that point on.

The danger in the reductionist approach is that the person is no longer able to be looked at as a complex, multi-faceted human being and it is only one small part of the disease that remains in focus. This is how this way of thinking translates into the practice of holistic medicine.

A woman might have an underactive thyroid, relationship stresses, blood sugar imbalances, lack of sunlight, and a sluggish liver all at the same time! Complexity is normal and we may have no way of knowing which part of that picture needs to be prioritised, so we must be prepared to attend to the whole picture and a holistic doctor will have some tools to do just that,
Many women are diagnosed with ‘something’ and then proceed to go through months of expensive and difficult treatments without any obvious benefit because no-one wants to be wrong. All of us, in medicine as much as any other path of life, have a knack, once we form an opinion about something or someone, to take in information that supports our point of view and ignore anything that doesn’t. The name for this is 'confirmation-bias'.

We must be open to adapting our opinion and our view. We also must be open to trying different approaches in good faith and learning from what works just as much as from what doesn't.

Each woman has their own unique journey back to being well, we cannot take a single step for them but we can be good guides along the way if we always remember that it is their journey, not ours.

I began full time practice in 1989 and the majority, at least two thirds, of the people who have come to see me since that time have been women. My practice is entirely based on word of mouth referrals so I have had to get a lot of good results over the years but I can truthfully say that this has never been due to one kind of ‘protocol’ working better than another...

Each woman is really a sample of one and each woman has her own unique journey for her health and her growth as a human being. That said, many different kinds of women’s problems have been part of the motivation to seek help and you will see that I am more than willing to share the kinds of things that I have seen consistently help in many other detailed articles on the web-site.

However, before getting too focused on the problem and its solutions, even if we know from the beginning that we will only be seeing part of the picture, when it comes to the great subject of women's health I particularly want to direct your attention to the herbs themselves.

Whilst the ‘reasons and answers’ may be unendingly variable there is a great consistency in Nature without which I would personally have achieved nothing. The herbs that I have used for thousands of women over the years have been remarkable allies. It can be a complex and sometimes lengthy process to work out which herbs can help the most but I have not yet met the woman who could not get some benefit from these old friends to humanity.

I warmly encourage you to explore the world of herbal medicines if you are not there already. These amazing plants have their own complex characters too. They can form a relationship with us in our times of need that help support a shift that never would have happened without their help. There are many more but here are a few favourites amongst what could be loosely called, 'women's herbs'

Please understand that I cannot personally advise you without seeing you in my clinic.
This living 'book' is my labour of love so, wherever you are, I wish you peace & good health!