Courses in phytotherapy/herbal medicine are part of many naturopathic training programs such as Ayurveda, Traditional European Medicine TEN or Chinese Medicine. Each of these medical systems includes extensive application knowledge about the effects of medicinal plants (medicinal herbs). Many of these courses can also be taken individually and there are individual providers who specialize exclusively in herbal medicine. The courses are therefore suitable for career changers in the health sector as well as for professionals with training in naturopathy or conventional medicine. They last one to three years. The course modules are spread regularly throughout the year so that the plants can be observed over the entire annual cycle. The courses conclude with the school's own diplomas, most of which are recognized as continuing education, further training according to EMR or ASCA for people with a recognized previous education.

In Switzerland, herbal medicine training courses with a focus on phytotherapy, as part of naturopathy, are offered by various schools in different courses. Some of these courses are aimed exclusively at people from the healthcare sector with previous training in conventional medicine, while others are aimed at anyone interested, even without any previous knowledge of medicine or alternative medicine. Therefore, please contact the providers you are interested in directly and ask about the target groups of the individual herbal medicine training courses.

In a phytotherapy course you learn about the following topics relating to phytotherapy:

• Phytotherapy as the study of medicinal plants
• Herbal medicine is the oldest healing method known to mankind
• Knowledge of medicinal plants: Effects of medicinal plants and their dangers from empirical medicine
• Classify 100 plants from nature and use them as food
• Classic form of preparation of herbal remedies: processing medicinal plants into remedies for home use
• Plan, carry out and reflect on medicinal plant applications (e.g. teas, compresses, dressings, tinctures, juices, ointments, oils, etc.) taking health aspects into account

To become a phytotherapist, you usually need the following:

• Completed basic education or high school diploma
• Phytotherapy training
• good powers of observation
• communicative strengths and empathy

Various training and further education courses in the field of phytotherapy are offered here in Switzerland, all of which take place at different times and dates. As a rule, however, the attendance dates are held at weekends or extended weekends, sometimes also on individual days during the week. Full-time training to become a phytotherapist is rather unusual, while part-time phytotherapy training is the norm.

In addition to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbalism and Ayurvedic herbalism, Western phytotherapy is also offered by many training institutes as a phytotherapy course. As not every school offers all specialties, it is recommended that you contact the individual schools directly via the contact form or the "Ask a question" button to find out about this or another complementary therapy / complementary medicine method.

A job as a phytotherapist after further training in phytotherapy looks something like this:

• Treatment and prevention of diseases with plants, plant parts and preparations made from them
• Characterization, isolation and justification of the effects of plant constituents
• Plan treatment
• Preparing herbal remedies
• Use of medicinal plants by carrying out phytotherapy treatment
• Reflect on the effect and pass on information to the patient for further treatment

Self-employment after extensive phytotherapy training as a phytotherapist is possible, but not profitable in all cases. It should be noted that method number 145 (phythotherapy, western) can only be registered with the EMR by doctors or in combination with other method groups, such as Ayurveda (method no. 24) including Ayurvedic remedies (method no. 26) or naturopathic practices NHP naturopaths (method no. 131), or Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM (method no. 185) including Tibetan Medicine (method no. 189) or Phytotherapy TCM (method no. 14). If you have not registered any of these methods or are not a qualified doctor, you may find it difficult to generate and retain patients, as you will not be able to bill through the supplementary health insurance schemes. An EMR-recognized training or ASCA-recognized training in the field of alternative medicine or alternative naturopathy is therefore an important criterion for successful self-employment as a therapist.