The School of Traditional Western Herbalism is a plant medicine education center in Portland Oregon offering a unique 3-year  herbal studies program for beginning-advanced students and practitioners of herbal medicine. Internationally renowned herbalist, author, and educator Matthew Wood is the main instructor of all three years of the program, and he is assisted by popular Portland herbalist Scott Kloos as well as a few excellent guest instructors.

Our 3-year herbal practitioner training program is based on a holistic approach to understanding and working with plant medicines to facilitate health and wholeness of the body, mind, and spirit. The program emphasizes herbal traditions passed down to us from American Indian and  European heritages, and includes topics such as plant energetics,  intuition, and  traditional herbal wisdom, as well as plant pharmacology  and modern biomedicine.

The herbalist training program is separated into three separate 9-month courses (200 hrs per year). To learn more, please click on the course links below.

The Foundation Herbal Practitioner Course provides a strong foundation for beginning and intermediate students interested in developing or deepening their skills in the use of plants for health and healing.  There are no prerequisites for this course but there will be a recommended reading list given to accepted students.

The Advanced Herbal Practitioner Course expands upon the themes introduced in the first year at an advanced level, with an increased focus on diagnostics, expansion of Materia Medica, and understanding organ systems and constitutions.  The prerequisite for this course is completion of the first year course or approval from the instructors.

The  Clinical Practicum Course is an intensive clinical year open to qualified people who have completed the first two years, and to experienced herbal practitioners with approval from the instructors. In the third year students will be supervised seeing clients in our herbal clinic, which will be the first of its kind for herbalists in the northwest.

The Foundation Herbal Practitioner Course for 2010 is currently full.

Classes can fill up fast. Contact us to pre-register for the Foundation or Advanced Herbal Practitioner Courses beginning in March 2011.

Please also contact us with any herbal school questions at info@portlandherbalschool.com.