Your perception is accurate-ish. Here's the creed.

You'll notice some "trigger language" in there, including the phrases "manipulative therapy" (chiropractic, by any other name), "homeopathy" and "acupuncture." It will not surprise you in the slightest to know that these three aspects of naturopathic medicine are the causes of perpetual internecine warfare.

When my wife graduated in 2009, she was required to take 3 quarters of homeopathic medicine in order to graduate. She was required to take one quarter of acupuncture. The same school now requires a weekend course in homeopathy and no training in acupuncture. The basic dilemma is "alternative medicine" generally includes "all the shit you can't get at the hospital" and it's taken some real combat to bring the profession around to the reality that just because you can't get it at the hospital doesn't mean it's good.

Something that complicates matters is the consensus opinion on placebo. Ask Western medicine if placebos have value and they'll say no - obviously, it's no better than sugar pills. This ignores the fact that the placebo effect is still an effect and if it's an effect with no side effects, it's well worth exploiting. This is generally the point where the chest-thumping "skeptics" decry the charlatans that are charging an arm and a leg for "sugar pills" without recognizing that there are very, very few sugar pills that cost more than a few bucks. Nobody ever got rich on homeopathics. The 800lb gorilla in the field, Boiron, earned less money last year than Pfizer spends on a single Superbowl ad.

I'll state this here and now for the record - homeopathic remedies fuck me up. There's no logical basis to their function. I know damn well they're sugar pills with magical mojo infused in a truly comical fashion. Nonetheless, Bach flower essences calm my ass down and a goddamn homeopathic remedy once gave me a panic attack.

Even knowing that there's a 99.99999999% probability that it's pure placebo, I'm not immune to that placebo. And considering there are no drug interactions with sugar pills, I acknowledge the occasional value of sugar pills.

That's why /r/skeptic wants to burn me at the stake.

I'll go one further - in Washington, my wife can prescribe drugs up to Schedule B. This is not because naturopaths want to prescribe drugs, but because the state legislature determined (correctly, in my opinion) that if a naturopathic doctor is going to have the ability to wean a patient off prescription drugs as part of their treatment, they bloody well better know enough about said-same drugs to be able to prescribe them. yet the consensus opinion is that knowledge should be protected and reserved to the degrees that make the skeptics feel comfy lest too many people, I dunno, know too much stuff or something.