About Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a specialty of medicine that has been practiced since 1796. The modern version was discovered by a physician that was dissatisfied with the, then current, medical practices. He believed that there was a better way to treat illness, prevent illness, and restore a person to good health. There are two common ways of practice; classical or constitutional homeopathy and acute homeopathy.
In classical or constitutional homeopathy, we look at the person in their entirety and try to understand the imbalances that may be present in their body, mind, spirit and use those imbalances to paint a picture of the overall state of being. Each person’s symptomology will point to their condition being one of many particular remedy states. By finding the state of the person’s being at that particular moment, by giving them the remedy that corresponds to that particular state, we are able to bring the person back into balance, thus improving their overall health.
Many believe that a person may see, not only the elimination of long-standing health problems, but also may find that they are more resistant to future health problems. Some also believe that in acute illness, by giving the person their carefully selected remedy, their body is able to resolve the acute illness quickly.
It is thought that illness, whether of the body or mind, is able to take root, or develop, only if there is a state of imbalance. If we are able to restore the body and mind to balance, then illness and disease may be unable to take root or develop.
Acute homeopathy is the use of homeopathic remedies in a short-term acute situation. The person’s specific remedy should be used in most cases but an acute remedy may be temporarily added as needed. For example, if a person sprains their ankle, a dose of Arnica may prevent swelling and pain. Acute remedies, however, are not intended to produce or restore health, they are, rather, intended for the short-term alleviation of a superficial symptom. One should return to the person’s specific remedy as soon as possible.
Homeopathy, in today’s terms, might be considered a sort of physiological process modulating therapy (PPMT). It is believed by some that what homeopathy does is to “trick” the body into action against the illness state by “amplifying” the illness condition to the point that the body starts paying attention and taking action by correcting the malfunction and restoring the proper functioning of the body by using what is called the law of similars; which is the meaning of homeo (same) and pathy (illness), and says that; if you give a minute dose of a substance that, in a healthy person, would cause symptoms similar to the ones being experienced by the sick person.
This “amplification” however, actually takes place on an information level rather than on a physiological level, thus, it does not cause an actual aggravation of the symptoms or worsening of the illness, although a homeopathic aggravation is common, but this can be a good sign. On the contrary, some believe that the properly selected remedy may alleviate the symptoms quite quickly without any untoward effects to the person or being.
One might describe human physiology, in a simplistic way, as having essentially three processes within the body that regulate body function. The first process is the “software” process or the DNA and RNA. This is the computer code that tells everything in the body what to do. Then there is the “hardware” process, or the organs and tissues. The organs and tissues are the end product of this process and carry out the instructions that were originally written in the genetic code. But there is a third process in between these two. This third process is the chemical, bio-chemical and energetic modulating processes. It is within this third process that it is believed homeopathy does its work.
There are some that think that the properly selected remedy can introduce information into this third modulating process in between the software and the hardware and sort of re-write or reprogram the information and cause the hardware, or, the organs and tissues, to function differently than they would have otherwise. It is thought that perhaps by introducing modulating information into this third process, we can rebalance the organ and tissue function and cause it to function more correctly or in the way in which it was designed to function rather than the way that it is currently malfunctioning, thus causing illness and disease.
Whether this is the actual bio-chemical or physiological process in which the remedies work is not known. However, homeopaths can all agree that the properly selected constitutional, or even, acute remedy, somehow, seems to bring about better balance and function in the body and mind. Homeopaths have always talked about this in the sense of strengthening vital energy and correcting imbalances in the vital force and this may be a perfectly satisfactory way of discussing it.
Regardless of how it works, many believe that it does work.
In the current medical world of pharmaceutical assault on the delicately balanced ecosystem that is the human body, a more elegant approach that stimulates the body to simply do what it was designed to do rather than assaulting an already unbalanced system with further toxic assault, is certainly a very interesting idea.
Many experts have recently claimed that we are quickly approaching, or are already in, the post-antibiotic era.
This means that over the last seventy years, we have abused the use of antibiotics to the point that bacteria have become so resistant that antibiotics are becoming ineffective against many infections. If it were possible, wouldn’t it make more sense to just stimulate the immune system to do what it was designed to do and have it kill the infection rather than use chemicals that are, not only creating antibiotic resistant organisms, but are also causing further imbalance in our bodies?
And this idea, perhaps, can be applied to any human illness. Why assault the body unnecessarily with toxic chemicals that cause more imbalance and illness when we may be able to simply correct the imbalance that was causing the disease in the first place. Wouldn’t that make more sense? Wouldn’t that be more reasonable?
