In a recent article I introduced the topic of the role of dreams in homeopathic diagnosis. In this article I explain how sleep and dreams serve as useful indicators of the progress of healing.

From Diagnosis to Treatment

The correct diagnosis marks only the beginning of the homeopathic healing journey. The process of treatment includes regular followup appointments (usually once every several weeks), during which the patient’s present state of health is carefully compared with the past state.

The action of a homeopathic remedy is very individual, and the initial phase of improvement is often experienced by patients as turbulent. Physical symptoms often get worse before they get better, there may be swings in mood and energy levels, and interpersonal relations may be strained as the patient begins to shift on a deep level.

This state of affairs is an unavoidable consequence of the nature of homeopathic healing which, unlike most other treatments, restores balance of the whole organism but may not provide symptomatic relief early on. Thus the best indicators of improvement are often not the symptoms comprising the patient’s suffering. Therefore in order to assess patients’ spiritual health, homeopaths rely heavily on general clinical indicators such as mood, energy, sleep quality, and pattern and content of dreams.

Even in cases of turmoil (known as a homeopathic aggravation) or apparent lack of progress, positive changes in these general indicators reliably herald eventual lasting improvement. On the other hand, a prolonged aggravation of specific symptoms without a concurrent positive shift in the general state may indicate a setback unrelated to the treatment, or in unusual cases a negative response to a wrongly prescribed remedy.

Sleep and dreams are sensitive early indicators of spiritual health

Improvement in the quality of sleep is among the most reliable indicators of a positive spiritual shift early on in the treatment process. Although few patients present with sleep problems as their main complaint, many people sleep poorly enough that they report an improvement in this sphere when prompted by the homeopath. Some will find that they fall asleep more easily and sleep more soundly, whereas others will temporarily experience more restless or dream-disturbed sleep yet will have better mood and energy the following day.

With regard to dreaming, two patterns of improvement are seen. The first and, in my experience, more common one is where patients experience a surge in their dreaming, noting upon waking that they have dreamt more at night, remembering more of their dreams, or being awoken by a dream during the night. The increase in dreaming is the surfacing of unconscious material and its integration into the person’s conscious life experience. This in turn frequently promotes a feeling of well being that compensates for the disruption of sleep.

The second pattern is seen in patients who used to dream a lot and presently begin to experience more peaceful sleep. In these patients it seems that there is a good connection to the subconscious, but issues are rehashed and re-experienced without resolution. As these issues are resolved, the need to process them during sleep decreases, and dreaming is reduced accordingly. This situation must be contrasted with the situation where a patient experiences less dreaming yet also poorer sleep: in such cases the reduction in dreaming suggests a disconnection from the subconscious.

Shifts in sleep and dreaming while under homeopathic treatment occur incidentally to shifts in the main complaint: they are non-specific indicators of the state of spiritual health of the organism, regardless of the nature of the patient’s main complaint. It is normal for the chief complaint, when it is physical or mental rather than purely spiritual, to lag behind the spiritual state: the physical or mental complaint can shift only once the spiritual foundation for healing has been prepared. For this reason changes in sleep and dreaming are among the earliest and most sensitive clinical indicators, and as such are extremely helpful whenever changes in specific symptoms are vague, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to interpret.

Finally, at times the changing content of dreams itself is a useful indicator of the trajectory of progress. In such cases it may be useful to discuss this with the patient, in order to bring to greater awareness the significance of a specific dream. Overall, however, homeopathy is much less concerned with deep dream analysis than are many schools of psychotherapy.

Common causes of failure of homeopathic treatment

For homeopaths, it is important to communicate the nature of homeopathic medicine to their patients. Otherwise patients form unrealistic expectations about their own progress, based on the reasonable expectation that their symptoms should be relieved not only permanently but quickly. Unfortunately, some homeopaths are not be sufficiently cognizant that they are dealing with purely spiritual medicine, or may be swayed away from this conviction in their desire to relieve their patients’ suffering. But the above described approach produces by far the best long-term clinical results, and failure to look for the subtle shifts in spiritual health that precede more obvious shifts in physical or mental symptoms is a frequent cause of failure of homeopathic treatment even when the first hurdle — choosing the correct remedy — has been overcome. Most commonly this is seen as the habit of chasing symptoms by changing remedies in quick succession, instead of persisting with one carefully chosen remedy for the several months to several years that it takes to fully resolve a spiritual imbalance.

Homeopathic patients, on their part, will sometimes become disillusioned after relief is not quick to come, thereby missing out on the profound healing benefits which must follow the correct homeopathic prescription. For them it is important to understand the natural laws of healing as become manifest through sleep, dreams, and so on. Otherwise the only resort for such patients, other than to keep suffering, is to suppress their symptoms through conventional medications or other forms of symptomatic treatment, without regard for the long-term consequences. Homeopathic treatment is very powerful, but is not well-suited for those looking for a quick fix, as homeopathic patients need to be willing to forego immediate relief in favor of a long-term investment in health and well-being.

Homeopathic treatment begins with a thorough investigation into all aspects of the patient’s life. During the initial interview the homeopath routinely enquires about dreams (especially childhood dreams, memorable past dreams, recurrent dreams, and nightmares), because dreams have proven to be helpful clinical indicators in many patients’ cases.

But dreams must be amongst the most contentious, mysterious, and thoroughly unobjective of phenomena! Why, then, are they nevertheless considered valuable in homeopathic diagnosis and treatment?

In this article I will describe the ways in which dreams may be incorporated into the homeopathic diagnosis. Their value lies in their ability to reveal the true state of the patient and to point the way to a confident selection of homeopathic remedy. In a followup article I will further explain how changes in sleep and dreaming patterns are sensitive indicators of the progress of healing once treatment has begun.

Dreams: Precious psychic gems or rubble of the mind?

One of the enduring mysteries of life is the nature of dreams. Scientists have a relatively poor understanding of the unique physiological states that occur during sleep and dreaming, let alone of the reasons for the bewildering array of dream content that we experience. In any event science does not yet possess a convincing theory that explains why we must, in the first place, sleep and experience dreaming states to function normally and stay alive (prolonged sleep deprivation of experimental animals leads to dire consequences).

The actual content of dreams is normally considered irrelevant or not amenable to the scientific mode of investigation. For example, one theory holds that dreams are simply the mind’s attempt at making sense of the electrical noise produced by brain metabolism: whereas in the waking state these signals find an outlet in miniature muscular contractions throughout the body, during the paralysis of sleep these signals are transformed into thoughts which bring about the dreaming experience.

But science apart and life apart: people of all cultures routinely interpret their dreams, finding patterns of meaning even when reasonably there are none to be found. Psychologists and occult practitioners of all kind investigate the dream world, hoping to offer insight and assistance to their clients through correct interpretation of their dreams.

Many spiritual traditions concur in their view that during sleep our soul leaves the body and locates itself in some other realm in which actions are not bound by physical laws. In the modern world dreams are regarded more conservatively, but not necessarily more accurately, as windows into the individual’s subconscious — a realm beyond the purview of science, governed (if at all) by the mysterious laws of spirit.

How do homeopaths make use of dreams?

The homeopathic approach to dreams is straightforward: on the one hand homeopaths fully accept the legitimacy of dream material (along with all of the subjective phenomena reported by patients), while on the other hand they strive to avoid dream interpretation.

Being that it is prone to error and speculation, dream interpretation is not considered a reliable foundation for homeopathic diagnosis, although it has its place within the healing dialogue between patient and homeopath. Instead, homeopaths employ dreams in these two ways: (i) as symptoms just like any other homeopathic symptom, and (ii) as pointers to the true state of the patient.

(i) Dreams are ordinary homeopathic symptoms

Dreams can be incorporated into the diagnosis simply as ordinary homeopathic symptoms alongside, because among the physical and psychological symptoms listed under the materia medica (clinical description) of each remedy are listed dream rubrics such as:

• Dreams - children
• Dreams - dogs
• Dreams - dancing
• Dreams - war

as well as dream qualities such as:

• Dreams - obscene
• Dreams - pleasant
• Dreams - vivid

Associated with each such category are remedies listed in the homeopathic repertory (index of symptoms). In a patient with a clear history of dreams the homeopath thus can narrow down the field of possibilities and concentrate his mind on a smaller set of potential remedies.

The use of dreams as reported phenomena just like any other mental and subjective symptoms is universally accepted among classical homeopaths.

(ii) Dreams point to the true state of the patient

The second use of dreams involves drawing out mental attributes from the raw dream reports. This is done under two assumptions: first, that dreams are meaningfully related to the person’s state and, second,  that they are at least as good a representation of this state as are the non-dream reports.

Because people are frequently unaware of aspects of their psyche, fears or delusions (perceptions in mentally healthy people that are not reflective of reality) are often revealed only through dreams. For example, a patient who has frightful encounters with snakes in her dreams might merit the designation and corresponding rubric “Fear of snakes,” while a patient who is regularly dreams of being involved in warfare might merit the rubric “Delusion - he is a soldier.”

Dream translation has to be done both skillfully and conservatively lest it devolve into speculation. Not surprisingly, homeopaths differ in their opinion about the legitimacy of using dreams in this indirect manner. Those, like myself, who consider it legitimate to venture into the dream world find in dreams a most-reliable gateway to the psyche: when correctly handled, dreams offer a precise view of the hidden dynamics that motivate the patient’s life, frequently leading to a correspondingly precise diagnosis and prescription.

The key to not abusing this approach lies in integrating the inferences from the patient’s dream world with the rest of the patient’s description by verifying that the dream element is corroborated elsewhere in the clinical report.

Further uses of dreams

Dreams can further be exploited as starting points for drawing out psychological material that the patient is aware of yet does not wish or is unable to divulge directly.

From their dream reports patients can be led rather craftily to reveal aspects of their persona that they are either reluctant to discuss or which they incorrectly consider irrelevant for the homeopathic interview. When used by the homeopath with the pure intention of helping the patient, this approach creates no harm and enables a precise diagnosis even in an uncooperative patient.

Finally, dreams can reveal the psychic makeup of children who are old enough to retell their dreams but not yet intellectually capable of answering more abstract enquiries into their mental state.

Dreams are valuable because they bypass compensations

In the final analysis, the key reason for the diagnostic importance of dreams is that much of the conscious reporting of the patient is based on his or her compensated state. Compensation involves the funneling of thoughts and behavioural impulses that are inappropriate to the situation toward more productive or socially acceptable outcomes.

Such restraint and rechanelling of behaviour is a cardinal ingredient of any civilized society, but it makes the homeopath’s task of correct diagnosis more difficult. For example, a person with violent impulses might take up Tai Chi, cultivating the peaceful, meditative aspect of the art and speaking at length about values such as inner calm and forgiveness. If asked directly about violent tendencies (i.e., if the homeopath were to suspect this from the patient’s ‘feel’ or appearance) such a patient would answer in denial. Yet a reported violent dream might reveal what lies hidden underneath the peacful outward manner.

