Glenda Wright reckons she has always been a "little bit odd".
A keen traveller, she spent quite a few years in Europe, working as an artisan making jewellery and leather goods.
While living in the Canary Islands, she began to take an interest in herbal medicine.
She noticed that the islanders often used herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. "For them it was a matter of finding whatever was available and using that local knowledge."
Back in New Zealand, she travelled the country with a team of Clydesdale horses and noticed how they varied their plant diet from day to day.
When the travelling bug had finally gone, she decided to take her interest in herbal medicines to a logical conclusion, gaining diplomas in both naturopathy and medical herbalism. In 2002, she opened a clinic in Wanganui. A post-graduate diploma in medical herbalism is still a work in progress for her.
Wright describes her diagnostic method as a combination of approaches. She looks at lifestyle and nutritional factors, and prescribes herbal medicines that will "fine-tune" the body. It is about getting the body to use the resources it already has.
"The body is the most amazing piece of chemistry, that will regenerate given the right opportunity," she says.
Naturopaths are trained to look at the "whole person".
"We're looking to see where pathways have gone out of balance. So, when a client comes to us we don't say the client has this disease and treat the disease. We get a full history of the client and what has led to their current state of health."
Wright says that she looks closely at a patient's diet and finds out how different food affects them. "Some foods rob our body and some foods nourish our body. Then the diet can be fine-tuned a little bit."
She says it's a matter of including more beneficial food in the client's diet, and supplementing this when needed.
"There are herbs that are specific to individuals that will work to enhance that pathway," Wright says.
Naturopathy involves three years of intensive training. Study covers anatomy and physiology. On top of that they learn about nutrients and how they work in the body.
"Because we have to work alongside Western-style medicine, we don't want to be bringing herbs or medicines in that are going to clear the Western medicine more rapidly so they become ineffective. Usually by the time somebody comes to a naturopath they've generally [been] on quite a few Western medications."
She says it is rare that a naturopath doesn't bring about a change in a client, "but it is a partnership".
"I can suggest to them as much as I like that they need to take out the foods causing deficiencies in their diet, but it really requires a willingness on the client's part to actually make those changes," she says.
Patients coming to her have to take on some responsibility, and she encourages clients to make changes.
Wright works out a comprehensive and detailed plan for each client so the patient has a written reference to constantly refer to during their treatment.
She says people often forget that Western medicine has its basis in herbal medicine, which has isolated specific constituents of plants to create the medicine. "The danger of doing that, though, is that you don't get the fullness of the plant."
She says the plant Rauwolfia serpentina is a good example, as the first hypertension medications were made from this. It was done by isolating the alkaloid, resperine, from the plant.
"This was then used to manage high blood pressure, but caused side-effects that hadn't been noted when the whole plant was used in a traditional manner," she says.
"Unfortunately, medical herbalists can no longer use this herb at all, as it's gone on to a restricted list that only doctors can use and, because most doctors are not herbalists, they are unaware of the value of this plant."
Wright says our dependence on white flour, white sugar and "transfats" (manufactured fats) causes more problems than anything else.
"Bakery goods, like commercial cakes and biscuits, include all three and the body has absolutely no way of dealing with transfats.
"White sugar robs the body of B vitamins, bringing on things like insomnia, mood swings.
"Spray residues on vegetables has given us significant reproductive issues, especially in young women."
There was a time when naturopathy and medical herbalism was regarded as nothing more than quackery, but Wright says since she opened her clinic nine years ago, scepticism disappeared once people discovered the benefits of her methods. She says the relationship between her and local GPs was "variable".
"GPs have become more aware of the value of nutritional medicine and some of the Wanganui doctors are fully supportive of the clients taking on our protocols.
"Certainly GPs have become more aware of the value of natural medicines."
HERBS AND NATUROPATHY
Herbal medicine refers to using seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers for medicinal purposes. Herbalism has a long tradition of use outside conventional medicine. It is becoming more mainstream as improvements in analysis and quality control, along with advances in clinical research, show the value of herbal medicine in treating and preventing diseases.
In the early 19th century, when chemical analysis first became available, scientists began to extract and modify the active ingredients in plants. Later, chemists began making their own version of plant compounds and, over time, the use of herbal medicines declined in favour of synthetic drugs.
The World Health Organisation recently estimated that 80 per cent of people worldwide rely on herbal medicines for some part of their primary healthcare.
The use of herbal supplements has increased dramatically over the past 30 years. They are used to treat many conditions, such as asthma, eczema, premenstrual syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and migraines, among others.