We are facing epidemics and pandemics of human illness and, perhaps, we should no longer solely rely on what many believe to be a faulty model of chemical assault against the body. Perhaps we should look at transitioning, at least in part, to a more elegant and reasonable approach. It would seem only reasonable to explore the use of homeopathy, proper diet, exercise, disease prevention and other appropriate ideas.
We must be more pro-active rather than relying on reactivity and the “quick-fix” of chemical assault, a.k.a, pharmaceutical drugs which ultimately, many believe, just cause more problems and make us sicker. It is, potentially, just a vicious circle. Giving a drug to treat a symptom or disease which causes yet another symptom or disease. Treating one imbalance by causing another, ultimately, making us sicker and sicker.
Pharmaceutical drugs do have their place but perhaps we should also start looking at disease and illness in a more reasonable way. Perhaps we should start to look at treating the problem rather than just covering up the symptoms. Many believe that until we start looking at the causes of disease, not just symptom management, we will keep digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole until, at some point, the hole will get so deep that we will no longer be able to get out.
Perhaps everyone, and especially medical professionals, should start thinking about disease differently before it is too late.
It was said by the 19th century physician, John Ellis:
We all admit that everyone who attempts to act as a physician, should strive to qualify himself or herself, for the work, by obtaining the best education which our medical schools afford; for to physicians is entrusted, not simply the property or money, but the very lives of their fellow citizens. As the responsibility is great, so the duty of preparing oneself before commencing practice, and of keeping fully abreast of all new and valuable discoveries in the art of healing, is equally great. A physician should not be led blindly by his teachers and prominent medical writers, and so strongly confirm himself in the theories and views which they proclaim that he cannot, without prejudice, examine new views and theories with due care. The treatment in allopathic medicine consists largely in giving and applying remedies in disease-creating doses and the use of remedies that directly or indirectly reduce the inflammatory or febrile action; but it is manifest that while it may lessen the activities of the diseased symptoms, it also lessens the vitality of the system as a whole, and consequently its power to resist and overcome the existing diseased action; so that it is a serious question whether in many cases more is not lost than gained. To create disease of a well organ for the sake of curing disease in another organ, as is done, though the patient may sometimes be benefited, is certainly not a very satisfactory treatment as a whole. But the greatest danger and evil that results from the allopathic treatment of disease lies, not in the direction of the sudden deaths that sometimes result from the use of its remedies, but by the liability of the patients to be led into habitual use of a drug that has afforded them palliative relief during sickness, and the countenance thus given for the use of such drugs by the laity during health. And they may believe that as a rule poisonous substances will palliate the symptoms which they caused, or which follow their use. One of the great beauties of homeopathy lies in the fact that when correct remedies are given in accordance with the law of cure, they do not have to be given in disease-creating doses.
“Personal experience of a physician”
John Ellis, MD
These thoughts are as relevant today as in his time certainly.
A contemporary physician who practices homeopathy said:
We see disease as the disattunement of the dynamis (vital force)…which will show up in the person not merely in one locale, but may manifest in diverse manners that may not seem to be related to each other from the perspective of reductionist pathology. As such, a person presenting with… athlete’s foot, gastroesophageal reflux and headache may have three separate diseases according to allopathic nosology. But for us, there is likely one disease of the person manifesting simultaneously in these three superficial expressions. Homeopathy address the individual case of disease as it manifests diversely in the whole person, rather than pathologically-defined diseases as things in themselves.
Will Taylor, MD
Homeopathic thought, theory and application:
For Practitioners
Learn about the Unified Method of Homeopathic Practice
Constitutional thought is the idea that an individual person has a constitutional state. This state is the sum of all expressions of the person brought together in order to spell out a state of the person at that point in time.
There are many factors that come together to make a person’s constitutional state. There are inherited factors, socialized factors, learned factors, factors that are consequences of previous diseases or previous injuries or previous insults. There are environmental factors and, indeed, a seemingly infinite number of factors that play a roll in the development of a person’s overall condition or state. Each person’s state is the result of a lifetimes worth of influences that have come together, been weaved together, to bring about a person’s current state. We call this state their constitution or constitutional state.