In a followup article I explain how changes in sleep and dreaming patterns are sensitive indicators of the progress of healing under homeopathic treatment.

The purpose of homeopathic followup appointments, in addition to the guidance and advice that is part-and-parcel of the healing relationship, is to compare the patient’s present state to his or her initial state. Below is Janice’s report of her condition a month after she took 3 consecutive daily doses of Anacardium 200c. In order to refresh your memory about Janice’s initial state please refer to the case transcript).

Overall fairly well. Stopping Cipralex [antidepressant] worked this time — a few weeks before [when I tried to stop it] I had entered into depression right away, this time this didn’t happen. I cry a lot without the medication but I am not depressed. I have returned to being more vulnerable, but I don’t have the depression, the monster in the chest and the abdomen. Easy to get up in the morning.

Something paralyzed in the body, pain in the chest, every motion hurts, hard to breath, horrible tiredness, inability to straighten the body, lack of desire to get up and function. Everything else I could handle but not this sensation, which is like wanting to die.

I get up easily, lightly, good mood, desire to start the day. On the other hand I am depressed now: physical illness for the past few days, like an irritated bowel. This morning woke up with migraine, headache, vomiting… Attacks of crying: maybe it’s good: it replaces the typical angry, raging response. I feel anger but not like some animal, just appropriate anger. Not like a monster that’s living inside me.

What Janice has reported up until now is already sufficient to establish that a positive change is taking place. What remains to be determined is the nature and pace of this change, as I will explain below.

Presently Janice proceeded to draw two sketches illustrating her ‘before’ and ‘after’ states. These represent in visual form the essence of her spiritual shift:

Before		After
	→

I think that there is a change: less hatred, less rejection, more acceptance. There are still times when I neglect myself (due to her energy [the inner monster, depicted as the scribble at the bottom of the first sketch]) but now we are in a dialogue, I see her as a part of me, we are more connected. Something has shifted… Maybe my rage is directed in the right direction: I exploded at my mom who indeed hurts me all the time. For the first time in a relationship I feel that I can encompass the sense of separateness of the other person — this started before the remedy (due to the Cipralex) but now without the medication I feel capable of things that I wasn’t capable before previously.

Being weak and vulnerable in a relationship doesn’t permit for a normal relationship. A few days ago my boyfriend returned home late at night, the night before he didn’t try to sleep with me, then that day I just got up and told him I was going home; eventually kissed and hugged me until I fell asleep. Once in such a situation I would become a monster, I would lose control of my body… rage. But this time I didn’t feel my body torn, falling apart, like I should be shot. I’ve always responded to separations with fear: now I am overwhelmingly sad.

Something frightening to say, as I’m afraid it will change back: Before I would see her as outside me, like in the corner of a room. Now she is like a shadow within my body: like a smaller version of me embedded within my body, not quite a part of me but like an enclave within me. In the past there had been moments of approaching her and hugging her, but she was always external, not like now.

What we see here is a shift in one of the main themes in Janice’s case: the sense that within her lives a ‘monster’, the deranged alter-ego whom constantly battles is being replaced by a sense of harmony between the previously antagonistic parts of herself (which Janice depicts visually as a body-within-a-body). This is the sort of deep shift that rarely occurs spontaneously in people’s lives. The homeopathic remedy is thus acting to assist Janice in battling her Anacardium disturbance. As the sidelined monster within transforms into an integral part of her being, Janice’s animalistic rage is turning into more appropriate human grief.

Upper-back pain has become worse. Sharper, affects my sleep. My skin is worse, never had it like that.

The exacerbation of superficial physical symptoms (skin, mucous membranes, connective tissue, etc.), and especially the appearance of skin problems, is known in homeopathy as an excellent prognostic sign when coupled with clear improvement on the deeper, spiritual level. Despite the discomfort involved, it is crucial not to suppress these symptoms — as I describe in the following homeopathic case — in order not to interfere with the body’s natural healing process.

Janice’s prognosis

Is Janice’s healing mostly complete already? Not at all: this is a momentous early step in a long healing process that typically takes several years. Because a person’s history is forever carried within, it takes time to re-integrate the painful past into a harmonious present and promising future. For example, Janice might have to overcome many months of grief over the now-dying monster that has defined her existence thus far.

In the next article we will track Janice’s progress at the time of her second followup appointment.

Homeopaths view health and disease as states of being that are either appropriate for the situation (healthy) or inappropriate for the situation (unhealthy). The state of being that we adopt from moment to moment can be regarded a ‘posture’ that is either suitable or unsuitable for the present moment of existence. An unsuitable posture kept for too long manifests as chronic disease, whereas a short-lasting one causes acute symptoms or weakens the organism until it is susceptible to infectious influences.

Disease arises from memory of a past state that no longer exists

Conventional medicine is based on a materialistic view of life. Health is compared to a well-functioning machine, while disease is viewed as a malfunction in some part of the machine.

Homeopathy is based on a spiritual view of life. Health is the ability to respond freely and creatively to all situations encountered throughout life, whereas disease is any restriction on this ability.

Samual Hahnemann, the originator of homeopathy, discovered through lifelong clinical observation that disease could often be traced to a ‘mistunement’ created during a past stressful episode in the life of the organism or its ancestors. He concluded that the memory of this past state was the real cause the suffering that we experienced through physical and psychological symptoms.

Health is the flexibility to successfully adapt to all life situations

Rajan Sankaran (author of The Spirit of Homoeopathy) describes disease as an “unsuitable posture… adopted by the organism in order to survive in a perceived situation.”

What is a “perceived situation”? To answer this, let’s first look at an example he gives of a real situation:

If you are lifting a heavy bag and you have to walk with that heavy weight, in order that your back does not break, you have to bend in the direction opposite to the bag. So, your body adopts a posture to survive in this situation. This posture is healthy, it is going to do you good, in this situation it is needed, and as long as the bag is heavy, the posture has to be maintained.

Hence, we see that posture is an adjustment. As long as this adjustment is in proportion to the existing situation, as long as it is suitable to this situation, and as long as the situation or exciting factor remains, this adjustment cannot and should not be corrected.

Life can be viewed as a series of adaptations: one situation flows into another, and each time a different posture is adopted to suit the new situation. Health is the flexibility to correctly adapt to any situation that arises throughout our life journey.

An unhealthy posture arises from adaptation to a perceived situation that is not really present. This adaptation can be either inappropriate for the situation or appropriate for the situation but of disproportionate intensity. Sankaran illustrates these possibilities as follows:

When a man is being chased by a lion, the posture of running fast, being afraid, etc. is appropriate since his survival depends upon it. However, if a man is in the same state without a lion chasing him, or he adopts the same posture even if a little dog chases him, or he is in such a pain that he cannot think (a reaction far in excess of what is needed in the situation) then this state is to be removed by treatment.

The unsuitable posture is hidden behind physical and psychological symptoms

So long as an unhealthy posture is held over from the past, the person is precluded from adopting an appropriate posture for the present situation. This is considered a state of disease in homeopathy, whether or not there are clear physical or psychological symptoms that warrant medical treatment. This means, on the one hand, that homeopathy is a powerful healing tool in cases where the patient feels distress yet there are no discernible medical abnormalities.

On the other hand, during the clinical encounter between patient and homeopath the disease state does not automatically reveal itself as an unhealthy posture. In most clinical situations the patient will present with vague discomfort or with one or more physical and psychological complaints. During the homeopathic intake the homeopath must therefore ask many questions in order to lead the patient to reveal the unsuitable posture that he or she continuously adopts in all life situations.

This posture, which most of us do not have a direct awareness of, is the underlying reason for the existence of the clinical complaint that induces people to seek homeopathic treatment in the first place.

How do unsuitable postures arise?

An unsuitable posture originates from an adaptation to a past situation that is maintained even though it is no longer applicable to the situation. This happens when the past situation has exceeded the organism’s resilience. Such situations generally fall into one of the following categories:

• a past traumatic event,
• childhood or cultural habits that have powerfully impressed themselves on the organism, or
• inherited spiritual impressions — known in homeopathy as “miasms” — that long ago left their mark on one’s parents or earlier ancestors.

Resilience can be understood by analogy with a steel spring: just as a steel spring can be bent and absorb many small shocks and still recover its original form, a person can absorb many stresses yet maintain his underlying state of health throughout the stressful period. But beyond a certain threshold, excessive stress deforms the spring and causes it to lose its elasticity. A person exposed to excessive stress will likewise carry the spiritual impression or ‘deformation’ due to the past stress and will no longer be fully ‘elastic’ and responsive to the present situation.

Homeopathic treatment frees us from unsuitable postures

We all continually adopt postures in order to survive in different life situations or in an attempt to create a reality that we imagine to be desirable. But if we remain fixed in a posture that is no longer appropriate for the situation (for any of the reasons cited earlier) to the point that we are unable to respond appropriately to situations that arise in the present, we may then become aware of an uncomfortable sensation at the level of our spirit. If we do not free ourselves of the fixed posture eventually we experience more obvious psychological discomfort, physical symptoms, or both.

In Sankaran’s words:

Disease is thus seen as an affection of the whole person, as a posture adopted as a survival mechanism to suit a particular situation which does not exist at the moment. This posture makes us react to the present in an unsuitable way due to our false perception of it. Such an unsuitable and disproportionate reaction to the situation naturally causes a constant stress on the organism, and the stress aggravates the pathology or brings the tendency to a particular pathology into activity.

Health is the ability to feel OK in all situations. A posture is an adaptation for feeling OK under a specific situation. Unless one is able to switch postures freely from moment to moment, a person will only feel OK when the fixed posture happens to coincide with (be suitable for) the situation.

In terms of the model I’ve just presented, homeopathic treatment releases the hold of the unsuitable posture that prevents free-flowing adaptation to the present moment. By raising awareness of the inappropriateness of the fixed posture to the point that a person can choose to abandon it in favour of another posture, homeopathic remedies assist in the release of inappropriate life habits that manifest physically or psychologically. Once this happens, full resilience is restored and the person is able to handle life as it comes — adopting appropriate postures as needed and shifting away from them as soon as the situation is over — without undue stress.

Today I will complete the case analysis by completing the diagnosis and revealing the prescription that Janice received, and in subsequent articles I will present her progress over time. The case history and analysis are summarized below, or you may review them by following the links above.

Review of the case and analysis thus far

Janice grew up with a cold, uncaring mother. Craving love, she accepted her father’s perverted attention which was lavished in the form of ongoing sexual abuse. The need for attention through sexuality combined with a tempestuous character (which may have been caused by, or pre-existed, the abuse), resulting in great anger toward those who had hurt her. Her violent, revengeful thoughts occasionally resulted in outbursts of violence, but most of the time these were directed against herself — specifically against the ugly, hateful child within herself who was both the victim of abuse and somehow responsible for it. Nowadays she functions reasonably well within society but enters repeatedly into abusive relationships and suffers from debilitating depressive episodes that are kept in check by anti-depressive and anti-anxiety medications.

