Our history: from WAHA to PNWHA
Initially formed in 2009, our organization has deep roots in the vital force of the Pacific North West.
We began as the Washington Homeopathy Association, serving the homeopathic community in Washington state. In 2020, our organization expanded into a regional presence with the inclusion of our colleagues and friends in Idaho and Oregon.
In 2007, a group of homeopaths met to consider forming a professional association in Washington State. The longer history is worthy of mention since it sets the stage for what is unfolding now.
In 1900, about 20% of US medical doctors were homeopaths, but due to various political and social changes, this number fell drastically. Homeopathy became almost unknown until the latter part of the 20th Century. Other countries, however, kept the discipline alive all during this time.
In Washington State a group of people were drawn to the truths held by the practice of homeopathy. Slowly the study and practice of homeopathy came to this area in the 1970’s, thanks their efforts. Most were medical doctors who had an awakening into the power of homeopathy and felt moved to study, practice and teach.
Early Influence of the IFH
Local homeopathic luminaries created the Seattle based International Foundation of Homeopathy (IFH) and brought people together in case conferences. The printed proceedings of these case conferences are still valued reference resources today in electronic form.
Pioneers who worked to bring homeopathy into the North West were many: Ellen Goodman, Robert Shore, Kathleen Green, Stephen King, Jennifer Jacobs, Dean Crothers, Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, Bob Ullman, Krista Heron, Karen Allen, Heidi Schor, Steven Olsen, Lucy Vaughters, Melanie Grimes, Nancy Mercer, and many more. In addition to case conferences, the IFH published a journal, Resonance, and worked very, very hard to establish homeopathy as a legitimate and powerful system of healing. The IFH classes were the place a lot of homeopaths got their start.
And of course, the history of homeopathy in the Pacific Northwest, could not be told without mention of John Bastyr, a naturopathy physician who began a naturopathic college, now named after him, where the study of homeopathy found a home. Lucy Vaughters started the Seattle School of Homeopathy in 2006 and trained a whole new contingent of homeopaths for over 10 years.
Several homeopaths who got their start in the IFH or who studied in programs in other countries/schools set up their practices under the state the credential of Registered Counselor of an Alternative Therapy. This was a statute originally established by the hypnotherapy community. It formed the umbrella for many practitioners of different therapeutic modalities from hypnotherapy to homeopathy.
Naturopaths had put homeopathy into the scope of their practice when naturopathic medicine became licensed in the state. Other health care practitioners wrote the practice of homeopathy into their scope of practice as did people who practiced homeopathy as Registered Counselors of an alternative therapy.
Changes to Practice Legalities
Changes came in 2007, when the state decided to dissolve this credential. This affected a number of homeopaths whose legal basis for practice would end. We began to meet in Seattle and by phone conferences to discuss options for homeopathy as a profession and how best to coordinate our profession with the State. A few of us went to the Dept. of Health in a meeting in October of 2008 to ask for help.
We learned that to be “housed” under “professions” by the State, options ranged from “registry” to “full licensure.” The State helped a few of us who so chose the option to set up our practices under a Certified Counselor credential, in which we took courses, passed an exam, set up a supervision arrangement with a licensed Counselor, and wrote “suggesting homeopathic remedies” into our “scope of practice.” To set up a registry or a license for homeopaths as a separate profession held a much greater burden of effort, a much more involved process, and required many more people to carry this forward (at least 50 we were told).
To determine whether or not a group was really a profession or not, there were a few criteria to consider. One of them was, “Do you have a professional association?” We did not, so we created one!
Birth of WAHA
Our professional association was born in the spring of 2009, celebrating our enthusiasm to work together. On May 31, there were more than 100 people at our initial event at the home of Heidi Schor, in Kirkland. Those in attendance included a range of supporters and lovers and practitioners of homeopathy, from a State Senator to students and families helped by homeopathy. Heidi Schor served as President, Patricia Kay, as Vice-President, Jenna White, as Secretary, and Etta Pinkens, as Treasurer. Valerie Sadovsky created our website. We began to have a collective presence in the world.
We began to meet every few months in Edmonds, where Julie Hehn offered us a space in her restaurant. Together we worked to hone a vision of what we might do together to advance our profession. Our three-fold mission was:
- To promote homeopathy as a powerful method in the spectrum of health care and well-being in Washington State.
- To invite practitioners and students to participate in a community that inspires and supports each other in the practice of good homeopathy.
- To provide to our community regular communication and opportunities to learn, share and stay connected.
We gathered together around themes of interest for a couple of years, including a conference on the Swine Flu and another on Posology. Several people worked in the Health Freedom movement.
Establishing Outreach, Events, and Building the Community
In 2011, Heidi and Jenna moved on to work in national organizations, and Patricia kept WAHA afloat as we worked to understand people’s needs, strengths and gifts.
In 2012, Joleen Kelleher joined WAHA, bringing her organizational skills and love for homeopathy to help us move forward. Monique Arsenault, Mona Hall, Tammy Johnson and Barb Bansenauer all came forward to work as board members in the next years, and together we began to work with the Continuing Education Department at Bastyr to host professional conferences.
By 2013, we were hosting 2 or 3 conferences a year at Bastyr, including our seminal “Cured Case Conference,” to offer education and inspiration by Northwest homeopaths! The goal was to shine the spot light on the excellent prescribers that reside in the Pacific Northwest: From that first event we received the accolade: “It is wonderful to experience the wisdom of such different and successful homeopaths!”
