Learn more about
the online elements of the
CAM Counselor Certificate Program

Counselor Certificate Course
in Complementary
& Alternative Medicine

Teach Your Clients to Recognize
Common Issues and Help Themselves.

Connect to the Holistic Community.
Find Resources and Make Good Referrals.

Want to set yourself apart from the rest? Want to offer your clients extra value by staying current with the latest developments?

Almost every other person you pass on the street uses some form of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM.) The CAM Counselor Certification Course teaches mental health professionals how to integrate CAM information into their work in a responsible way.

CAM Counselors do not diagnose medical conditions or prescribe CAM interventions. They are educators who teach their clients what community resources are available, and what they can do themselves to deepen and extend the benefits of therapy. This Certification Course prepares students to professionally introduce your clients to a broad palette of self-care tools they can use to reset their stress thermostats, balancing their neurochemistry gently, safely and naturally ... within your Scope of Practice.

Here's How It Works

Four Online Courses / 43 hours

Holistic Health & Mental Health	13 Hours
Anxiety Depression & Sugar: The Evidence	18 hours
Diet vs. Dementia	8 hours
ADHD & Sugar	4 hours

Live & Practicum: 47 hours

24 Hour Live Class	24 hours
Supervised Practicum	22 hours
Final Exam	1 hour
Total Hours	90 hours

About The 24-Hour Live Class:

• Session One: Basic Seven Steps
  
  Modern diets are very different than ancient diets. We look at these changes and how they affect mental health. Micronutrient depletion causes neurons to misfire and argue with each other. Food Allergies inflame us and throw sand in the metabolic gears. Sugar is the first gateway drug: sugar addictions reset dopamine pathways and set the stage for other forms of addiction in later life. We look at the cure.


• Session Two: Amino Acids
  & Other Targeted Nutrition Interventions
  
  Amino Acids are the closest thing to pharmaceuticals one can get OTC at the health food store. We look at how to use amino acids in conjunction with the Seven Basic Steps to deepen sleep, calm anxiety, lift depression and stabilize moods.


• Session Three: Flower Essences
  Homeopathy for the Mind:
  Synchronicity Enhancers
  
  Flower Essences are one of the most magical ways of catalyzing personal change I've ever encountered (and I say that as an acupuncturist.) We learn to explain how homeopathy works in layman's terms, and learn to guide our clients through a process of self-analysis, self-selection and self-administration of these gentle, safe and extremely dilute flower teas.
  


• Session Four: Aromatherapy
  Resetting the Stress Thermostat Naturally
  
  The sense of smell is processed by the same part of the brain that controls the stress response. This gives us an inexpensive and socially agreeable way of altering mood pleasurably and safely. We learn to counsel clients in the use of aromatherapy in the home to lift depression and calm anxiety, and also in the clinical environment to create a safe emotional space for counseling.


• Session Five: The Edge
  Brainwave Machines
  Taoist Yoga: the Six Healing Sounds
  
  Light and sound stimulation can induce meditative and relaxed states, or focused, alert and calm states according to how they'r programmed and the frequencies used. The Six Healing Sounds is a Taoist yoga meditation that can be done sitting and is largely inner visualization work. These two very different approaches, one ancient, one modern, are appropriate for different kinds of clients. But both accomplish the same goal: giving clients a powerful, effective way to change their mindsets on demand lends a sense of self-control that in itself is anxiolytic.


• Session Six: The Holistic Community
  Interviewing Possible Local Referral Sources
  Positioning Ourselves as Authorities
  
  We invite local holistic practitioners to this meeting. Each gets a chance to introduce themselves and their work and explain how what they do can support mental health. Formal and informal networking ensues, and by this time we know enough to ask intelligent questions. That's much easier and even more effective in positioning ourselves as good referrals ourselves than trying to act like experts, which we're not (yet.)


• Session Seven: Interview Structure
  Scope of Practice
  Review, Wrap & Exam
  
  Languaging is everything when it comes to scope of practice issues. Basically, we're educators, especially at the CAM Counselor level. We are not trained CAM professionals; we are not licensed to diagnose and prescribe. Observe this boundary, and all will be well. A sample CAM orientation and interview structure is presented and we practice with each other. We take our final exam, and resolve to keep our new connections with each other. It's a paah-tay!

Relevance to
MFT/LCSW/LEP Scope of Practice

CB&P Code §4980(c) states that BBS licensees must complete "36 hours of approved continuing education in or relevant to the field of marriage and family therapy in the preceding two years..."

This course is relevant to the scope of practice of BBS licensees as set forth in CB&P Code §4980.54(h)(3): "Training, education, and coursework ... shall incorporate ... (3)Aspects of other disciplines that enhance the understanding or the practice of marriage and family therapy."

The provision of nourishment is a basic family function, and, as the studies cited in these courses and elsewhere on this website make clear, there is a substantial body of published, peer-reviewed evidence supporting the idea that diet and nutrition can have a substantial impact on mental health status. This course is not intended to encourage BBS licensees to prescribe outside their scope of practice. But it is important for mental health professionals to:

• understand the full range of referral options available to their clients, especially those that are oriented toward Complementary and Alternative Medicine (about 40% of the US population) ...
• ... in order to be in a position to respect the cultural values of their clients,
• and in a time when large segments of the population are unable to access conventional care, it's important for mental health professionals to be at least as conversant in the use of non-conventional methods as their clients ... if only to be capable of noticing signs of abuse or misuse and avoid being perceived as less than fully informed.

Become qualified
to counsel clients about their
Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) Options.

This is the book
that anchors the Program.