I identified three main themes in Janice’s case — her history of sexual abuse, violence, and sensation of duality — which were translated into repertory rubrics. The resulting repertorization revealed the following 8 remedies as most likely to match Janice’s clinical picture:

1. Anacardium
2. Calcarea phosphorica
3. Lycopodium
4. Natrum muriaticum
5. Sepia
6. Stramonium
7. Thuja
8. Petroleum raffinatum

To understand what these rather esoteric names refer to I will briefly summarize the main features of each remedy, focusing on the psychological symptoms:

1. Anacardium: Lack of self-confidence with need for external authority, alternately aggressive and dependent. Easily offended. Unfeeling, hard-hearted. Feeling of separation from the world. Two contradictory wills, one good, one bad.
2. Calcarea phosphorica: Restlessness and inner discontent with desire for change and travel. Mental slowness, lack of motivation, sensitivity to hearing bad news. Problems with physical growth in children.
3. Lycopodium: Feels weak and inadequate, afraid of responsibility. Strong intellect, weak body. Compensates by acting boastfully, arrogantly. Dictatorial towards those who can be controlled, yet timid and passive towards superiors.
4. Natrum muriaticum: Introverted, emotionally vulnerable. Keeps a wall between the self and the world to avoid being hurt. Serious, loyal, responsible. Dwells on past disagreeable events and disappointed love.
5. Sepia: Often indicated in ambitious, career-oriented women with hormonal problems. Conflict between work and motherhood: e.g. indifference to family due to exhaustion from overwork, or following childbirth.
6. Stramonium: Fear of being attacked leading to intense outbursts of anger and violence. Strong fear of dark, deep water, animals. Claustrophobia. Mental illnesses with mania, psychosis.
7. Thuja: Secretive, deceitful, prone to dogmatic beliefs. Sensation of being made of glass (fragile and transparent). Feeling of worthlessness that has to be hidden from others.
8. Petroleum raffinatum: (This remedy, made from refined oil, is a ‘new’ remedy about which there is very little information to date.  However, the closely related remedy Petroleum or crude oil, whose picture is better known, can give us a clue about whether this remedy is a likely candidate despite this limitation.) Quick, excitable temper, irresolution. Complaints made worse by motion. Strong affinity for skin problems, especially in winter.

From the above information (which is but a snippet of the information available for each remedy) we can see that there are hints of Janice’s picture in the remedies Anacardium, Lycopodium, Stramonium, and Thuja, of which I chose Anacardium for Janice. But to strengthen our conviction that this is a correct match we now need to turn to the detailed picture or materia medica of the remedy.

The homeopathic remedy Anacardium

The remedy Anacardium (Anacardium orientale or Semecarpus anacardium in its full botanical name) is made from the marking-nut tree. It is indigenous to India and closely related to the cashew-nut tree Anacardium occidentale.

The following are selected quotes from various sources of materia medica, again focusing on the psychological aspect relevant to Janice’s case:

Outbursts of extreme anger, with cursing, from slight causes… Goes wild; feels like a wild animal, roaring like a lion.

Imagines himself double, or that someone lies beside him.

Division between a normal, sensitive personality and a sharply contrasting perverse or ‘demonic’ subpersonality, which attempts to possess the individual and prompt him to commit obscene acts.

His external voluntary [will] is continuously excited by external influences, but his real will, in which is his conscience, restrains that and keeps him from carrying the impulses into effect.

Excessive anger at slight offence, breaking out in personal violence.

The situation of Anacardium is that of a kind of child abuse. Overstrict parents impose all their desires on the child… If he starts taking his own decisions or does not live up to the expectations placed upon him, he will be punished cruelly. So he tries to live up to these expectations by being obedient and angelic in his behaviour, and by being excellent in his work. If the domination persists and he is compelled to put up with it, he starts reacting with cruelty, malice, want of moral feeling, and antisocial behaviour. Here he may also develop a tremendous overconfidence with contempt for others… On the one hand he is good, angelic, obedient from fear of punishment… The other part of him is hard, malicious, violent, devilish, disgusted with himself. He becomes immoral, develops suicidal or homicidal tendencies, is abusive, stubborn and avoids the company of people. These two sides of Anacardium are constantly in opposition to each other: should he be an angel or a devil.

(Sources: Vermeulen, Prisma Materia Medica; Bailey, Homeopathic Psychology; Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica; Sankaran, The Soul of Remedies)

If you’d like further detailed information about the remedy Anacardium please visit here.

Next: The prescription and treatment

The themes identified as most characteristic of Janice’s case recur in the above quotes, strengthening our conviction in the correctness of the selection. But the whole diagnostic process thus far is still a hypothesis: the validity of the homeopathic prescription still has to be shown clinically.

The homeopathic treatment phase proper, following the diagnosis, proceeds as follows: the selected homeopathic remedy (i.e. Anacardium in Janice’s case) is given on a specific schedule and regular followup appointments take place every few weeks.

In Janice’s case I gave the remedy once a day for 3 consecutive days, in the 200c potency, followed by an indefinite waiting period during which the remedy is allowed to act before further doses were given based on information gathered at the followup appointments. (The reasoning behind my selection of this specific dosage regimen is beyond the scope of this series of articles.)

To summarize, Janice’s prescription (remedy + dosage regimen) is: Anacardium 200c, single daily dose for 3 consecutive days.

I hope that the articles about Janice thus far have given you a glimpse into the mysteries of the homeopathic diagnostic process. In subsequent articles I will share with you Janice’s clinical progress through an inside view of her followup appointments with me.

Today we continue with the homeopathic analysis of Janice’s case, which centers around identifying the recurrent themes that run through her case. To fully benefit from the discussion make sure to review the case transcript first.

Janice’s main themes: sexual abuse, violence, duality

I would like to suggest the following themes as the most prominent in Janice’s case, and offer evidence for each:

Sexual abuse

Crazy separation anxiety… I need constant attention… Love is sex, it is 99% of your life, you see sexual creatures all around you, always feeling sexually aroused… A small child in a world of adults… I need touch all the time. I don’t exist unless I am touched…

An impossible situation: on the one hand you lust for your father, for this sort of love, and at the same time there is something crazy about it. Then there is abandonment by him, and then I feel empty, like something is torn out of my body, my breathing stops, horrid loneliness and disconnection, you get up in the morning not knowing who you are.

If only I could destroy my father before it all happened. A person comes to destroy you, penetrate you, and you do it first, disembowel him first, cut off his genitals.

I should be able to forgive myself, accept that I needed my father’s love because he did give me love, however perverted, whereas my mother didn’t.

Notice that we see a duality in Janice’s perception of her situation: a subtle hint of a split in her personality, or an indecisive thinking pattern where she is concurrently attracted to and repulsed by her father.

Violence

I am a warrior, fighting for my life rather than giving up on it. I am always on the defense. Fighting my constant desire to die.

Tempestuousness: an inner tempest that cannot be contained and has to come out.

I am a person of extremes, very aggressive yet very gentle.

I will fight. Revenge. Strike back. Destroy. Individualistic. Jealousy… Something rises in you, you swallow, it reaches the throat, held in the throat, then suddenly it goes to the brain, resulting in uncontrollable screaming in someone’s face. Like a dinosaur, not human. Monstrous. An animal that fights… I shoot from my mouth what I think… Like I have a weapon in my hands: beware of me, just dare come near me and you will be torn to pieces.

Desire to shoot people… like I am penetrating the other person: with a bullet, with nails. I sink my nails into flesh until I see blood, and I continue and continue until I tear up and twist the flesh. Satisfaction… this monster-girl energy… It exits me and destroys the other person. Vengeance, desire to terrorize someone else’s body.

Notice that Janice’s violent side is the “monster-girl” energy within her. In other words, what stands out in her description of her violence is that it is not she but some evil part of her that is the source of her violent emotions and behavior.

Duality

Duality is, in my analysis, the deepest and most persistent theme in Janice’s life story, as we see above and in the following:

I will fight for my life until I am able to cure myself of that girl, that monster within me that experienced that abuse, the one that has been kicked around and is homeless, without clothing, and hateful… she doesn’t want me to live, she would love for us to have committed suicide long ago… It’s a complicated relationships, love-hate; I imagine myself abusing her.

She can destroy the world, she has tons of power, so the medication allows me to drug her or put her in jail for a while.

I hate her, I don’t care what she feels. She is so bad and miserly: a monster. She has only destructiveness. She is disgusting, looks like a monster, has all sorts of growths, like an old grandmother: dirty, shrivelled, angry, and threatening.

I hate her, she is so disgusting. Her very existence. She is like a cancer within me.

I want to expel this thing from within me, this monster-girl energy: it can exit me and be released, through the contact with the other person.

I am all alone, no one will save me, so I have to act. I have to become a warrior, fight this creature and destroy it completely in order to save my own life. Then I would have a normal life. That’s why I cannot bear this girl who didn’t fight her father. I hate her and am unforgiving: How come she didn’t save my life?

Janice perceives the monster-child within her as thoroughly hateful: destructive and deserving of destruction, ugly, unbearable, like a cancerous tumor. The other side of Janice is soft. So we see that the two sides of Janice differ morally: the one is evil and the other is good (or, at the very least, harmless):

I am a person of extremes, very aggressive yet very gentle. A warrior that can collapse into bed trembling and unable to move: these two sides are living in me.

Finally, we can look back at the very beginning of the case — a moment where patients often provide deep clues about their state if the homeopath is astute enough to catch them — and notice that Janice begins her story as follows:

Something that separates me from my life… There are two things that motivate my personality…

These statements by themselves say very little, but in the context of the rest of the case they line up with the persistent theme of duality.

How do we translate themes into remedies?

To represent the themes in Janice’s case we will be using an important homeopathic resource known as the homeopathic repertory. Briefly, the repertory is a collection of rubrics, where every rubric indexes a physical symptom or psychological characteristic against the list of all homeopathic remedies known to address it. Through the repertory homeopaths can narrow down the field of possibilities from the thousands of available homeopathic remedies to a handful from which the appropriate remedy can later be picked.

1. The most obvious element of Janice’s case is the fact that her suffering is largely related to her history of sexual abuse. In the homeopathic repertory we find the rubric: Mind - ailments from sexual abuse, which lists several-dozen remedies known to be helpful in cases of sexual abuse.

2. The theme of violence can be represented by the rubric: Mind - violence. We choose this not because Janice is violent to the degree of a criminal, but because of her frequent violent thoughts and the fact that she is a woman in whom such thoughts are less typical and therefore more out-of-place.

3. Finally, we notice that Janice continually perceives herself as two people: her real self (the one which she speaks about in first person) and her abused-child self (which she addresses in third person). We should note also that the relationship between the two sides of her personality is not peaceful but is full of opposition. In homeopathic terms this is represented in the following related rubrics (which will be merged and treated as one rubric in the analysis below):

Mind - confusion of mind as to her identity - sense of duality,
Mind - sensation as if she had two wills,
Mind - antagonism with herself.

