Eric Laarakker
Equine practitioner, founder and owner of holistic animal practice Den Hoek.
Since graduating as a veterinarian from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) in 1992, Eric Laarakker has been working as a veterinarian and researcher. In addition, since 1988 acupuncturist and from 1992 also chiropractor.
While studying veterinary medicine, he became convinced that in addition to Western medicine, other treatment methods and visions – such as Chinese Traditional medicine – are essential to be able to cure animals (and / or humans) in their totality. Therefore, after graduating in veterinary medicine, he took many courses in chiropractic (including FES – Focus on the Equine Spine), osteopathy, manual therapy, phytotherapy, classical homeopathy, Chinese acupuncture, Japanese acupuncture, neural therapy and other energetic treatment methods. He was the first in the Netherlands to be a veterinarian, acupuncturist and chiropractor.
In 1995 he set up his holistic veterinary practice Den Hoek. Den Hoek has since then grown into a practice in which a team of veterinarians and human therapists treat patients.
Within the practice, we work closely according to a holistic protocol set up by Eric, to treat each patient as well as possible.
It uses a combination of medical systems and treatments (including Chinese medicine, manual therapy, homeopathy, herbal medicine and many other methods).
In 2005 Eric founded STEHD – Foundation for Education Holistic Veterinary Medicine. As a foundation with ANBI status, STEHD focuses on ‘The development, stimulation and integration of holistic (veterinarian) medicine in all its facets, through education, research and information exchange. Eric is involved with STEHD as chairman.
In 2011 he started the training institute Healthcare Academy Den Hoek . Courses, training and lectures are provided for medical professionals, such as doctors, veterinarians, (animal) physiotherapists, paramedics and therapists, both human and veterinary.
He is also very active as a researcher / developer in the development of products and new treatment techniques in the field of systemic medicine. For example, in collaboration with the company NML Health, he has set up a product line of 100% natural health products under the name Phytonics .
Eric teaches at various educational institutions and gives lectures in The Netherlands and abroad.
He is the author of the book “ Horse types “, in which he describes the different characters of horses based on the Chinese 5 elements. And he is co-author of the book “The Satisfied Horse (2009)” which is about horse welfare.
