For Nicholas Jensen, naturopathy started with family. “We grew up eating whole foods, low sugar, very low amounts of pop and things like that," says Nicholas. "My initial encouragement came from my mom, who had seen a naturopath when I was in high school.” After college, Nicholas’ initial plan was to pursue a career “within the healthcare model,” such as dentistry or pharmacy. “But after looking at the scope of the practice, naturopathic medicine was definitely the most holistic way to approach healing.”
He speaks as a Doctor of Naturopathy and the proprietor, with his wife and fellow naturopath Sonya, of the Divine Elements clinic in Kitsilano. For him, as for many others, medicine is something that should go beyond the illness-management mode of mainstream healthcare. “The naturopathic model is to look at the whole body and the whole life circumstances, from diet to exercise to medication to supplementation,” he says. The term Nicholas uses is “whole life wellness,” and it’s one that speaks to the ambition of this way of medicine. It’s not necessarily a new approach to healing, he stresses, but rather a reaffirmation of older, more traditional ways.