Further recurring themes in the case include:

• Feeling of having to face the world alone
• Disgust with herself
• Desire to die

I didn’t choose rubrics for these themes because skilful repertorization (the interpretation of a case in the language of repertory rubrics) requires focus on just the most strange, rare, or peculiar aspects of the case (as I explain in Basics of Homeopathic Case Analysis). This is because the homeopathic remedy has to be matched specifically to the part of the person that needs to be cured, rather than to that which would be typical for many people under a similar life situation.

To clarify this point: most abused women feel that they have no one to trust or to turn to for support and understanding; similarly, many sexually abused women end up hating themselves or their body, and those of them who suffer most sometimes wish they were not alive. So while these symptoms no less tragic or debilitating to the patient than the ones we listed, they are not as diagnostically valuable in the homeopathic sense, and are therefore set aside.

The repertorization: Which remedies make the final cut?

Repertorization is the process of listing the chosen rubrics in a case and seeing which remedies appear under all or most of them. Repertorization is not a mechanical process but one which requires great skill in focussing on just those characteristics of the patient that would be most out-of-place in a spiritually healthy person. If the general case analysis is done correctly then a small number (usually 2-4) of highly representative rubrics is chosen, and we expect the correct remedy to be listed prominently.

The following is a repertorization in the form of a table listing the rubrics chosen above against the remedies appearing under each rubric (a shaded box indicates that the remedy listed above it appears in the listed rubric):

Under each abbreviated remedy name there is a number which represents the number of rubrics (out of 3) in which the remedy appears. If we take only the remedies that appear in all 3 rubrics we get the following list (in alphabetical order):

• Anacardium
• Calcarea phosphorica
• Lycopodium
• Natrum muriaticum
• Sepia
• Stramonium
• Thuja
• Petroleum raffinatum

Janice’s remedy is very likely to be found among these eight remedies. But in order to choose from among them (or to conclude that we might have to expand our investigation beyond these remedies) we need a deeper understanding of the case. In other words, all of these 8 remedies are known to be effective in cases of sexual abuse, for those who experience a sense of duality, and for addressing violent behavior. But the remedies all differ in subtle ways, and only one of them will have a curative effect in Janice’s case.

In order to select the best-fitting remedy we need to perform the homeopathic equivalent of the differential diagnosis of conventional medicine, where competing diagnoses are compared before a final diagnosis is pronounced. This step requires knowledge of the homeopathic picture (a.k.a. ‘materia medica’) of each of the listed remedies, so that Janice’s picture is matched with a remedy picture following the the law of similars (like cures like).

Next week: Differential diagnosis and prescription

In next week’s article I will provide a brief synopsis of each of the above remedies. I will then reveal the identity of the remedy that I chose for Janice — a remedy that is frequently indicated in people who have suffered through childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse — and explain its characteristics in detail.

In subsequent articles I will detail Janice’s clinical progress over time. The case is published with permission of the patient, whose name and other identifying details have been altered.

Full Transcript of Janice’s Case

Janice opens our conversation by describing her chief complaint as: “Something that separates me from my life.”

I am a warrior, fighting for my life rather than giving up on it. I am always on the defense. Fighting my constant desire to die.

There are two things that motivate my personality. First, tempestuousness: an inner tempest that cannot be contained and has to come out. Second, sexuality: very obvious and maybe the first thing that characterizes me from a very young age; it rules over my life though I try not to let it. All of my contacts with people, even with girlfriends, are from this place: sensuality, temptation, the way I feel in the street.

Do you want the story of my life? It seems so obvious, transparent. Depression, and panic attacks especially around relationships with men. Crazy separation anxiety, tendency to be with abusive men, any separation is like someone tearing out a part of my body. I have a disease that is incurable: childhood trauma. If you open a textbook on incest, I am it. I need constant attention.

I am glad it is difficult for me to tell it. I need encouragement all the time, that I am sweet, etc. — I found an original way without bothering people — very few people don’t cooperate, but when they don’t then I am in deep anxiety. Recently I asked an ex-boyfriend: Is your current girlfriend cuter than myself? He said he wouldn’t cooperate with me and I felt awful. I am like a drug addict: I don’t care whether the words are true, I have to hear them.

It creates a situation where you are constantly living with the feeling of being a sexual creature. Love is sex, it is 99% of your life, you see sexual creatures all around you, always feeling sexually aroused — even at the age of 5. Sadistic fantasies at a young age. You feel crazy, living in secrecy, cannot tell anyone. A small child in a world of adults. I need touch all the time. I don’t exist unless I am touched — but that’s all textbook stuff.

Mother was a monster at home, abused me regularly, mainly emotionally — even being beaten up was mainly about humiliation. Everything was done with coldness, something Nazi about it. I had a ritual of losing things at school and would try to get her to accompany me back to school to find it, a game; but she didn’t.

Something happened with my father at a very young age: I don’t remember, maybe there was penetration, for a few years. Later on it was showering me with affection, looking at me, touching me through the blanket. It’s difficult because I will never know what happened.

An impossible situation: on the one hand you lust for your father, for this sort of love, and at the same time there is something crazy about it. Then there is abandonment by him, and then I feel empty, like something is torn out of my body, my breathing stops, horrid loneliness and disconnection, you get up in the morning not knowing who you are.

Confusion, fear of moving from this place, that every move you do either you or the world will fall apart. This is how it was at a young age. At an older age I could no longer contain this sexuality so in Grade 1 I would rape boys to kiss me, by Grade 2 I already made out with somebody. Sexual fantasies, gradual development of violence: in Grade 11 someone ended up in hospital because of me.

In highschool I returned to a phase of disconnection, went through a large change: I became fearful of boys, no one touched me and I didn’t touch myself. I remember moments of my sexuality being so intense, something down there happening that I had no connection with, something forbidden. A connection to some memory; to this day I have attacks like that. I go through extreme phases: very sexual to asexual, even within a relationship — no balance. The desire increased from a young age, but so did the guilt and disgust and nausea and… those never let go, like a cancer that expands into every aspect of your life.

Lately I feel like I am getting better: I am letting the real me out. In the last two years I can finally sing, but still with this warrior feeling. Lately I choose more normal men, not ones that beat you up and crazy stuff like that, I am learning to be in control but that’s with the help of medication: Cipralex antidepressant and Clonex [for panic attacks] during difficult times.

I have nothing further to live for: my goal in life is to be cured of this, so I wouldn’t need to live any longer. I already understood what life has to offer, and most of life is suffering, wars, disasters. I will fight for my life until I am able to cure myself of that girl, that monster within me that experienced that abuse, the one that has been kicked around and is homeless, without clothing, and hateful — and I will let her win. She wants to die, she doesn’t want me to live, she would love for us to have committed suicide long ago. In the past she controlled everything and I didn’t have a life; now we agreed that she would let me prove myself, and then I would let her win. She is telling me: I want to prove that I am stronger than all the assholes that screwed up my life. It’s a complicated relationships, love-hate; I imagine myself abusing her.

I am a person of extremes, very aggressive yet very gentle. A warrior that can collapse into bed trembling and unable to move: these two sides are living in me. Clonex shuts up this little girl — it’s an indescribable pleasure. She can destroy the world, she has tons of power, so the medication allows me to drug her or put her in jail for a while.

I hate her, I don’t care what she feels. She is so bad and miserly: a monster. She has only destructiveness. She is disgusting, looks like a monster, has all sorts of growths, like an old grandmother: dirty, shrivelled, angry, and threatening.

I have a problem with water: I am a clean person but I hate showering, maybe because of my dad. Once in a while I will lie in bed after several days of not showering, and I enjoy this connection with her. She lives in the gutter. I am afraid of water, I feel like something is swallowing me from below, and hate drinking water, it disgusts me. But I like washing my hands, and I like creams and masks for my face. I am afraid when there is no ground beneath me in a pool or the sea.

Yes, and this relates to the abuse. She cannot be approached, she sticks her nails out at whoever approaches her, very hurt. I did a guided imagery exercise, where I saw that when she was under 2 years old she was still OK but by ages 4 to 10 she’d become this disgusting person.

Wow, I saw a baby that is happy, joyful, blond, plump, enjoying swimming and going under water, and I could love her and be her mother. When I look at her and feel empathy for her suffering then I feel depressed.

I hate her, she is so disgusting. Her very existence. She is like a cancer within me.

Warrior: very strong in me. I will fight. Revenge. Strike back. Destroy. Individualistic. Jealousy. I can tear someone to pieces when I get angry. Something rises in you, you swallow, it reaches the throat, held in the throat, then suddenly it goes to the brain, resulting in uncontrollable screaming in someone’s face. Like a dinosaur, not human. Monstrous. An animal that fights, its territory will be declared in such a crazy manner. I shoot from my mouth what I think. My family considers me crazy. Like I have a weapon in my hands: beware of me, just dare come near me and you will be torn to pieces.

Lately I have a desire to shoot people, whoever annoys me. It’s like I am penetrating the other person: with a bullet, with nails. I sink my nails into flesh until I see blood, and I continue and continue until I tear up and twist the flesh. Satisfaction, catharsis, like when I sing and want to expel this thing from within me, this monster-girl energy: it can exit me and be released, through the contact with the other person. It exits me and destroys the other person. Vengeance, desire to terrorize someone else’s body. But I have no way of letting this energy out, it’s all bound within, violence, the desire to destroy people that do bad to me and people in general. A desire to see their suffering from the pain I am inflicting. Sadism. To see a person disappear through my force. To be the strongest person in the world — I often walk around with this feeling. A rapist would run away from me if he ever approached me. I want to be the world’s greatest monster, bad and mean, to roar so that everyone will run away. No one would DARE come near or say anything to me that is not to my liking.

I have fantasies in relation to sex: that I am injuring and destroying the person I am with, scratch him, see blood. If only I could destroy my father before it all happened. A person comes to destroy you, penetrate you, and you do it first, disembowel him first, cut off his genitals. Continue burrowing into his body, as he will keep being stronger than you. Stand on his body, kick him, bite into him, step on his entire body, break his jaw with my legs, disable his ability to speak.

I am all alone, no one will save me, so I have to act. I have to become a warrior, fight this creature and destroy it completely in order to save my own life. Then I would have a normal life. That’s why I cannot bear this girl who didn’t fight her father. I hate her and am unforgiving: How come she didn’t save my life? — so I want to destroy and kick her as well. I cannot forgive myself for not having done that. This is where the two of us connect. This is the place where I am stuck psychologically. I should be able to forgive myself, accept that I needed my father’s love because he did give me love, however perverted, whereas my mother didn’t.

Where was I? I am alone in the world, fight and survive alone: Why didn’t I fight? I could have done it simply by pushing him away and saying No. My middle sister was able to project this “Don’t touch me!” message and apparently he didn’t touch her. She cannot be touched, she doesn’t hug, etc. I understand that at the time my survival depended on becoming a whore: to this day I have a fantasy of being a playful prostitute for a day.

