Louise Riby, managing director of Elemental Herbology, explains the Five Element Theory

What is the Five Element Theory?
The Five Element Theory is based on the belief that everything in life needs to work in harmony in order to achieve perfect equilibrium. The Five Elements – wood, fire, earth, metal and water – are known to be the building blocks from which all material substance in the phenomenal world are composed.

The elements represent the transformation that occurs in the world around us, and they also have an effect on how things interact with and relate to each other. The elements support each other, but they also feed off of each other, which can cause you to be in excess or deficient of an element; it’s this that creates an imbalance that needs to be corrected.
What does it mean for therapists?

Once you’ve established which element is out of balance, you can be address it with treatments, products, diet and small lifestyle changes. We have devised the Five Element Consultation, which enables the therapist and guest to work together to determine which treatments and products are needed to find that perfect harmony.
How can therapists use it to prescribe treatments and products?

Our Five Element Consultation is a great tool to start a conversation to find the best treatment possible. Talking to guests before the treatment is essential. It’s important to find out as much as possible about their lifestyle, diet, stress levels, etc. to determine what will be most beneficial to them.
A guest may fall into more than one element, in which case our products are easy to mix and match to create a tailored treatment. The consultation gives a list of all our products and is a great aid for the therapist to tick which products were used during the treatment. The products used in our treatments are exactly the same as retail so similar results can be achieved at home.

What does Elemental Herbology provide in terms of therapist training and materials?
We’re able to give on-site training to all new accounts and we have in-depth training manuals for our products and treatment protocols to guide therapists through the training. Retail training is also provided, along with an incentive scheme so that therapists have an opportunity to use our fabulous products and see the results for themselves!