Water and dry fasting retreats

Domain XII · Complementary, energy & biofield · Sergey Filonov, Goldhamer

What it is

A fasting retreat is a residential stay where a person stops eating for a period under the retreat's supervision. Two forms are covered here:

Format

• The retreat's framework, as its organisations publish it, comes first. The therapist's own framework follows.
• A. The retreat course (water-only, TrueNorth / Natural Hygiene version)

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Regulation (one line each, main jurisdictions)
• United States: fasting supervision is not a separately licensed profession. IAHP-certified supervisors are licensed medical doctors, chiropractors or osteopaths who have completed a residency at a fasting institution. Other retreats may have no licensed clinician on site.
• Germany / Europe (Buchinger tradition): the consensus expects physicians or therapists trained and certified in fasting therapy. Non-medical "fasting guides" run fasting for healthy people, with physician backup where possible.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Evidence status (one line each). Water-only fasting: an observational chart review from TrueNorth reports mostly mild to moderate adverse events under its own protocol; it does not show that fasting treats disease. Dry fasting: little good data, and clinicians advise against it.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• fear of the group, embarrassment, or not wanting to get the retreat in trouble.
• rigid new food rules, plans for a longer or dry fast, low mood. It is working when the client integrates the experience flexibly.
• debt, repeated paid fasts, isolation from people who question it. It is working when the client can talk about doubts without feeling disloyal.
• more and more repeated fasts, avoiding medical tests, or fasting as reassurance seeking. It is working when the client's worry and urge to fast decrease without a fast.
• children copying a parent's restrictive eating, dry fasting in any minor, or a teenager encouraged online to fast. It is working when the child's GP is involved and the child is safe.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.