We all start this life in a state of relative balance compared to the state that we find ourselves in as adults, although, even newborn babies have influences that have already affected their state. However, as we go through life, we face challenges; whether they be mental, emotional, physiological, environmental, infectious or whatever. Each time that we are faced with a challenge to our state of balance, our body and mind try their best to overcome these challenges and this process of overcoming challenge changes our state. Sometime for the better and sometimes for the worse. At times the body cannot overcome the challenge and it must incorporate this unresolved challenge into its overall state of balance causing a compensation. Each compensation throws us just a little bit off-balance and the organism must try to rebalance given this new state of unbalance.
Over a lifetime, we have so many unresolved challenges that the body, or organism, has had to compensate for that we find ourselves in a state of balanced unbalance. We become like a house of cards. The more unbalance that our body has to incorporate into its precarious state of balanced unbalance, the more precarious our health becomes. As our health becomes more precarious, more symptoms present that tell us that we are unbalanced and the organism is calling out for assistance to regain a better state of balance. In homeopathy, it is thought that symptoms are the organism’s way of saying that it needs help. A way of crying out for balance. The more unbalanced the organism becomes, the more difficult it is for it to try to maintain some sort of functional pseudo-balance.
In order for there to be a state of health, the organism must be assisted in deconstructing the house of cards and returning to a state of true and natural balance. The use of homeopathic remedies in a constitutional way is the best known method of unraveling this tangled mess of unbalance and then re-organizing the organism back into a state of natural healthy balance. Only then can the organism be in a state of true health.
Constitutional homeopathic application is essential for everyone and everyone should be under the care of a homeopath in order to find constitutional balance.
Clinically Proven
What to expect from your experience
Homeopathy is very different than what Americans are used to. The American idea of healthcare is to outsource the management of their health to a doctor rather than take personal responsibility for their own health. But, however, a doctor cannot give you health, only you can make healthy choices. The American system of medicine is based on the idea of giving chemical substances to suppress normal physiological expressions and therefore reduce the experience of symptoms.
This, however, does not give the person health. It merely suppresses the expressions of the body that are trying to tell the person that there is a lack of health that needs to be addressed. If those symptoms are suppressed rather than fixing the underlying lack of health, then we have just made the problem worse. For example, if the body has an infection, it frequently produces a fever, which is a normal physiological response and a normal part of the healing process.
American style medicine will tell you to take Tylenol or Motrin to suppress the fever. This does nothing to contribute to the overall health of the person. It simply tries to cover up an unpleasant symptom, making the patient feel like they are healthier, when in reality, they are not.
If a person has high blood pressure, they are given pharmaceutical drugs to force the blood pressure lower but that does not fix the underlying cause of what was making the blood pressure high in the first place. By merely suppressing the symptoms, the very things that are telling us that we need to address an underlying problem, we are lulled into a sense that the problem is gone and so we ignore it and the problem grows bigger but without the symptoms to alert us because we have suppressed those symptoms. If a person has type two diabetes, which is entirely a lifestyle issue, that person just wants a pill from the doctor to lower the blood sugar but has no interest in changing their lifestyle. If they would simply change their lifestyle, the diabetes would go away and they wouldn’t need the pills.
But the American idea of health is not being healthy but rather having a lack of symptoms. And, unfortunately for the patient, it is easier to cover up the symptoms, creating a false sense of health, than to change one’s lifestyle and actually fix the problem. This is the very American apathy that is at the heart of the “healthcare”, or rather symptom management, disaster.
People must change their idea of what it is to be healthy. Health is not merely an absence of symptoms because one has taken enough pharmaceutical drugs to suppress the symptoms, it is a state of actually being healthy.
When a person undertakes the effort to change their lifestyle and begin the journey of healing, it is important for the person to understand that healing is a process. The body has gone through many years of mis-management and abuse and it is a process to reverse that.
Homeopathy is an important tool in the healing or health restoration process, but it is not like American medicine. You do not just take a pill every day and then you have no symptoms. The treatment is designed to correct the unhealthiness in one’s body and this a process in which the patient must be actively involved. In homeopathy, the patient does not outsource their health to someone else. The homeopath is more like a facilitator in the process of the person restoring their own health. We must stop trying to outsource our health to other people.
Work closely with your homeopath but understand that it is not a passive experience like is American medicine. You must understand that you need to be an active participant in the restoration of your health. Anything less will not be effective.
The goal of homeopathic remedies is not to cure disease. The goal is to restore the body to health so that it can cure its own disease. Taking the remedy is not what cures the disease, but rather, taking the remedy restores your body’s ability to cure itself.
Your homeopath needs frequent updates about your energy level, are you feeling more tired or more energized or the same after starting your remedy. The homeopath also needs to know about any mental or emotional changes. Also any physical changes or changes in symptoms. It is very important to keep your homeopath up-to-date on any changes. Don’t just assume that things are going like they should. Check-in with your homeopath frequently.
