Southern School Of Natural Therapies

Founded in 1961, the Southern School of Natural Therapies is the longest established school of its kind in Australia.

At a time before any Australian university had embraced complementary medicine and most other private institutions were offering short courses of questionable quality, the Southern School developed and conducted a 3,000 hour course in Naturopathy. This would become the basis for the school’s current Bachelor of Health Science-Naturopathy course, the first 4-year, on-campus program offered by a private provider to be granted Degree status in Australia.

The School’s Bachelor of Health Science-Myotherapy is another example of the school taking the initiative and leading the profession by upgrading the popular Diploma of Myotherapy (conducted by RMIT for the previous 14 years) and developing it into a rigorous 4-year degree program, the first and only degree of its kind in Australia. In the area of massage, the Southern School’s Certificate 4 in Massage and Diploma of Remedial Massage have been developed with the benefit of more than 20 years experience in this area.

The field of Chinese Medicine is another area where the SSNT has been at the cutting edge of educational developments. The School’s Bachelor of Health Science-Chinese Medicine was the first 4-year degree program in Victoria to offer a double major in both Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine. The SSNT’s Chinese Medicine program was also the first degree course to be approved by the Victorian government’s Chinese Medicine Registration Board of Victoria (CMRBV) in 2004.

Since purchasing its own premises ten years ago, the School has been engaged in a constant process of building development, culminating in the completion early in 2006 of a new teaching wing (equipped with state of the art audio-visual facilities) and an additional new clinic for Chinese Medicine, Myotherapy and Massage Therapy. Further building refurbishment early in 2007 have almost doubled the size of the Library, provided a new computer laboratory, clinic rooms, and herbal medicine preparation lab.

The School’s website (southernschool.com) provides times and dates of the School’s program of Information Sessions. These sessions are conducted to allow interested individuals to visit the school, see for themselves their superior premises and hear from experts in the field why the SSNT provides the best professional training in Naturopathy, Chinese Medicine, Myotherapy or Massage anywhere in Australia. The school’s website (southernschool.com) also allows those considering a career in complementary medicine to download as a “pdf”, a copy of the School’s comprehensive Course Guide.