Written by John Immel, Asheville, NC

Credentials, Accreditation

Since 2008, the Joyful Belly School of Ayurveda has provided premium Ayurveda education for clinicians. Joyful Belly is licensed to teach Ayurveda by the state of North Carolina. We are recognized / accredited by the following associations:

• American Association of Biocharacteristics Clinicians (AABC)
• Association of Ayurvedic Professionals of North America (AAPNA)
• National Association of Ayurveda Schools and Colleges (NAASC)
• American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP)

We are not, however, a member of the National Ayurveda Medical Association (NAMA).

NAMA exists for schools that cannot meet government licensing requirements. As NAMA has no standing with the U.S. government, NAMA can offer no added legal basis for practice.

Joyful Belly Ayurveda is already a licensed college by the state of North Carolina, making NAMA membership unnecessary.

Our Ayurveda Health Counselor Course was approved by NAMA as of March of 2020. However, we did not accept NAMA recognition because of 1) NAMA's low clinical standard (by comparison the American Herbalists Guild requires 400 hours of clinical experience), a minimum to ensure safe delivery of Ayurveda to clients, 2) conflicts of interests in NAMA leadership (see below), and 3) requirements that go against World Health Organization Standards for the profession (see below).

Educational Freedom for Students

We stand with NAASC, an association of Ayurveda schools, in providing competency based education, rejecting any encroachment by associations on method of education delivery. Assessment of competency is the only valid measure of accreditation, and is the best way to reduce student cost and makes Ayurveda accessible to a wider audience.

Legal Status of Ayurveda

Ayurvedic students can, and most do, legally see clients and practice Ayurveda without joining AAPNA, NAMA, or any of the above mentioned 3rd party associations, because Ayurveda is an unlicensed profession in the United States. Joyful Belly Ayurveda will give you a diploma upon graduation, and you will be able to see clients. Students should not let associations intimidate them (frequent among NAMA schools) into joining. Instead, graduates should join associations that commit to serving their needs and provide demonstrable benefits. The greatest need of students after graduating is clinical support - an area where NAMA continues to underperform as they operate to protect the schools that fund them (not their clinician members).

Find out more about the legal status of Ayurveda here.

Profession wide, schools and practitioners are moving away from NAMA for the following reasons:

• NAMA's attempts to assess competency creates conflict of interest with its ability to represent clinicians - often pitting NAMA against the very clinicians it seeks to represent and leading to an adversarial culture, as competency assessment leads to higher tuition costs. In most licensed professions, representation of clinicians and assessment of competency are handled by two separate, unaffiliated associations.
• In 2018 NAMA tried to license their form of Ayurveda in Colorado without contacting any of the Ayurveda schools or associations to form a consensus. Had the licensing passed, students would have been forced into NAMA's sole vision for the Ayurveda community. Students would not be able to attend Ayurveda school online, for example, and education costs for our program would have jumped near to $22,000. 2/3's of the schools in the Ayurveda community would have had to shut their doors forever. Requirements for onsite training protect the revenues of brick and mortar institutions that fund NAMA, but do not lead to provable differences in practitioner competency. Instead, the science shows that use of technology improves learning rates over traditional classroom settings..
• NAMA allows schools to fund them, and serve as officers and board members in their by-laws. This causes a conflict of interest with their claim to represent their practitioner members, leading to policy decisions that benefit the schools that fund NAMA instead. For example, school officers of NAMA directly benefit from requirements that raise tuition costs or restrict competition.
• NAMA favors and promotes school owners as presenters at conferences instead of their member clinicians. They select presenters on the basis of spiritual charm without any reference to clinical success rates. New members do not have objective criteria or a fair chance to become presenters.
• NAMA has a strong focus on protecting and promoting Vedic culture, rather than health outcomes. At Joyful Belly, the health of the client always comes first. Patient centered care means focusing on the culture of the client, not the medicine. We take the view that Ayurveda should serve our clients, rather than the other way around. We approach classical texts with a critical eye and academic rigor, aiming not at tradition, but growth and evolution through novel research. At Joyful Belly, authenticity in medicine is measured by clinical outcomes.
• NAMA considers Ayurveda to be a spiritual paradigm & consciousness philosophy (see their mission statement), rather than a medical paradigm that can be separated from Vedic religion. This evangelical focus alienates clients who don't have a Vedic religious background, makes Ayurveda inaccessible to outsiders, and leads the public to believe Ayurveda is a faith healing practice, rather than a clinical one. It causes many in the medical profession to reject Ayurveda entirely. Read: Protecting Religious Neutrality in Ayurveda
• At the association level, we advocate for a more professional, clinical approach (similar to acupuncture and chiropractors), one that leaves individual practitioners the freedom to incorporate any spiritual tradition they choose. This universal approach reaches a more diverse audience, increasing the impact of graduates in their mission to improve public health, and to thrive financially.
• NAMA and NAMA schools increase membership by scaring new students into believing that unless they get a membership, they will be cut off from having a legitimate or even legal practice forever. However, NAMA has no authority with the government. Most Ayurveda professionals do not consider NAMA approval a reliable measure of practitioner competency - as NAMA does not audit schools or graduate placement. Students who feel they need to join NAMA have usually been convinced of this by one of their funding member schools or NAMA representatives directly.
• NAMA claims it is working on 'legalizing Ayurveda' through licensing. However, Ayurveda is already legal. Licensing does not increase legality, it restricts it. NAMA is trying to do the opposite of what it claims- and use licensing to acquire power over the profession of Ayurveda. Licensing exists to protect the public, not NAMA. While Acupuncture is a licensed profession, Chinese Medicine as a whole remains unlicensed. Joyful Belly supports licensing of panchkarma, only, not the whole practice of Ayurveda.
• NAMA is more expensive than other associations. If students wish to apply for certification with NAMA after graduating from Joyful Belly, they pay to take their board certification exam, expensive annual dues, and school evaluation fees as well.

NAMA's Opposition to WHO Standards

NAMA's membership requirement to teach astrology goes against the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO), is not in compliance with the Indian ministry of alternative health (AYUSH), and unacceptable to most medical professionals.

Ayurveda practitioners in India generally resent NAMA's abandonment of classical Ayurveda in the West, and their shift away from research and clinical outcomes towards New Age or miraculous healing.

At Joyful Belly we teach Ayurveda as a medicine alternative with demonstrable clinical outcomes, and support associations who believe the same. We ensure that medicine should be accessible to people of all social groups and faiths. We follow the WHO recommended scope of training, which recognizes Ayurveda's potential to reach a broader audience.

The level of training at Joyful Belly far exceeds NAMA's membership requirements for an Ayurveda Health Counselor program, with the exception of religious content that could alienate and isolate students of other faiths. Our graduates are known for this higher level of training.

To represent our diverse students and clients, we choose to align with associations that can represent all individuals who wish to participate in the Ayurveda profession, regardless of their cultural or religious identity.

Client Perspective

It is interesting to note that the public is generally not familiar with the subtleties of certification or licensing for Ayurveda in the United States. A few times in my Ayurveda career I have been asked about my schooling, but never about certification.

Reach Out With Questions

We are happy to answer any additional questions students have about the certification process. Please write [email protected].

Note: None of the certifying bodies in the United States operate internationally.

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