March
2000
Herbs
and Harmony
The Satya Interview with Donald
Yance
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Donald Yance is
one of the country’s foremost clinical herbalists and nutritionists
specializing in approaches to cancer, AIDS, heart disease and other
chronic health conditions. He is the founder and President of Wellsprings
Center for Natural Healing in Connecticut. He spoke to Angela Starks
about his work with AIDS patients.
Why did you choose to focus on chronic illnesses like cancer and
AIDS?
I see my role as filling a need; people can benefit tremendously
from herbs and nutrition. Because of its benefit, word has spread.
I
belong to the Secular Franciscan Order, so I am inspired by St. Francis
of Assisi. Mother Theresa also influenced me, because she never lost
sight of compassion, love and willingness to focus on an individual,
no matter how large her mission grew. The majority of people I treat
are cancer patients, but I have a very steady, on-going HIV/AIDS client
base, many of whom have been with me for 10 or 12 years, and we’ve
become very close. The motive is just to help people; I have set up
the Wellsprings Center as a non-profit venture, so my staff and I aren’t
working from the incentive to sell products.
Have you devised a special approach or regime for treating AIDS?
Not as such. I use herbs and nutrition, as well as other modalities
such as hydrotherapy, but the most important consideration is that
each
case is unique. The disease, and thus the approach, varies from person
to person. AIDS is not just one disease—it manifests in so many
different ways. However, I do have two main approaches. One is to support
the person’s endocrine system, and the other is to support their
detoxification at a cellular level. Such an approach has nothing to
do with attacking the AIDS virus—we use no anti-viral drugs. Instead,
it is all about reducing stress to the body and helping it to detox,
not just via the bowels, but at a deep level within the body’s
cells. If we can support the body, it has its own great healing mechanism.
The key is to be gentle but effective, and to work harmoniously with
nature. I’m not into ‘heroic’ remedies.
In addition, I advocate a spiritual attitude, but again that is as individual
as the herbs I prescribe depending on the patient. Basically, the focus
is on living, not on dying, so that the motivation is to live rather
than to simply avoid death. In my own work, my philosophy is never to
let fear play a role. Therefore I put my heart, my soul, and all my
energy into what I do.
How else does your approach differ from Western medicine?
With AIDS, conventional medicine tends always to ‘measure’
things, such as the body’s viral load. This approach forgets that
such numbers represent a reaction to an underlying disease—the
numbers are not the disease itself—and yet they try to deal only
with the numbers. I don’t think we should ignore such measurements,
but I prefer to go deeper. I focus on what’s going on with the
real person, not just on what a test result on a piece of paper says
about them. By sitting with someone for an hour or more, you can discover
what’s going on in their life.
What is your position on the pharmaceutical treatments of AIDS?
It depends on the patient. Some won’t take any drugs at all,
some take just a few, and some take the whole cocktail of drugs that
their physician offers to them. I compliment whichever route they decide
to take. I don’t make their drug decisions for them, as I believe
patients should have the power to choose. I want them to be happy and
confident, so I don’t want to introduce conflict into their choices.
The drugs do affect the liver badly, so we try to address that. Some
do want to reduce their drugs. They say they don’t like how the
drugs make them feel, or that they’ve seen bad side effects in
their friends. If they want to reduce their drugs, I can assist them
in this process, but we take it slowly.
Do you work in conjunction with your patients’ physicians?
Yes, I work in close cooperation with the medical community, and
I teach doctors and other therapists. Some doctors are very open minded,
but for others it is difficult because so many therapists in my field
are not offering treatment that’s appropriate or of a good quality,
so people are understandably on their guard.
What sort of diet do you advocate for AIDS?
My most important criteria for food is that it should be of excellent
quality, unrefined, fresh and in season. The diet should be balanced
so that it provides a range of nutrients. I’m a vegetarian myself,
but I don’t necessarily promote that diet to a patient. If they
want to become a vegetarian, I’ll support it of course. If someone
wants to eat meat, I ask them to choose only the best quality (organic,
fresh). I actually think that eggs are a good food for AIDS because
they contain nutrients that are important in this condition such as
easily digestible protein.
How does awareness of the natural environment play a role in your
approach?
Awareness of our environment is important, due to the interconnectedness
of all things. We are connected to plants, and to everything in the
world. Once we realize this in a reflective, spiritual mode, we can
automatically incorporate that into our way of life, into food choices,
and into healing. If we don’t realize that we are part of nature
ourselves, then we see nothing wrong with eating unnatural refined foods.
We need to take care of both our internal and external environments,
and this includes our home environment—I make patients aware of
toxic paints, toxic cleaning chemicals and so on. By being less wasteful
with chemicals we help the outside world as well as reduce the toxins
in our homes and in our bodies.
For more information about the Wellsprings Center for Natural Healing,
visit www.wellspringscenter.org.
On May 6th, Donald Yance will give a workshop, ‘Herbal Medicine,
Healing, and Chronic Illness,’ at the Open Center in New York
City. Call 212-219-2527 for details.
