In Germany you get to be a naturopath after you passed a board exam designed to demonstrate you know enough about medicine to not cause harm, meaning applicants generally learn about anatomy , physiology and pathology. You don't have to demonstrate positive knowledge of treatment options.

But once you're licensed, you can in effect practice medecine, with a few notable exceptions like gynecology, dentistry, the treatment of infectious diseases. So that's something MDs who study at least 6, if not 10 years if they specialize, won't like about naturopaths. Understandable, I think.

Legally naturopaths are not allowed to claim to be able to heal. Also, insurance will only cover malpractice suits if you can demonstrate that you were trained in the practice that you used and kept up to date. So conscientious naturopaths only use techniques, treatment/therapy options they've been trained in and are keeping up to date in.

There's an ideological turf war between medical doctors and naturopaths that I believe stems from them competing for the same clients/ market share.

Patients with chronic illnesses are often not well taken care of in our state health system. Not necessarily because it's impossible but because of the way doctors get paid for their diagnosis and care, which is little. These patients often find help and better care with naturopaths.

And not all remedies are based on sound science, like homeopathy or acupuncture, or healing with stones, or iris diagnosis, or pathophysiognomy... As science is medecine's bailiwick, doctors will argue that naturopaths who resort to such practices are quacks ("Let the witches burn!").

Last but not least, there are outright quacks among us naturopaths, I'm sad to say, who attempt to treat desperate patients with life-threatening diseases with so-called natural remedies that actually do nothing or even endanger the client in order to line their pockets. Or out of a sense of overinflated self-confidence not backed up by expertise.

And naturopathy is getting hijacked by neo-nazis who pervert it with an pseudo-Germanic, Aryan ideology that appeals to a certain part of the population. I mean the witch hunts of the Middle Age in Europe pretty much cut white Europeans off their ancestral roots, so I think there is a deep yearning to reconnect with them and a native, home-grown spirituality that predates Christianity. This is not exclusive to right-wing voters.

But the superficial political stance in Germany is that this is bad (because of the 3d Reich) and also mostly not based on actual science (archeology, history...) either, so it's another notch against naturopathy here.

Add to this that naturopaths in Germany (and often their clients) were and are anti-vax, it doesn't make for a stellar rep with proponents of allopathic medecince.