Your constitutional remedy, if the correct remedy has been chosen, should make your energy level and general sense of well-being improve overall day by day. You may notice that some things improve and some things get worse during the first few weeks. That is a good sign. If you take your remedy and you find that your energy level or sense of well-being is getting worse, contact your homeopath right away.
If you are someone who has much suppressed emotion or repressed emotion, you can expect those emotions to come out in the first few weeks. Be careful not to do anything or make any decisions that will affect your life in a long-term or short-term way during this period of emotional upheaval. You may expect old illnesses to re-appear; old infections, fevers, skin problems, allergies, headaches, etc. That is just your body purging those old latent illnesses. It’s a good sign.
The remedy works primarily from the inside out and from deep to superficial. That doesn’t mean you wont feel superficial changes early on but in terms of the focus of the remedy’s work, one can expect things to balance in this order; vital force level (sense of wellbeing, energy level, sense of balance), mental/emotional level (mood, sleep, cognitive processes), physiological level (hormones, bio-chemical processes), visceral level (organ function), superficial level (skin, hair and nails). This is the thinking of homeopathic theory.
A bit about finding the right remedy
Finding the right remedy can be like solving a mystery. It’s a detective game. Your body has symptoms which are clues to its current state and to which remedy will resolve the current state. Your homeopath is like the detective searching for clues trying to solve the case. Sometimes the clues are easy to find and sometimes they’re very difficult to find. Sometimes the clues make sense and sometimes they don’t. In some homeopathic cases, as in detective cases, the clues are easy to find and they make sense and the culprit is found quickly. But in some homeopathic cases, it takes quite a bit of time and investigation and trying different clues until the detective/homeopath can finally put together the symptoms in a way that finds the culprit and solves the case.
Your homeopath may need to try more than one remedy, doses and/or dosing schedules. He/she may need to go back and ask more questions or look at the case differently in order to finally unravel the case.
Once the case is solved and the best remedy found, improvement may be seen quickly and lead to a speedy resolution but sometimes it may take a while for the remedy to unravel the troubles and correct the imbalances. Sometimes there may even be a period of ups and downs as adjustments are made to try to find just the right remedy and just the right dose and dosing schedule at just the right time. It can sometimes get discouraging for the client and even the homeopath but don’t lose hope. Homeopathy has a long history of amazing things. Think of it more as reprogramming your body’s functioning rather than just treating a particular symptom or group of symptoms. It takes time to change the programming. Keep working with your homeopath and you may be surprised by the benefits.
Potency selection and dosing depends on several things:
- How strong is the dysfunctional vibration
- How strong or weak is the person’s vital force
- How stable or unstable is the person’s vital force
- What level of dysfunction is the homeopath focusing on
The sick person’s state, whether the sickness is acute, chronically acute, chronic or constitutional, is one of dysfunction that must be corrected, and, fortunately, the dysfunctional state will present with defining symptoms that will paint a picture of what remedy can offer the corrective vibration (by the grace of God). The question then is; what potency and dosing will correct the dysfunctional vibration? If we give too low a potency or dosing, the dysfunctional vibration will fight against the corrective vibration and give us one of the following potential outcomes: palliation but no cure, aggravation with no cure or severe aggravation followed by cure.
What we are looking to achieve is to overwhelm the dysfunctional vibration with the corrective vibration in such a way that the dysfunctional vibration cannot fight against the corrective vibration and simply surrenders to it thus producing a gentle cure. Hahnemann talked about this by saying that the correctly chosen remedy (potency and dosing) provides an overwhelming “artificial disease” that replaces the diseased state of the vital force thus correcting the dysfunction of the vital force, and thus, curing the disease. And by choosing the correct potency and dosing, we can do so in a gentle way which Hahnemann also entreated us to do.
If you choose the right remedy yet choose the wrong potency or dosing then a cure will be missed, at the least, or the patient harmed, at the most.
The selection of the remedy, potency and dose are, in essence, an art form and cannot be arrived at through any computer program, system, method, chart, algorithm, or any other systematic means. It must be intuitive in the sense that all art is intuitive. The practitioner must internalize the art of homeopathy and be able to express it in an artistic way such that they are able to know intuitively what remedy, potency and dosing a particular patient may need at a particular time.
This is a marathon not a sprint, so, stick with it and communicate with your homeopath. Call your homeopath with any questions or to give updates if something changes.