Hands-on Healing: Restoring the Art of Therapeutic Touch
In a world that grows increasingly digital, distant, and disembodied, the medicine of touch becomes not less relevant — but more essential.
As Vitalists, we know that healing is not mechanical. It is relational. It is energetic. It is cellular. And it requires presence.
At Vital Gathering 2026, we return to the foundations of naturopathic medicine: skilled hands, trained perception, and the philosophical understanding that the body carries memory, intelligence, and an innate capacity for restoration.
“We are the doctors who listen. We are the doctors who touch.”
This year’s gathering is an invitation to deepen your clinical confidence in hands-on modalities — not as techniques alone, but as expressions of Vital force in action. Many patients have experienced non-therapeutic or harmful touch in their lives. Therapeutic touch, delivered with intention and philosophical clarity, becomes restorative in ways that transcend symptom management.
Through both didactic instruction and immersive hands-on sessions, you will refine your palpatory awareness, expand your therapeutic toolkit, and strengthen your ability to meet the body where it holds unresolved tension, trauma, and dysfunction.
This is not simply a skills workshop.
It is a return to embodied medicine.
Each session is designed to reinforce the foundations while expanding your clinical discernment and therapeutic precision.
You will leave not only with new techniques, but with renewed confidence in the power of your hands as instruments of healing — grounded in philosophy, guided by perception, and rooted in Vital force.
April 24-26, 2026
15.25 CEs (NANCEAC) 14.25 General, 1 Pharm
Sonoran University of Health Sciences campus Tempe, AZ
Friday, April 24
Welcome
6:00-7:00pm Jared Zeff, ND, LAc, FNMI- Philosophy
7:00-8:00p Christie Fleetwood, ND, RPh, FNMI: “Acute Pain” (1.0 Pharm CEU)
8:00-8:15p Presentations (VNMI/FNMI Credentials)
2 CE
Saturday, April 25
8:00-8:30am : “Bowen-ish Therapy”
8:30-9:30am Bowen Therapy hands-on session
9:30-10:00am Azure Standard/ AzureWell Presentation
10:00-10:30am Exhibitor Hall Break
10:30-11:45am Shawna Eischens, ND, VNMI “
“Junk In The Trunk: The Backstory of Unresolved Symptoms –
When the mind moves on, but the body remembers” didactic only
11:45a-1:00p Lunch (catered)
1:00-1:40p Greg Yasuda, ND, VNMI- Craniosacral/Palpatory & Homeopathy (didactic)
1:40-2:40p Hands-on: Craniosacral/Palpatory & Homeopathy (Yasuda)
2:40-3:00p Materia Medica (Yasuda)
3:00-3:30p Exhibitor Hall Break
3:30-4:30p Chapman Reflex Points- Paul Theriault, ND, FNMI (60 mins; 15 mins didactic, 45 mins hands-on)
4:30-5:30p Panel Discussion
6.75 CE
7:30-9:00p Social Event sponsored by Azure Well – at Sonesta Suites Hotel “Grand Canyon Room”
Sunday, April 26
8:00-9:30am Eli Camp, ND, DHANP, VNMI– “First Aid Homeopathy”
9:30-10:00am Exhibitor Hall Break
10:00-11:30a? Jared Zeff, ND, LAc, FNMI: “Botanical Compresses & Poultices”
11:30-1:00p Lunch (catered)
1:00-2:00p Dan Young, ND, LAc, FNMI- “Battlefield Acupuncture”
2:00-3:00p Battlefield Acupuncture; hands-on session (Dan Young)
3:00-3:30p Exhibitor Hall Break
3:30-4:30p Panel Discussion
4:30-5:00p Closing Remarks: Jared Zeff, ND, LAc, FNMI
6.5 CE
15.25 Total CEs
Hotel Information:
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Sonesta Select Tempe Downtown. They have given the NMI a great price on rooms, including free breakfast and free parking, and are located two blocks from Whole Foods. This in NOT the type of Sonesta with a full kitchen in each room. Also, as the conference on the Sonoran University campus, you will need to arrange for transport to and from your accommodation. A catered lunch will be provided at Sonoran both Saturday and Sunday.