2013: we heard presentations from: Richard Mann, ND, Nancy Mercer, DHANP, Lucy Vaughters, CCH, and Doug Brown, CCH
2014: Doug Brown, CCH, Krista Heron, DHANP, Steve Olsen, DHANP and Lucy Vaughters, CCH presented
2015: Steve Olsen, DHANP, Nancy Mercer, DHANP, Krista Heron, DHANP, and Stephen King, DHANP
2016: Doug Brown, CCH, Lucy Vaughters, CCH, and Stephen King, DHANP
2017: Michael Baker, ND, Doug Brown, CCH, Lori Johnson, CCH, and Barbara Kreemer, DHANP
2018: Doug Brown, CCH, Alicia Gonzalez, DHANP, CCH, Patricia Kay, CCH, and Stephen King, DHANP
2019: Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, DHANP, Steve Olsen, DHANP, Helga Fuller, CCH, Tim Shannon, DHANP, Doug Brown, CCH, and Karen Allen, CCH
Cheering the Long Dark Winters
We also began to get together in Mid-Winter for fellowship and inspiration to brighten our spirits at this dark time of the year in the Pacific North West; we brought in a featured speaker, and we served hors d’oeuvre and beverages. The luminaries we invited were:
2013: Will Taylor: Shining Our Lights in the Darkness: Envisioning our Homeopathic Practices
2015: Karen Allen: Fine-Tuning the Endocrine System
2016: Krista Heron: An In-Depth Inquiry into the Doctrine of Signatures
2017: Joel Kreisberg: Inspiring Healers: The Inner Growth of Homeopathic Healers
2018: Doug Brown: The Forest for the Trees
2019: Lori Johnson: Kids with Trauma: Desperate Families Get Help with Homeopathy
2020: Malcolm Smith: An Evening of Inner Discovery
We also began to include Fall Events around themes that seemed to be important to our members:
2014: The Noble Gases in Homeopathy; for states of Limbo, Isolation and Overwhelm with Doug Brown
2015: Homeopathy for Moms and Dads with Patricia Kay, Joleen Kelleher and Tammy Johnson
2016: We gathered together to consider working for an exemption within Washington State law which would protect consumer access to homeopathic practitioners and protect the right of practitioners to offer their services. Diane Miller from the National Health Freedom Coalition guided our efforts for over a year until we decided to pull back until we had more support.
2017: Just One Drop, a showing of the movie, organized by Barb Bansenauer and Joleen Kelleher
2018: Polarity Analysis with Tim Shannon
2019: Homeopathy 2.0: Moving from the Hahnemannian Miasm to Medicine of the People with Karen Allen
Choosing to Support Credentialing
Since 1991, a number of people worked long and hard at the national level to create a route to certification that would legitimate and unify the profession: the Council for Homeopathic Certification (CHC). They developed a process that set standards of knowledge, skills, and competence in the practice of homeopathy. They award the title: CCH (Certified Classical Homeopath), which is now recognized by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), which is an accrediting body of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence, founded in 1977, to ensure the health, welfare and safety of the public.
Having a recognized credential is a basic hallmark of any profession, and we began to encourage our members to get certified as a benefit to them and to the profession. The more trained and certified practitioners the more we will be able to help the profession grow.
Naturopaths have an equivalent credential, the DHANP, and Medical Doctors are awarded a DHt (Diplomat of Homeotherapeutics) by the American Institute for Homeopathy (AIH). We value these 3 credentials especially since they are all recognized to connote recognition of homeopathic education, training and excellence nationally.
We have maintained a website (tended skillfully for a decade by Valerie Sadovsky, CCH) to inform our members of events, share information about courses and conferences and opportunities to study, advertise our practices, as well as providing links to information, research, homeopathic pharmacies and other organizations. We have a FaceBook group where people share information.
Expanding the Vision
Together, the board members took a 14-week course from MIT: U.Lab Leading from the Emerging Future, to improve our capacity to work together effectively and creatively.
We have also been participating in a national organization: The Advocacy for Homeopathy Working Group to become aware of issues in the wider (national and international) homeopathy community as collaborators and supporters. We have supported the work of The Americans for Homeopathy Choice in their efforts to work with the FDA to keep homeopathic remedies available. We also joined together with these groups to hire a Public Relations specialist to make sure messages about homeopathy in the media are strategically presented in thoughtful ways. And we have a media representative, Tim Shannon, who has been trained to provide information about homeopathy to the public.
We provide CEUs for our events, which are now approved by ACHENA, Accreditation Commission for Homeopathic Education in North America. This is important for people to keep their CCH credential in good standing.
Expanding the Geographical Footprint
By 2020, we have had between 50 and 70 members a year, and many of these have come to our events from Oregon. They asked us to change the name to reflect their faithful presence and contributions. We asked the members about this and everyone thought it was a good idea, and so we asked for suggestions for a name and a new logo.
2020 was a year of having to draw back from physical gatherings and we kept our members apprised of efforts in the national and international homeopathy community to share their work with the virus in webinars, as well as inviting people to participate in data collection efforts sponsored by the AIH (American Institute for Homeopathy) with any cases they have managed.
Delightfully, a group of homeopaths from Idaho wanted to join together with us, and we decided that this would be a benefit to everyone, so by October 10, 2020, we officially became a tri-state organization: The Pacific NorthWest Homeopathy Association (PNWHA).
We look forward to continued collaboration as a regional community of people committed to the homeopathy profession. We are the holders and lovers of homeopathy, a system of healing which helps people toward the noble goal of becoming their best Selves. It matters to have all of us together, sharing this gift of healing we were given as our contribution toward a better world.