About Joseph
Joseph Dunkley
Author of The Unified Laws of Vitalism
Founder, Institute of Vitalism
Founder of the Scientific Field of Applied Vitalism
Joseph Dunkley is the author of The Unified Laws of Vitalism, the natural-law basis of symptoms and their healing. He is Founder of the Institute of Vitalism and founder of the scientific field of Applied Vitalism.
The Unified Laws articulate the lawful relationships among the vital life force, vitality, the requirements of life, the living person, symptom formation, degeneration, and healing, and provide the foundation for Applied Vitalism.
He is a Certified Naturopathic Practitioner and Certified Rolfer from the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute.
Clinical Practice
Clinical Practice
My clinical practice at Valeo Therapeutics brings these ideas into direct work with people. Through Vitalistic Naturopathy, I work with people who want to understand their health, recover what has been lost, and maintain their strength and capability over a long life.
My naturopathic work is consultative and educational. My professional role is that of a Certified Naturopathic Practitioner. I do not diagnose medical conditions, prescribe medications, or prescribe medical treatments. Valeo Therapeutics sells no supplements or health products. My work with clients is based upon time, knowledge, experience, education, and independent judgment.
Through Rolfing® Structural Integration, I work with pain, injury, restricted movement, structural dysfunction, and the restoration of mobility and physical function.
These two areas of practice meet naturally within Vitalism, since both concern the living organism’s capacity to adapt, reorganize, repair, and restore itself.
The Path to Vitalism
The Path to Vitalism
My search into health and healing began more than thirty years ago.
I studied Classics and English Literature at the University of Washington, where my encounter with the ancient Greeks introduced me to ideas about nature, life, health, and the healing power inherent in the living organism that would influence everything that followed.
In 1994, I founded Health & Human Potential, teaching courses and working privately with people in Vitalism, fasting, natural healing, and human development. Those early years began a lifelong effort to understand why people lose their health and what allows them to recover it.
My own experience of a serious automobile accident later brought me to Rolfing® Structural Integration. I trained and became a Certified Rolfer at the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and practiced in Boulder for four years. Rolfing® gave me a second way of studying the living organism through structure, fascia, movement, adaptation, injury, and physical restoration.
Valeo Therapeutics
Valeo Therapeutics
I later co-founded Valeo Therapeutics in Seattle with my sister, Michelle. We operated the clinics for eleven years and worked with thousands of people dealing with health problems, injuries, pain, and physical dysfunction.
My work subsequently continued through private practice in Los Cabos, Lake Tahoe, and now Reno.
Across approximately three decades of practice and more than 30,000 hours of patient care, I have worked with people from widely different circumstances, including professional athletes, physicians, business leaders, and individuals confronting serious and complex health problems.
What governs life?
Why does health fail?
What governs healing?
Those questions eventually led to The Unified Laws of Vitalism and to the larger work that now continues through the Institute of Vitalism and Applied Vitalism.
The Institute of Vitalism
The Institute of Vitalism
I founded the Institute of Vitalism, a nonprofit foundation currently in development, as the institutional home for this work.
The Institute is being established to recover and preserve the Western Vitalist tradition, advance the Unified Laws, develop Applied Vitalism, and create the philosophical, scientific, educational, and clinical foundations through which Vitalism can grow as a serious field of health science.
Applied Vitalism
Applied Vitalism
From the Unified Laws came Applied Vitalism, the scientific field concerned with applying those laws to human health and healing.
Its practical purpose is to help people recover their health, prevent illness, and preserve vitality, strength, and function throughout a long life.
