Dr. Marie Benkley believes in the inner healing intelligence and wisdom of the body. She utilizes therapies that promote the body’s innate capacity to heal, while supporting you in identifying and removing obstacles to vibrant health. Her approach is holistic, understanding the connection between physical, mental, and emotional well-being. She strives to listen deeply, understand your unique story, and work with you to develop an individualized treatment plan. She practices as a specialist in natural medicine.
Dr. Benkley has a passion for and clinical focus in mental & emotional health. Other areas for which people commonly seek her support include (but are not limited to) digestive health, cardio-metabolic health, and hormone health. Modalities that she uses include herbal medicine, homeopathic medicine, nutrition, counseling, and pharmaceutical medications, when appropriate.
Dr. Benkley earned her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.) from National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, OR, where she also completed 2 years of postdoctoral residency. Prior to medical school, she received a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University, where she double majored in Biology and Community Health.
Outside of her professional life, Dr. Benkley is an avid reader, backpacking enthusiast, leisurely gardener, and wannabe musician. She loves motorcycles and riding down long, open roads.
Dr. Tabitha graduated from Bastyr University, School of Naturopathic Medicine in 2004. She completed a BA in Religious Studies, with honors, from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1997. While completing her undergraduate studies, Dr. Tabitha was a research assistant in multiple studies conducted in the Emergency Department at the SUNY Stony Brook Medical Center, and the New York Veteran’s facility located on the same campus.
While physical medicine is Dr. Tabitha’s favorite modality, she is a well-rounded naturopath with emphasis on nutrition, herbal therapy, strategic nutritive supplementation, and lifestyle counseling. Chronic pain, digestive disorders, autoimmune diseases, and neurologic conditions are frequently addressed and treated in partnership with Dr. Tabitha.
Docere is one of the six Naturopathic Principles where the doctor is presented as a teacher. This element of practice is critical, as patient education equals patient success. Dr. Tabitha most often finds herself in the role of teacher and student while learning about her patients and the life experience they bring to the office. This creates a partnership in which careful and thorough understanding leads to successful treatment.
When not in the office, Dr. Tabitha enjoys cooking, conversation, and pleasant surprises. Her hobbies include kung fu, salsa dancing, weight training and meditation. She lives in Seattle with her three fabulous children, various pets, and lots of friends.
Naturopathic doctors follow natural principles of healing. We believe in the power of natural therapies to help people enhance their self-healing process. We seek to identify causes of illness and to treat the whole person, not just to suppress their symptoms. We are primary care physicians trained to do physical exams, order lab testing and offer a wide variety of natural treatments such as:
Diet and nutrition
Supplementation
Lifestyle modification
Counseling and stress management
Physical medicine
This is a profound yet gentle system of health care that is more than 200 years old. It is recognized by the World Health Organization as the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world. It is medicine that can treat people with both acute and chronic illnesses. It takes into account your individuality based on your physical, mental and emotional aspects and treats you by stimulating your body's own healing powers using very small doses of medicine.
Also known as herbal medicine, this is a system of healing that uses plants as medicine. It is the therapeutic use of food and plants to treat illness and begin the process of wellness in a non-toxic and safe manner. Herbal medicine is a natural effective alternative to conventional medication. We have in our dispensary a variety of plant substances such as teas, tinctures, liquid plant extracts, herbal capsules and topicals.
These are hormones that are chemically identical to the hormones your body produces so are safer and have fewer side effects. Women are seeking a more natural approach to restoring hormonal balance without the risk of cancer. The hormones we prescribe are non-synthetic; they come from natural plant and animal sources which are minimally processed. We also work with compounding pharmacies to customize hormones for your individual needs.
Personalized medicine is a rapidly advancing field of healthcare that uses an individual's unique clinical, genetic, genomic, and environmental information to guide decisions made in regard to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. Given these factors are different for every person, the nature of diseases—including their onset, their course, and how they might respond to medications or other interventions—is as individual as the people who have them.