Razi Ann Berry, Publisher
Why Starting Gentle Is Actually Radical
The order you do things matters. When baking bread, repairing an engine, building a house; do it out of order and it fails. In medicine, we’ve reversed the order. We start with the strongest intervention instead of the gentlest. And we wonder why chronic disease keeps rising.
Root cause analysis is only part of the solution.
The therapeutic order shows HOW to address what you find. Remove obstacles to healing first. Stimulate the body’s self-healing mechanisms. Support weakened systems. Use natural substances, then pharmaceuticals, then invasive procedures, but only as needed. The hierarchy matters as much as the diagnosis.
The cases we publish in Applied Natural Medicine show two decades of what happens when practitioners follow this order. They’re getting results that look impossible to doctors who start with force.
There is a line of doctors that defined and refined what modern naturopathic medicine is today. Born as a revolt against barbaric practices like bloodletting and mercury dosing, doctors from Priessnitz to Lust to Bastyr understood that the body heals when you remove what’s harming it and support what helps it. In 1997, Jared Zeff and Pamela Snider published this wisdom as the Therapeutic Order: centuries of clinical observation finally given structure.
Starting gentle remains radical today because medical training still teaches intervention first. The system still rewards procedures over patience. Insurance still codes for prescriptions, not obstacle removal. Root cause analysis is not enough.
We continue publishing these cases under this framework so practitioners can see it applied and as evidence: when you follow the order these doctors established, you get results that look impossible to those who start with force. We do it to help you improve outcomes.
The tradition continues.
Razi Ann Berry
Publisher
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Razi Berry is the founder and publisher of Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (NDNR), which she co-founded in 2005 with Dr. David Tallman. NDNR publishes Applied Natural Medicine and provides continuing education to healthcare providers.
She has produced continuing education programs, multiple health summits, and a docuseries, and has hosted the annual Physicians Choice Awards since 2014. She founded The Vis Network Mastermind for naturopathic doctors and consults for natural products, nutraceutical, and device companies.
Her work has been recognized with the Champion of Naturopathic Medicine Award (2017) and Corporation of the Year Award (2009) from the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and the Rising Tide Award (2019) and Impact Award for Best Digital Media (2016) from the Mindshare Collaborative.