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Schools of non-medical practitioners are not subject to any state regulation in Germany. How full screen-Research show enables questionable teaching and dubious treatment methods. Control – none.
“With a little imagination, you can often see the true background of the pain attacks,” says the teaching material of a Hamburg naturopath school, which the editors of the SWR-Investigative format full screen present. You should just let your imagination run wild when it comes to diagnostics.
The school, which says its main focus of training is in the field of psychosomatics, attributes numerous physical ailments in the teaching material to alleged abuse experiences by the patient, even from a long time ago. “Cracks in the corners of the mouth are often caused by a violent practice of oral sex,” it says at one point. And further: “A feeling of tightness in the throat area often comes from choking (as a pleasure increase for the perpetrator).”
Peter Henningsen, Director of the Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the Technical University of Munich, criticizes the statements made in the teaching material as “completely inadmissible”. “You can never automatically infer such a background from the fact that someone has feelings of choking.” He adds: “In the case of skin changes or cracks in the corners of the mouth, it is even more difficult to imagine such a connection even in individual cases.”
However, the headmaster of the Hamburg Heilpraktiker School defended full screen-Request the questionable derivations propagated in the teaching material and continue to adhere to them.
Analysis: 83 percent do not meet the guidelines
There are more than 150 alternative practitioner schools in Germany. On average, naturopath training costs several thousand euros. There is no uniform state regulation for training. That leads to wild growth like that full screen-show research. The curricula are usually drawn up by the schools themselves.
In addition to medical and psychological content, the schools often also offer seminars that are not based on scientific knowledge. The curricula sometimes include courses such as astrology, homeopathy or so-called quantum healing. Associations of non-medical practitioners provide training guidelines. However, these are not met by around 83 percent of the schools, as an analysis by scientists from the Jena University Hospital and the Ortenau Clinic in Offenburg shows.
Using the example of a Hamburg naturopath school, an attempt was made full screen-Reporter in a months-long undercover investigation and through numerous discussions with former students, experts and using teaching material to find out which teachings and teaching methods are possible and can be disseminated in the unregulated naturopath training.
Serious allegations from former students
In class at the Hamburg school, where the full screenreporter participates covertly, female lecturers make similarly questionable references as in the present teaching material. For example, an early period in young girls could be an indication of abuse they have experienced; but also a late first menstruation, it is said in class.
Former students also raise serious allegations against the Hamburg Heilpraktiker School. Instead of an education, they would have experienced a nightmare. At school, they were isolated from those around them and forced to break off contact with their families. “Without us you are nothing. That happened so often and then unfortunately I believed in it because I was alone then. If I hadn’t had anyone from school, then I really would have been completely alone,” explains a former student at the Interview with full screen. “During that time I also thought for the first time: are we in some kind of sect here?”
Heilpraktiker-School is at sect consultations known
A cult advisor, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that since 2010, one or two people have come to him for advice on this school every year. Bianca Liebrand from the Sekteninfo NRW has also been in contact with relatives of students in recent years who have broken off contact. The relatives had made allegations against the school: “It is also reported that the personality has changed. And then you worry about that,” explains the expert. “Most of the time it’s a gradual process, so there is gradually less and less contact until it comes to a complete standstill.”
The headmaster denies the accusation of sects full screen back: “We have been confronted with the claim that we are a sect for some time and have always dealt with it very openly, since we are not a sect.” The headmaster also denies other allegations by former students: the allegation of suggestion, coercion, coercion or generalization is simply wrong. He would be happy to “face the questions in a personal conversation outside of the public”.
cancer be responsible for yourself
In order to get to the bottom of the treatment methods, the full screen– Reporter in an undercover self-experiment also treated in the school’s healing practice of the headmistress of the same. Already in the first session, she established that the reporter’s sciatica complaints were passed on to her by her mother, which is why she should break the bond with her.
In the second session, she recommended not to visit her grandfather, who was suffering from cancer. When the headmistress found out that the ill grandfather was Cancer, she concluded: “Cancer breeds cancer.” The cancer was caused by the fact that he had done nothing for his soul. And the patient also runs the risk of adopting her grandfather’s cancer symptoms when she visits him.
No authority for alternative practitioner schools responsible
full screen has asked several large German non-medical practitioner associations to classify the research on the Hamburg non-medical practitioner school and the associated healing practice. The Association of Independent Alternative Practitioners writes about the content of the teaching material: “We assume that when the material was created, little thought was given to what is permissible and what is not.”
The association also refers to the possibility of complaining to the responsible supervisory authority or the responsible professional association. But not all alternative practitioner schools belong to an association. In the case of the Hamburg Heilpraktiker School, which is in the center of the full screenresearch, the two school founders were involved in founding a Hamburg non-medical practitioner association. The current chairman is still one of the principals.
The Hamburg health authority, listed on the school’s homepage as “supervisory authority”, explains full screen-Request that there is no official supervision for alternative practitioner schools. No training is required for permission to work as an alternative practitioner under the Heilpraktikergesetz. In this respect, neither possible training courses nor institutions that offer such training courses are state-regulated. The authority is therefore not responsible for the school and cannot comment on the content of the allegations.
Authority refers to “therapeutic and Freedom of method”
She also sees no indications of “activism” with regard to the methods in the headmistress’s healing practice. The Hamburg health authority refers to the “freedom of therapy and methods” according to the Heilpraktikergesetz.
In view of the obvious legal gap in the naturopath training asked full screen the Federal Ministry of Health whether it sees a need for action and whether it considers legal control of alternative practitioner schools to be necessary. But the ministry is only evasive: “If necessary,” the naturopathic law should be reformed in the future.