Sadistic dreams of tormenting my girlfriends’ genitals. Later on about being in washrooms and gutters. Now a fear of my son being kidnapped and raped. This is my worst fear: If it happened I would kill him and myself. I protect him like a wolf. Recently a dream of my boyfriend wanting to murder me, chasing me by car. Whatever I do, he always finds me, with an axe, murders all the family and friends.

Finally I asked standard homeopathic questions concerning other symptoms unrelated to the primary complaint, medical history, weather and food preferences, fears, and like or dislike of certain animals:

• Recurrent infections in tonsils. Recurrent urinary tract infections throughout childhood and early adulthood. Vaginal rashes in past. Burst ovarian cyst at age 19, required laparoscopic surgery to remove debris. Past hyperthyroidism since birth of my son, was medicated for a while. Two years ago had radiation therapy which caused medically induced hypothyroidism and made the depressions worse. Currently treated with just over 100mcg/day (800mcg/week) of Eltroxin [thyroxine, a thyroid hormone substitute].
• Hate winter, water, wind, cold. Like hot, direct sun, the desert: these soften my tempestuous energy. I am exhibitionistic, I like to wear transparent shirts, so that people know that I’ve been through sexual abuse: proud of it!
• Fear of my legs being eaten. The feeling of cancer redeeming me fills me with excitement. You do all this work, you reach a precipice, and you decide whether to jump or fly. It used to be I would jump but now I am considering flying.
• Absolutely hate cats: their eyes are inhuman, bad. Love the hummingbird, a bird that flies backward, with small, gentle, beautiful, very fast wings. Love riding horses: control of your body and the horse.
• With food and drink I need to eat specific things in a specific order. Precision with regard to food.

Next week I will explain in detail my homeopathic case analysis of Janice’s life story, which I will complete in the third article of the series where I will present the final differential diagnosis and her homeopathic remedy prescription:

Part 2: Homeopathic Analysis of Main Themes
Part 3: Differential Diagnosis and Prescription

In today’s article I present a video of a recent debate between physician and homeopath Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital (the same one who appears in Dawkins’ The Enemies of Reason) and Ben Goldacre, a physician and skeptical columnist for England’s Guardian newspaper.

The importance of debates such as this is that they influence not only the public but also regulatory bodies that rely on self-appointed experts on both sides of the debate in crafting their policies. In some cases their regulatory decisions exert a significant influence on the state of homeopathy locally and internationally.

Availability of publicly funded homeopathic treatment in the UK

Should homeopathy be available under publicly funded medical programs such as Britain’s NHS (National Health Service)?

Recently there has been a movement afoot to eliminate all UK government spending on homeopathy, after many decades of limited but significant support.

Thanks to the Royal family’s use of homeopathy over the past few generations, there happen to be four government-funded homeopathic hospitals in the UK, where patients can access a combination of conventional and homeopathic treatment along with other alternative services. These hospitals are now under risk of closure due to discontinuation of their government funding. (Incidentally, if you ever experienced the benefits of homeopathy you may sign the “‎Homeopathy Worked for Me‎” online petition which has been organized in response to this troublesome state of affairs — both UK and international residents may sign.)

By learning about this particular debate we can better understand the dynamics between supporters and opponents of homeopathy, and the social consequences of their interaction, wherever in the world these debates might take place.

The video’s total length is 1h33m, of which the following sections are relevant to us:

1. 6m-26m: Peter Fisher (pro-homeopathy) retells some cases of ‘bad science’ that argue that homeopathy has no effect followed by ‘good science’ that shows that homeopathy has an effect.
2. 30m-50m: Ben Goldacre (anti-homeopathy) presents the basic principles of skepticism, engages in “armchair skepticism” by declining directly to challenge any of Fisher’s positive evidence.
3. 1h1m-1h30m: Audience debate, in which several interesting comments in favor of homeopathy are made (the audience in this case is made up mostly of supporters of homeopathy).

The present episode serves as an illustration of the ongoing dialogue between supporters and opponents of homeopathy.

Relevance to other countries

Legislative trends in certain countries often have worldwide implications. If homeopathy were to take a step backward in the UK then it might have less of a chance of being supported elsewhere in the near future, regardless of positive clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Even detractors of homeopathy will admit that the homeopathic hospitals offer a valuable service to the community by striving to maximize patient choice through a broad selection of conventional and complementary treatments: external referrals from ordinary physicians are their main source of patients, and surveys show high patient satisfaction and positive clinical outcomes.

But despite this they consider any expenditure on homeopathy unjustified given, as they claim, its scientific implausibility and lack of demonstrated efficacy in randomized, placebo-controlled trials. In other words, they see any expenditure on unproven therapies as unjustified in principle.

So we see that the fact that there is demand for homeopathy and that homeopathic treatment likely saves health-care resources (by diverting patients away from more costly conventional care) is not enough for ensuring its ongoing, unhindered development. The debate on the status of homeopathy is thus a debate on the extent to which mainstream scientific opinion should determine which treatment choices we pursue.

It is difficult for skeptics to forbid everyone from pursuing homeopathic and other alternative treatments. But it is possible for them to make it more difficult and costly than it could otherwise be, and thereby to prevent from many people from experiencing the benefits of alternative medicine.

Further reading

You may explore the current UK situation in greater detail by following the links below. For a more general view of a typical debate on the scientific status of homeopathy see the lengthy discussion between myself and several defenders of Ben Goldacre’s position as mentioned below.

1. Open letter calling for a boycott on homeopathy (see also the comments that follow it), written by a group of UK physicians and academics headed by Edzard Ernst (a physician who investigates alternative medicine), demanding that NHS support for homeopathy be stopped.
2. Peter Fisher’s reply to the above letter.
3. A recent editorial titled Benefits and Risks of Homoeopathy published in The Lancet (a British medical journal of worldwide influence) by Ben Goldacre, followed by a discussion between myself and Ben and several of his supporters on his site Bad Science. This discussion offers a lively illustration of how such debates are typically not resolved, because each side views the raw evidence through the lens of pre-existing assumptions.
4. A more recent article about funding cuts for homeopathic services that are already taking place in the UK.

Again, please sign the online petition in support of government-funded homeopathy if you have experienced its benefits and wish to voice your support of it in the UK and beyond.

Have your say below: Should homeopathic treatment generally be funded by the taxpayer or financed privately?

Homeopathy is highly effective in the treatment of allergies and fully capable of stimulating the organism to heal to the point of complete relief from all allergy symptoms.

Many of us have suffered from allergies at one time in our life, and usually the best treatment offered was symptomatic relief through avoidance of the allergen or through medication. Homeopathy, on the other hand, addresses the cause of the sensitivity to allergens at the deepest possible level; avoiding the allergen (the substance responsible for the allergic response) or resorting to suppression of symptoms through ongoing symptomatic treatment becomes unnecessary once this sensitivity has been eliminated.

In this article I begin with (1) a short overview of allergies, followed by (2) discussion of the conventional approach, (3)  the homeopathic diagnostic approach and (4) the rationale behind the homeopathic approach to the treatment of allergies.

1. The many types of allergy

There are many common substances to which people may develop an allergic response, including:

• Foods such as wheat (gluten), milk and dairy, seafood (shellfish), alcohol, soy, eggs, peanuts, and certain vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants).
• Common environmental factors such as dust, pollen, mold, animal fur (from dogs, cats, or other pets), dust mites, and sunlight.
• Various natural or synthetic substances such as latex, nickel, pesticides, medications (penicillin, sulfa drugs, and many more), venom from relatively harmless animal stings (bees, wasps).

Symptoms of allergy manifest at the interface between the external world and internal environment: on the skin and in mucus membranes of the respiratory tract, the digestive tract, and the eyes. The inflammation that results causes the various allergy symptoms that many of us are familiar with from personal experience or through someone we know.

It should be noted that some of the above substances may cause trouble to many otherwise healthy people. If this is the case and the substance is synthetic or strongly modified from its natural form (medications, commerical wheat, genetically modified soy, etc.) then it may indeed be the substance rather than personal sensitivity that should be viewed as the true cause, and avoidance may well be the most appropriate solution in such cases.

Indeed, there are many substances encountered in modern life to which we are not physiologically adapted. These are a frequent cause of intolerance symptoms such as mental fogginess, tiredness, poor digestion, skin rashes, and diarrhea. Intolerance should be distinguished from allergy by its lesser specificity and intensity of symptoms, and the term may also refer to certain hereditary conditions in which the body is unable to handle specific food components or environmental conditions for reasons that have nothing to do with the immune system. From the therapeutic point of view intolerance (except of the hereditary type) is approached similarly to allergy, although frequently with more emphasis on avoidance.

In addition, some forms of asthma are allergic in nature, seasonal allergies are frequently referred to as hay fever, and a skin allergy usually manifests itself as hives.

Whatever the exact terminology applied, the goal of homeopathic allergy treatment is the strengthening of the organism at its spiritual core, leading to increased resilience of the organism. A resilient person is able to withstand a wide variety of environments by responding appropriately to each situation without suffering chronic ill effects.

2. The conventional approach to allergy

The conventional approach to allergy incorporates the strategy of environmental control, whereby the patient avoids exposure to the allergen as much as possible. In contrast, from the homeopathic perspective the identity of the allergen is not nearly as important as each individual’s specific pattern of response to it, both at the physical and at the psychological level.

The former approach is effective in principle but has two limitations. First, avoiding the allergen completely may be difficult in highly sensitive individuals for whom even trace amounts of allergen produce a full-blown, or even life-threatening, allergic response.

Second, the avoidance approach doesn’t address the true cause of the allergy, which is not the allergen but the person’s sensitivity to it. Avoidance can eliminate symptoms but it doesn’t amount to true healing, at least not by the stringent homeopathic standards: health is freedom in facing external challenges with few limitations, whereas avoidance restricts the individual’s freedom.

There are two classes of medication generally in use for the symptomatic control of allergies: antihistamines and corticosteroids. Of these, corticosteroids are the more disruptive because they paralyze the immune system at its root, whereas antihistamines interrupt the allergic response without fundamentally altering immune function.

A second-line approach to more severe allergies is immunotherapy (‘allergy shots’), which involves regular injections of small amounts of the relevant allergen(s) over a long period (several months to several years); this leads to a gradual desensitization of the body to them. This approach happens to be based on a simplified version of the homeopathic principle called isopathy, and because of this it does not disrupt homeopathic treatment (beyond making it difficult to determine which of the two treatments should be credited with the improvement). This approach is suitable for many, but falls short of the more global therapeutic improvement attainable through the homeopathic approach.

3. The homeopathic diagnostic approach

The homeopathic treatment of allergies begins with the physical symptoms but doesn’t end there. Important clues to the homeopathic pattern and prescription can be found in:

• life circumstances around the time of onset of the allergy symptoms;
• situations which cause an exacerbation of the allergy symptoms;
• situations which lead to a relief from allergy symptoms;
• feelings aroused by the allergy symptoms, or the person’s unique experience of the condition;
• how the allergy symptoms disrupt normal living, or what the person is thereby prevented from doing.

