The Homeopathic approach
This page is focussed on explaining more about the uniqueness of the Homeopathic approach. The links in the text will lead you to even more detail.
You will NOT find detailed explanation on the mechanism behind Homeopathy here. There is still much we need to learn about how Homeopathy works exactly, but there is ample information on ‘the Net’ to satisfy your curiosity. To help you find some good sources of homeopathic information I refer you to the “Links” section in this website.
The system of Homeopathic medicine has some important principles
- Health symptoms are seen as an expression of an imbalance within a person’s vitality (or Vital Force). The ‘Vital Force’ is the part of us that strives to keep us healthy, balanced and alive at all cost, without us even realising it.
- Homeopathy focuses on the person as a whole. It does not address disease labels (e.g. Migraine) it supports a person by considering their unique experience and therefore there is no standard prescription for any condition. Two people with a Migraine may be prescribed two very different remedies.A Homeopath will be interested to find out all about your person that is out of balance, with your main complaint (e.g. migraine).(S)he will look at e.g when it originated, how it affects your daily life or your energy levels, and what it feels like to you, what things make it better or worse or trigger it. But it doesn’t stop there.Your complaint (i.e. migraine) happens in your body and anything related to you therefore also has a relation to your complaint somehow.
- In Homeopathy we know that if a substance can cause symptoms in a healthy person that same substance in very dilute and energized form (= Remedy) may improve those similar symptoms in an ill person.
- A remedy prescription will be based on Homeopathy’s most fundamental principle of “like cures like”. There are thousands of Homeopathic remedies made from e.g. vegetable, animal or mineral substances. These substances undergo a process of serial dilution and ‘Potentization’ (vigorous shaking) to become a Homeopathic Remedy. New remedies are even still made today to reflect those substances found in the modern day environment and sometimes also due to new insights in homeopathic application. Each remedy is documented in detail in encyclopaedia-like books called Materia Medica. At the end of a consultation the Homeopath matches symptoms that are particular to you, with symptoms that are particular for a certain remedy, by way of using a book of symptoms or “Repertory”.
Repertory, book of Symptoms
- Remedies are prescribed in minimum doses, both in size and frequency of repetition. Once a remedy is well matched to an individual situation it provides a stimulus to the body’s ability to heal and from there on the body will do the healing. I liken the action of a remedy to the kick start in your car, a little boost or spark. Once the car is going you don’t need it to keep moving.
- In Homeopathy we understand that the process of healing is directional and the healing process set in motion by the taking of a remedy is able to be assessed by observing this direction in process, according to guidelines.
Orthodox medicine
Orthodox medicine is focussed on the ill or injured part or removing the symptom; A patient is cured when the headache is gone. Treatment will deal with the symptom, often in the form of
- medication that relieves pain (e.g. Paracetamol for a head ache. You do not feel the pain, that in essence is still there)
- suppressing a symptom in some form (e.g. steroid cream for eczema)
- removing it through surgery (which may be seen as a permanent suppression).
However this solely removes the expression of the issue NOT the need for the body to express it. Homeopathy is focussed on removing the underlying cause or need for the body to express this symptom which essentially is caused by a disturbance of the ‘Vital Force’ which affects the natural ability to heal or be healthy. That means that healing in Homeopathy is seen as a process which may take a patient on a journey back through his or her health history so far, to get to the core of the matter.