EAST WEST HERB COURSES

Because the East West Herb Courses are distance-learning courses, you may complete them according to your own time frame needs. However, each may be finished within two years or less. We also offer on-site and hands-on annual training seminars divided into three separate, advancing tracks plus therapies and graduate continuing education courses. In addition, we offer a mentorship program guiding our graduates through clinical experience and study.

 

On-line we provide student networking through the Student Assembly classroom, weekly study chats, Webinars, and special studies directly with Michael and Lesley Tierra. These sessions are archived and available in reserve for East West students for on-going study. In addition, there are student forums that are regularly perused by more advanced students, the  Tierra’s and the East West faculty. This is a place where students are encouraged to ask questions pertaining to their studies. Also in the East West Online classroom: special articles, supplementary study articles and power point and video presentations are increasingly available for student use and study.

EAST WEST HERB COURSE TEACHING APPROACH

The East West Herb Courses are founded in integrity and written and taught by practicing herbalists and clinicians. Our graduates are among the leading professionals in the herbal field. We do not teach doctrines, nor do we offer non-substantiated degrees and titles, but we do effectively train home and community herbalists along with graduate professional herbalists and clinical practitioners.

We then present a materia medica of over 600 plants along with advanced assessment skills.

ENERGETIC VS. ALLOPATHIC HERBALISM

While western herbal training tends to emphasize the allopathic use of herbs (“this herb is good for that”) along with their pharmacology and biochemistry, our Planetary Herbal approach teaches the energetic identification and application of herbs. Energetic herbalism recognizes the heating or cooling, strengthening or eliminating, rising or descending, taste, properties and so on of herbs as well as of disease. This system does not diagnose and prescribe, but identifies patterns of illness based on specific energies and then chooses herbs and treatment strategies accordingly.

The Planetary Herbalism energetic teachings of the East West Herb Courses are based on the oldest, living, extant herbal medicine systems, TCM and TAM, each of which have over 5000 years of experience and practice. These energetic systems are only tools, yet they have proved to be the most effective, efficient and alternative approaches to allopathic herbalism and medical diagnosis and treatment. The Planetary Herbalism system provides a rational assessment methodology system on which to base which herbs you choose for treatment, an approach unfortunately lost in most Western herbal training systems.

The East West Herb Courses also teach energetic diet and food therapy along with tools to tailor your own health-supportive diet along with preparations, remedies and other healing tools, techniques and therapies. In fact, many students regain their own health, and/or help their family members and friends regain their health, just by studying and applying our course teachings.

WE’RE THE ONLY SCHOOL TO TEACH PLANETARY HERBOLOGY

Led by alternative health pioneer and American Herbalists Guild founder Dr. Michael Tierra, O.M.D., and accomplished acupuncturist, herbalist and author Lesley Tierra, L.Ac., R.H., our herb courses are the only ones that teach Planetary Herbology. Their unique, global approach to the world’s greatest herbal healing traditions — Western herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Traditional Ayurvedic Medicine (TAM) – means East really does meet West here at the East West School of Herbology!

Since our founding in 1980, our school has more than ten thousand students and graduates from over 40 countries around the world on every continent (except Antarctaca) now practicing as health professionals, clinical practitioners and home herbalists.

We are equally proud to say that our school has graduated the largest number of leaders and professionals in the herbal industry.

The East West distance-learning courses unite a solid study of herbs from around the planet with scientific research, medicine-making and diagnostic systems that will increase the efficacy and healing results of practitioners at any level.

Guided by the Tierras’ combined over seven decades of worldwide clinical experience, and staffed by a talented faculty of professional herbalists, the East West Herb Courses offer its students distance and on-site education from the very best experts in the field.

A CALL FOR HERBALISTS

Herbal medicine in North America has grown from an off-beat interest promoted by a handful of non-mainstream adherents, to an over 8 billion dollar a year mainstream business — and is still growing. Increasingly we see professional medical practitioners including medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses, chiropractors, and acupuncturists to non-professional lay persons exhibit a keen interest in herbal medicine prompted at the behest of their patients.

The reason is clear — herbs work. For this, there is no dispute even by those who would be normally critical of so-called ‘alternative medicine.’ As a result, there is an urgent need for qualified people in the growing professions of clinical herbology, herbal pharmacy, herbal research, herb cultivation and wildcrafting, herbal marketing, and product development.

Throughout the last several decades, Michael and Lesley Tierra and the East West School of Herbology have been in the forefront of the herbal renaissance, promoting its widespread growth and acceptance throughout the Western world. To increase the standards, credibility and acceptance of clinical herbalism, in 1989 Michael founded the American Herbalists Guild.

THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO MASTERY

Courses and schools that purport to offer ‘master herbalist’ (MH) or other misleading degrees, often based on a ‘quickie’ weekend or a single week-long workshop, have no guaranteed legal professional standing. Be that as it may, there is a growing number of professional herbalists throughout North America. Many of these are graduates of the East West Herb Course, which represents a comprehensive and thorough herbal training program. Our graduates are confident and competent herbalists! (Meet our East West Clinical Herbalists. Read some of our students’ letters.)

Remember; one can learn hundreds of herbs, but that knowledge is clinically worthless without its integration into a traditional system of assessment and treatment. Additionally, only the East West Herb Courses systematically integrate the three main systems of herbal medicine based on the traditional practice of Western, Chinese and Ayurvedic (East Indian) herbal medicines.

 

We believe that herbal medicine is not simply another profession, but an inspired calling. It is to this inner calling, as well as the increasing numbers of students who feel drawn to become an herbalist, that we dedicate our teachings. If you are one of those who feel such inner promptings, come journey with us down this heartfelt path of wonder and learning.

 

A wise person once said that whatever energy is expended towards education is never lost!

 

Enroll in one of our courses today and let it serve as your guide on your personal ‘Way of Herbs.’