Again, it is important to understand that the specific allergy symptoms are not in themselves a disease but merely represent the underlying spiritual imbalance that is the root of all disease. Whether a person will develop allergies, skin problems, joint problems, or organ problems is largely dependent on hereditary factors as well as on the degree of suppression of symptoms from past medical treatment.

In the case of severe allergies and asthma it is important never to reduce or discontinue the use of medications until the allergic tendency has clearly and permanently been eliminated, and even then always in consultation with the treating physician. Likewise it is important to maintain access to emergency facilities in case of a dangerous exacerbation throughout treatment, and to continue carrying antihistamines, inhalers, an EpiPen adrenaline injector, etc. whenever away from home for use in case of a severe reaction.

4. The rationale behind the homeopathic approach to allergies

What is the advantage of comprehensive allergy treatment with homeopathy over other natural approaches?

On the one hand clean diets such as the raw food diet I discussed recently have many beneficial effects. For example, many people do better without wheat: they typically feel more clear-headed than otherwise, among other subtle benefits. So even people who do not complain of any symptoms indicative of allergy or intolerance might do well to avoid certain foods, and likewise to breath fresher air, drink cleaner water, and so on.

But eliminating the allergen should only be seen as the first step of a comprehensive treatment strategy that addresses also the person’s allergic sensitivity. This can be achieved through treatment which strengthens the overall functioning of the organism and repairs the immune system.

If dietary measures are used, they should go beyond avoidance of specific foods, aiming to heal the gut and address the excessive intestinal permeability (also known as leaky gut syndrome) that frequently underlies food-based allergies.

True healing, however, is largely independent of dietary considerations: the healthy person should not only feel extra-healthy on a perfect diet, but also remain symptom-free when consuming a somewhat imperfect diet. To begin, it helps that healthy individuals are naturally attracted to healthy foods. But living in our society involves the occasional birthday or cocktail party or movie outing, and we should not be punished for sporadic indulgence. Yet many people who base their health maintenance on dietary measures alone remain sensitive to deviations from a strict diet, and some even become more rather than less sensitive — and therefore more restricted — over time.

When a person can feel well only on a customized, restrictive diet this indicates an imbalance at a deeper level. This imbalance is addressable partly through lifestyle measures such as exercise and meditation; but, again, one’s health shouldn’t be highly dependent on a strict regimen of daily exercise and meditation.

The way I see it, the ultimate goal in the healing of allergic symptoms involves eliminating sensitivity while increasing freedom. This is achievable through constitutional treatment  primarily through comprehensive systems such as Chinese medicine and homeopathy.

Constitutional treatment is the long-term strengthening of the spiritual core of the organism. (See my article on length of homeopathic treatment for information on how long this might take.) Clinically it is known that such treatment tends to increase the natural resilience of the organism to environmental stressors.

We are all familiar with the image of a spiritually strong person as a Zen master who remains unperturbed when faced with interpersonal conflict or life circumstances that would overwhelm a normal being. With respect to allergies, the spiritually healthy person will prefer a allergen-free environment, but will remain healthy even when exposed to unhealthy environmental influences.

It is not surprising, therefore, that possibly the most popular article on this blog has been Is Homeopathic Medicine the “Enemy of Reason”? (see also the comments that follow it), where I offered an example of the media’s sensationalization of the alleged scientific implausibility and irrationality of homeopathy.

Why be skeptical about homeopathy in a homeopathic blog?

There are four main reasons for being interested in the skeptical perspective on homeopathy:

1. Perhaps the skeptics will turn out to be correct: homeopathy is all a big lie, and I shouldn’t be wasting my life and your time.
2. More soberly, engaging with the skeptical arguments against homeopathy helps one in developing a balanced, well-reasoned perspective on the subject: while skeptics are not likely to sway me and those of you who have experienced homeopathy’s benefits away from it, I think it is important for each of us to avoid accepting homeopathy uncritically, either.
3. Not least because I am convinced that homeopathy is real, I believe that entering this debate encourages a deeper assessment of the adequacy of the current scientific paradigm or world-view in explaining (i.e., incorporating rather than rejecting as unreal) the many known yet unexplained phenomena of which we have knowledge. This will, in turn, lead to a more inclusive future paradigm that has yet to be articulated fully.
4. Homeopathy is under a constant battle for public opinion. In this battle homeopaths are outnumbered by the mainstream scientific and medical communities and their media outlets, which allocate significant resources toward defending the official world-view to which they pledge allegiance. Gains and losses in this battle roughly translate into gains and losses in the success of homeopathy in reaching a wide population and thereby fulfilling its potential for bettering humanity.

Of these the last one is of most concern to the homeopathic community: Because of the influence of media on public opinion and on regulatory bodies, homeopaths must engage with their skeptical critics rather than hope to survive in isolation from such worldly troubles.

Trial by media

Most of the public debate on homeopathy is stimulated by media reports that favor a skeptical view of homeopathy, most often based on complete ignorance of the subject matter. As a result of such negative media coverage, many people who know nothing of homeopathy (and very little of the foundations of modern science) hold a critical view of it.

The people who inform the media range from clueless journalists to professional skeptics who are rarely clueless but often disingenuous in their skepticism. The list of such skeptics includes academics such as Michael Shermer, Richard Wiseman and Richard Dawkins, magicians such as James Randi, and physicians such as Stephen Barrett and Ben Goldacre.

Some of these skeptics are high-level or world-class scientists in their domain (Richard Dawkins is a leading evolutionary biologist). Others are media figures who achieved fame prior to becoming professional skeptics (James Randi won fame during his early career as a professional magician appearing on television), and others yet have garnered attention thanks to their journalistic rather than their primary professional pursuit (Ben Goldacre is a physician who writes a weekly skeptical column for England’s Guardian newspaper).

While in some cases skeptics are professionally suited to their task (e.g., James Randi regularly applies his magician skills to the debunking of fraudulent claims by reproducing the phenomenon under investigation) all skeptics are limited in their ability to evaluate phenomena in which they are not themselves expert.

To bypass this limitation, for example in the case of a non-homeopath skeptic investigating homeopathy, skeptics apply standard criteria of evidence to questionable phenomena, whereby they determine whether a phenomenon is real by whether or not it passes a test that they devise based on their understanding of what constitutes evidence for or against the phenomenon in question. Consequently they engage in “armchair skepticism” rather than sincerely encountering the field or belief they are criticizing.

At best, armchair skepticism is a shortcut to the truth: it allows the skeptic to sift through most bogus claims and distill most true claims without needing to spend an inordinate amount of time on each. But frequently armchair skepticism is inadequate, because its superficial approach cannot penetrate into phenomena that cannot easily be distilled into black and white.

And as should well know by now, I regard homeopathy as a phenomenon, field of medicine, and set of beliefs that is anything but black-and-white!

Skeptics exert a powerful influence on regulatory bodies

Debates on homeopathy usually take place in remove from clinical reality, often between scientists and physicians who have little or no inside knowledge of the practice of homeopathy (whether they are in favor or against it).

Yet it is such debates that influence government policies worldwide as well the general public which these governments serve, and therefore determine to what extent homeopathy is simply allowed to be, encouraged to flourish, or actively suppressed.

At present, the homeopathic profession is functioning and often thriving in many places worldwide, outside of official legislative frameworks such as governmental regulation. Indeed, its rate of growth is among the highest of all forms of natural medicine.

But homeopathy could be in a much better state if it were to be the recipient of outside financial resources rather than self-supported. Furthermore, certain legislative moves could hamper its present level of activity, even crippling the profession as it was crippled following the 1910 publication of the Flexner Report which led to the standardization of medical education in the US, to the benefit of modern medicine and detriment of naturopathy and homeopathy (both of which had been highly evolved, growing professions until then).

What are the main issues in the homeopathy debate?

In upcoming articles on this topic I will be answering the following questions which represent the main issues in the ongoing ‘homeopathy debate’:

1. What are the main skeptical arguments against homeopathy?
2. What are the proper responses to these arguments?
3. What scientific research is there in support of homeopathy?
4. What other data are admissible as evidence for homeopathy?
5. What conclusions should be drawn (by homeopaths, patients, scientists, and regulatory bodies) from these research findings?
6. Can homeopathy be explained within the context of the current scientific paradigm?
7. If not, what world-view could incorporate modern science and medicine, homeopathy, and other unexplained phenomena without mutual conflict?

I believe that this debate has been ongoing for the entire duration of the existence of homeopathy because it brings up fundamental questions about the nature of reality that have remained unanswered by modern science. Besides the remarkable clinical results of homeopathic treatment, it is for this reason that I find homeopathy fascinating: it is a portal to a deeper reality that we are only now beginning to understand.

Steve has committed to 30 days of eating a diet based on virtually nothing beyond uncooked fruits and vegetables, excluding dried fruits, spices, oils, and sauces. (The other type of raw-food diet revolves around nuts and seeds.) His intention is not to lose weight, but to eat a calorically adequate diet fulfilling these Spartan criteria. Having witnessed many such experiments during my studies of naturopathic medicine, when I was privy to classmates’ reports on their latest dietary experiment or cleanse, I find Steve’s diet impressive for its combination of strictness and length.

What can we learn from this experiment (without trying it at home)?

Steve’s best-known lifestyle experiment is his past foray into polyphasic sleep. If sleeping in short bursts round-the-clock rather than at night is not your cup of tea, then I’d suggest that raw-food dieting might not be, either. So I am sharing with you his latest experiment not in order for you to try his diet at home, but because of two things that we can learn from it:

1. The best way to know the effect of a dietary change is to experience it

Steve’s experimental approach to dieting is an extension of his trial-and-error method of personal development. This method especially applicable given the huge variety of diets in existence.

Adopting Steve’s 30-day trial method of new habit formation allows for the freedom to abandon a lifestyle change without a sense of failure or guilt, and therefore the courage to take on bold lifestyle experiments.

2. It is possible to eat complete meals consisting entirely of fruits and vegetables

In my work with patients I primarily address spiritual rather than material imbalances through the use of homeopathy. Nevertheless, I often provide basic dietary suggestions to patients if I feel that their especially poor diet might impede progress at the spiritual level, or when they enquire about the matter. One of the most frequent recommendations I give, not surprisingly, is to eat more fruits and vegetables. Among the most common reservations I hear from patients is that they remain hungry after eating this way.

While it is true that fruits and vegetables do not pack the same caloric punch as a steak, what has most impressed me thus far is Steve’s ability to eat fruit-based meals consisting of 500, 600, or even 700 calories, with no short-term ill effects or hunger. Admittedly, Steve has been a committed vegan for several years and is accustomed to a diet free of calorie-dense animal products. But perhaps the only sacrifice required for the rest of us to start receiving the many benefits of increased fruit and vegetable intake is to accept the need to chew through large quantities of food.

In other words, even if this diet is inappropriate for most of us (and we have yet to see whether Steve will continue eating this way past his 30-day trial period), this experiment demonstrates that it is possible substantially to increase one’s fruit and vegetable intake simply by incorporating raw-food meals into any ordinary diet.

What about the sugar?

A frequent concern raised about eating large amounts of fruit is the high sugar content. This reasonable concern is not shared by Steve, who is reporting prolonged satiety after his meals. I’d therefore recommend to experiment — why not have an all-fruit breakfast for the next few days, followed by a mid-morning snack as soon as hunger returns? — to determine whether eating this way causes, in your individual situation, a premature dip in energy or hunger within less than two hours following the meal.

High sugar intake, even when from healthy fruit sources, puts a stress on the endocrine (hormonal) system, which is charged with the task of maintaining constant blood-sugar levels under variable dietary intake; but the health benefits of such foods strengthen this very system, making the it more resilient and responsive to stresses of all kind. Therefore my hunch is that while high-fruit meals potentially could cause problems with sugar balance, the health benefits they provide, especially when combined with regular exercise and adequate sleep, might outweigh any such problems. A healthy body should be able to handle high sugar intake (so long as it is strictly from fruit sources) with no ill effects, just as an athlete handles unusual physical demands that could damage an untrained body.

If you decide to try this at home:

For those of you inspired to try out elements of the high-fruit raw-food diet, please remember that fruits should be eaten away from fats and proteins, either on their own or along with vegetables, and that any radical departures from your present diet should be discussed with a health professional who is familiar with your medical situation.

I will mention also that Steve is an ideologically committed vegan (no milk or egg products!) who persuasively argues that we should all eat an animal product-free diet. I would counsel against adopting such a diet uncritically, as it may be inappropriate for some individuals’ physiology or impractical under real-life conditions. My personal view is that, granting that most people eat a suboptimal diet, there is a range of optimal diets that are appropriate for different people depending on their constitutional, cultural, and behavioral traits. For example, according to the principles of Chinese medicine a raw diet is inappropriate for the winter season, during which warm rather than cold foods should primarily be consumed.

I would therefore encourage you to educate yourselves and experiment before making significant permanent dietary changes. Another of Steve’s articles on raw food addresses some of these issues, and there has been lively discussion at the site’s forums, especially here. (If you’d like to receive article updates from his site you should do so via his RSS feed rather than his newsletter, as the latter is published only rarely rather than every time a new article appears.)

Further information on the vegan diet is available through VegFamily, a site founded by Steve’s wife. Further raw-food inspiration is available through a Google search on raw food recipes.

Have you tried or are currently a vegan or raw-food eater? Please share your experiences and insights below.

I will outline my plans for Homeopathy Zone in the upcoming year, and would like to ask for your feedback to help me make this blog better serve your needs and expectations.

2007 Overview

I posted the first article nearly a year ago, and have actively been promoting the site for just over 6 months. Over 800 of you have joined the mailing list by e-mail or RSS, and several dozen more continue to join every week. Much of the work on the blog in its first months took place behind the scenes, first in design and later on in promotion.

The main challenge I have faced in creating a blog on classical homeopathy is that it is usually impossible to give specific treatment advice before a full homeopathic consultation is performed. The individualized nature of homeopathy is thus both a blessing and a curse: a blessing, because it is the source of homeopathy’s ability to address chronic conditions of all kind; a curse, because there is no substitute for expert diagnosis by a qualified homeopath in almost all clinical scenarios.

Plans for the upcoming year

My main goal is to increase the frequency of publication to once every 7-10 days (now that the site infrastructure is stably in place) without sacrificing quality for quantity.

Content-wise, I intend to overcome the challenge I just described by doing more teaching of homeopathy by example (as in the article on suppression of symptoms), in addition to the mainly explanatory approach I have taken so far, and by expanding the scope of the blog to include select advice on health and personal growth.

I will continue exploring the skeptical perspective on homeopathy, following the popularity of Is Homeopathic Medicine the “Enemy of Reason”?, as judged by the site visits it brought and the comments it elicited. Though I am biased on the matter — don’t expect me to conclude that homeopathy isn’t real! — I have spent much time considering the various skeptical arguments against homeopathy and will be sharing with you my replies to them.

I will be broadening the blog’s scope to include quality natural-health and personal-development advice that can be offered without individualization. These will include:

• Basic dietary and lifestyle recommendations that could have the most positive impact on your health. We are inundated with health advice, yet much of it is inaccurate or focuses our attention away from the all-important basics. A handful of basic habits, when focused on intently until mastered, will yield far more dividends than the latest supplements or a bookshelf overflowing with self-help best-sellers.
• Recommendations for natural-health and personal-development products and resources. In my ongoing research and clinical work I’ve made a habit of identifying the ‘best of’ items in various domains, including:
  1. A newly rediscovered method of holistic strength-training.
  2. A powerful yet little-known bodywork technique for resetting muscular imbalances throughout the body.
  3. An affordable, quiet, and easy-to-clean juicer that can uniquely handle anything from soft fruits to wheatgrass.
  4. Specially-designed computer mice that help prevent carpal-tunnel syndrome.
  5. Quality resources on mental and emotional mastery.
  6. An ingenious variation on the daily to-do list which can virtually guarantee a positive emotional state.

Request for feedback

There are by now enough readers of this site for me to be able to collect enough data about your preferences and expectations for the purpose of making this site better.

On this occasion I would like to request all of you to take a moment to send me your feedback by filling out the comment box below or by sending me an e-mail (which I may publish anonymously in the comments section unless you request otherwise).

1. Please let me know your thoughts on the existing content and presentation: What things did you like? What would you want to have been done differently? Constructive criticism is especially welcome.
2. Please let me know what you would like to be reading about on this site over the next months: Is there any topic from the ones I mentioned above that you are especially interested in? Do you have further suggestions or requests for specific articles?

The more information that each of you supply, and the more of you that reply, the better I will be able to serve you and other readers.

I wish you all a healthy and remarkable 2008 — a year full of discovery and continued progress toward the highest purpose of your existence!

N.B.: Please take a moment to leave your feedback below.

“How long will it take for me to get better?”

This is one of the most frequent questions asked by new or prospective homeopathic patients. It is a sensible question that originates in our deep desire to foretell our life course and to receive assurance about the future. How does homeopathy rise to the challenge of responding with a reliable forecast?

The challenge of homeopathic forecasting

Homeopathic forecasting is challenging for any homeopath, because homeopathic treatment addresses the total predisposition to illness — a complex entity composed of multiple known and unknown factors — rather than isolated symptoms. The challenge is especially great prior to the initial homeopathic intake, as it is only during this consultation that the predisposition is first discerned.

Homeopathic forecasting is demanding essentially because of the nature of the spiritual healing that is the goal of homeopathic treatment of chronic conditions. Such deep healing cannot be forced on the organism but must be allowed to take place at its own pace. It also demands the conscious and unconscious participation of the patient, since progress is affected by the degree of readiness to get better, and there are unpredictable stresses in the physical and social environments that can further hinder progress.

Factors that determine the projected length of treatment

There are several key characteristics of the patient which can yield an estimate of treatment length that is based on sound principles. Unlike weather forecasts which are often accurate in the short term but inaccurate in the long term, long-term homeopathic forecasts are quite reliable, as most chronic conditions (whether or not they are considered medically curable) do eventually yield to homeopathic treatment on a timeline that can roughly be estimated.

The following, then, are the essential factors (presented in question form) on which reliable forecasts of treatment length are made:

1. What is your level of vitality?
2. What is your nature and social background?
3. What is the type and severity of your physical pathology?
4. How long ago did the first signs of your concern emerge?
5. Is your condition hereditary?
6. What interfering factors are present in your life?
7. What level of healing are you seeking?

1. What is your level of vitality?

The younger you are, the less psychologically set in your ways and the more physically responsive you will be, on average. But more important than your chronological age is your biological age. Are you a vivacious senior who leads an active life that is the envy of people half your age? If so, you will tend to be highly responsive to homeopathic treatment. Is your child slow and sluggish, exhibiting health problems that have been present since birth? Homeopathic treatment can still be transformative, but improvement will likely take a while.

Vital people display dynamic symptoms that vary depending on the stresses faced from moment to moment. Children tend to be dynamic: their mood can shift radically from moment to moment, and their physical symptoms will tend to appear and disappear quickly. Old people tend to have fixed pathologies, ones that are embedded in the physical organism and are hard to shift.

High vitality equals a strong, flexible and resilient life force, one that bends under stress yet rebounds quickly. Low vitality is reflected in an unresponsive, oversensitive life force that will tend to break rather than bend under stress. Getting a sense of the condition of the patient’s life force is the first and most important step in homeopathic forecasting.

2. What is your nature and social background?

Are you by nature attentive to the signals of your body, expressive with your emotions, adaptive, creative, and responsive to your environment? Or are you over-intellectual, emotionally repressed, and set in your ways?

Life is motion, and those patients who display much motion in their life are likely to respond quite quickly to an accurate prescription, whereas others have to wait patiently as their body and soul reorganize.

It is worthy of note that patients living in simple conditions, even in poverty, often respond more quickly to homeopathic treatment than patients in affluent societies. This is because the pathologies seen in less-developed societies tend to be more acute, life-or-death conditions than chronic ones, and because people living in such societies tend to be less emotionally and medically repressed than the average modern individual.

This fact, mind you, is not an advertisement against modernity! Homeopathy nowadays treats people who might have been long dead in another time and place. It is simply that the treatment of people in modern societies tends to be more complex and drawn out than that of non-westernized people.

3. What is the type and severity of your physical pathology?

There is no simple correlation between type of pathology and length of treatment, because homeopathy does not treat physical pathology directly. A seemingly minor skin condition might prove stubborn and take several years to clear up in one case, whereas in another case a large cancerous tumor might shrink significantly over several weeks.

Still, extensive tissue damage or damage to slow-to-regenerate tissue (e.g., nerves and cartilage) will correlate with a longer rehabilitation period — sometimes several years under dedicated treatment in cases where serious physical degeneration has occurred.

Because homeopathy is in principle capable of reversing pathology considered medically irreversible, accepting such long timelines in cases of severe pathology can inject hope into those of us who are hopeless about recovery:

• Homeopathy has been known to reverse the nerve pathology of multiple sclerosis, but it took several years of dedicated treatment every time.
• Homeopathy has led to substantial recovery of joint cartilage in severe rheumatoid arthritis, but each time required many months to several years of the patient’s endurance.
• Homeopathy regularly leads to recovery from inflammatory bowel conditions including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis, but tissue healing and resolution of inflammation progresses gradually and unevenly, challenging the patient’s resolve to get better whenever an exacerbation takes place.

4. How long ago did the first signs of your concern emerge?

A rule-of-thumb often used by homeopaths is that it takes a month of treatment for every year the illness has been present. This holds roughly true in simple cases of chronic illness resulting from clear stress factors. In cases of chronic illness due to a longstanding predisposition the length of treatment will frequently be longer.

For example, a patient who became depressed following the death of a parent five years ago would be expected to require five months of treatment before returning to the same psychological state as before the traumatic event. On the other hand, a patient who developed depression five years ago for no apparent reason might require many months or even several years to eliminate the predisposition (often present since childhood, or even inherited) which led to his depression.

The topic of heredity is specifically addressed in the next question.

5. Is your condition hereditary?

Homeopathy takes heredity one step beyond the notion of genetic inheritance familiar from conventional medicine.

Homeopaths recognize in addition to genetic inheritance of pathological tendencies a class of heredity termed miasmatic influence (from the Greek miasma, taint). Miasmatic influence refers to the negative energetic imprint transferred from the parents to the child alongside other qualities, infusing the child with undesirable physical or behavioral tendencies:

• Stresses and traumas during pregnancy frequently affect the child through the mother, causing ailments in the newborn child which are inexplicable except when considered in their light.
• Homeopathy, together with many world cultures, further recognize the influence of the parents’ psychic state during the period preceding the child’s conception.
• People frequently bear an uncanny resemblance to older or deceased family members, even in cases when the two have never met.

When a patient presents with complaints with a strong miasmatic basis, these can still be addressed with homeopathy, but the timeline grows longer and becomes harder to predict.

6. What interfering factors are present in your life?

Do you live with a loving spouse, a supportive family, in a paradise where the air sparkles and the weather is fair year-round? Or does homeopathic treatment catch you in the midst of a financial crisis, frequent quarrels with your kids, and a daily routine which includes a three-hour commute through a busy metropolitan area?

Do you eat a home-grown diet replete with fresh vegetables, drink water from your private mountain-spring, wake up at 5am for your daily 10K run in the woods, and never visit the doctor? Or is your breakfast a bagel with cream-and-coffee on the run (plus your medications), your lunch Chinese take-out at your work desk (plus your medications), and your dinner a pizza and TV (plus your medications)?

Those who lead a quiet rural life tend to respond more quickly to treatment than their urban counterparts. More generally, the more physically and spiritually pure is your present life, the more swiftly you will respond to any treatment that you pursue.

7. What level of healing are you seeking?

Homeopathy possesses an unlimited curative potential, but only when treatment is pursued for long enough so as to remove the predisposition to illness in its entirety. This typically requires several years. Yet great clinical progress and relief from suffering is often achieved in a fraction of this period.

How far a patient advances beyond the mere eradication of discomfort is a function of both the patient’s and the homeopath’s level of spiritual awareness. Most homeopaths expect and strive toward the full curative effects obtainable through homeopathy, but this journey is possible only with cooperation from the patient:

• Some patients are interested in symptom relief and not in achieving perfect health or healing their spirit. Such patients are concerned about their bothersome symptoms, and as soon as these are remedied (within a few days, weeks, or months) they quit treatment, even if their medical condition remains unresolved and their spirit unchanged.
• Other patients, for instance those with chronic inflammatory conditions requiring medications, are not happy with a noticeable but partial reduction in their suffering, and stick around for the many months typically required for achieving freedom from discomfort, independence from medications, and a clean medical bill.
• Those most ambitious patients who long to release life-long physical and psychological limitations benefit immensely from continuing treatment well beyond the time of resolution of medically identifiable complaints — typically for several years.

The rewards obtainable by this last type of patient include the following: increased resistance to infectious disease and resilience to environmental stressors; previously hidden or dormant abilities become available for use; dreams and aspirations that never made it past the planning stage begin to be actualized; and lifelong psychological issues due to heredity or early-childhood trauma dissolve away.

Such revolutionary changes do not happen merely as a result of homeopathic treatment: they involve long-term commitment to life-changing behaviors. But the beauty of homeopathy is that it acts to align the individual along just this path of right action.

Both in conventional and in some alternative forms of medicine reduction of symptoms and alleviation of suffering are viewed as the towering goals of treatment.

The clinical philosophy shared by naturopathic and homeopathic medicine holds, in contrast, that a symptom is an expression of inner disharmony rather than a problematic thing in itself, and that the disappearance of a symptom may or may not be an indication of cure when health is considered holistically.

In homeopathy it is very important to distinguish between a curative and a suppressive effect because the goal of treatment is healing of the entire person at the deepest possible level. To achieve this the homeopath first needs to know the patient’s medical history in order to determine whether any past treatments have been suppressive; second, the homeopath needs to evaluate the response of the patient to homeopathic treatment, in order to determine whether or not the patient is progressing in the desired direction toward greater health.

Some common treatments that unnecessarily lead to suppression of symptoms include:

• Antibiotics
• Anti-inflammatory medications (especially corticosteroids)
• Surgeries (tonsillectomies, nasal polypectomies, removal of benign skin lesions, and more)
• Anti-fever medications
• High doses of certain supplements
• Homeopathic remedies used symptomatically (these include remedies prescribed with the help of machines, muscle testing, and complex formulations (mixtures) made by Heel, Dr. Reckeweg, and UNDA).
• Improper long-term administration of single homeopathic remedies.

At best the symptoms thus ‘cured’ recur at some point in the future following such treatments (indicating a healthy vital force), and at worst they are seemingly cured but at a cost to overall long-term health — as I and other homeopaths routinely observe in the clinic. In addition, the use of these treatments during homeopathic treatment frequently slows down or completely stalls progress.

Such treatments may of course be necessary in cases of immediate danger to life or great suffering (as a last resort in intractable chronic situations): their availability is a blessing and not at all to be derided. But given alternatives such as homeopathy, suppressive forms of treatment should be avoided to the greatest possible degree.

A case example of suppression of symptoms caused by medical treatment

Dora, a patient in her thirties, came in for homeopathic treatment complaining of spells of extreme tiredness and occasional breathing difficulties. Her health history was unremarkable except for a diagnosis of eczema (a common skin inflammation, also known as atopic dermatitis) four years prior, which had appeared on both her forearms.

To treat her eczema Dora had received Betamethasone ointment. Betamethasone is a topical corticosteroid medication that acts as an anti-inflammatory to diminish or altogether eliminate eczematous patches. She applied the ointment on a daily basis until the patch faded away over a three-week period. To her relief, she needed to continue applying the ointment only occasionally (once or twice a week) to keep the inflammation under control, and after several months quit the ointment and has remained free of her complaint.

According to conventional medicine this had been a successful outcome. In fact, because eczema is often a chronic problem that tends to recur unless actively treated, this outcome had been preferable to the more typical scenario where the ongoing use of medication would have been necessary.

Now, four years later, Dora had eczema-free skin, but her well-being was compromised by spells of low energy and disconcerting breathing difficulties. Medically speaking, she used to have eczema and now had new symptoms requiring new diagnoses and treatments, and no relation between the two would normally be considered.

Holistically speaking, however, it was important to consider the potential connection between her present complaints and her past health and treatment history. Most holistic practitioners would aim in this situation to find the root cause behind both of Dora’s present complaints, aiming to improve her general condition using an integrated approach rather than prescribing two separate treatments (one for each of her complaints).

The homeopathic approach to Dora’s problem takes the holistic line of thinking one step further, arguing that by default (unless proven otherwise) a connection must exist between Dora’s present condition and her past ailments and the treatments that she received.

Suppression of symptoms, its consequences, and its treatment

The homeopathic principle of suppression of symptoms says that symptoms that are denied full expression at superficial level (commonly the skin or mucuous membranes in the respiratory or digestive tract) may later manifest at some deeper level (such as a vital organ). According to this principle, the suppression of Dora’s skin symptoms is a likely cause of her present symptoms, which manifest in her nervous and hormonal systems as well as in her lungs.

Homeopathic treatment was begun, and over the first several months Dora’s tiredness lessened and her breathing difficulties became infrequent. More significantly, however, on the seventh month of treatment her eczema (which had been gone for nearly five years by that point) reappeared on her forearms! This phenomenon, known as return of old symptoms, is recognized by homeopaths as a reliable sign of deep healing. The reappearance of Dora’s skin problem, concurrent with a improvement in her overall well-being, also corroborated the claim that the corticosteroid ointment had suppressed (rather than truly healed) her eczema.

To complete her treatment it was important for Dora to avoid returning to the use of Betamethasone ointment, lest this cause a stalling of her progress and a recurrence of the symptoms due to which she had come for homeopathic treatment in the first place. Armed with the knowledge that her skin problem would resolve if she persevered with homeopathic treatment, and that treating it with ointment would not benefit her overall health and could reverse her health gains, Dora bore the local skin discomfort (using the ointment only very rarely on especially uncomfortable patches) for several months before her skin finally healed.

Nowadays Dora is free of all medical complaints and reports feeling younger than she did several years ago, with greater reserves of energy and an overall better mood than she used to have through most of her life.

Homeopathy and the universal laws of healing

There are incontrovertible laws of healing that need to be understood and respected by any system of medicine in order for it to be capable of promoting true healing. Modern medicine unfortunately has a poor understanding of these laws—despite its brilliant and undeniable technical achievement—and its treatments often subvert them by suppressing symptoms even when the situation is not life-threatening and suffering is not unbearable.

Dora’s case example is not unique but is very typical of patients with chronic illness: conventional medical treatments that are considered successful — here an often-chronic skin condition was defeated with short-term medication use — cause more extensive illness and suffering down the road. This holds true not only with the treatment of eczema, but of many other conditions including asthma, allergies, recurrent respiratory infections, arthritis, thyroid and other hormonal problems, depression, ADHD, and more.

Homeopathic treatment requires patience and perseverance

Because homeopathy acts on the deepest level of the organism, it doesn’t always alleviate suffering as quickly as desired. It may take patience and perseverance to experience relief from bothersome symptoms. In addition, in chronic situations where the patient is already on conventional medications at the beginning of treatment, medications may have to be used concurrently for a long while before they can be discontinued. Both homeopath and patient must therefore be patient and not expect overnight relief of chronic conditions.

The rewards of diligently pursued homeopathic treatment are eventual freedom from medications, the permanent restoration of true health, and the opportunity of growing beyond lifelong physical, psychological, or spiritual limitations so that, in Hahnemann’s words, “our indwelling, rational spirit can avail itself of this living, healthy instrument for the higher purposes of our existence.”

Homeopathic treatment is thus not for the faint-hearted but is intended for those willing to sacrifice short-term comfort for the rewards of long-term health and fulfilment.

But this critical view of alternative medicine by a prominent scientist, shown in the video below, suffers from major flaws which I will comment on in this post.

The Enemies of Reason

The second episode of The Enemies of Reason, conceived and presented by Richard Dawkins (the prominent biologist who has gained a worldwide following as a defender of science and reason), is a blistering attack on alternative medicine.

Dawkins views the rise of alternative medicine as an abandonment of rationality in favor of the superstition that preceded the Enlightenment and the Scientific Age. Having in the first episode extolled the virtues of scientific over anti-scientific practices such as astrology, in the second episode (48 minutes long) Dawkins focuses on faith healing and, starting at 0:23m, on homeopathy:

Is homeopathic medicine the “Enemy of Reason”?

The following is my critical commentary on this episode and especially on Dawkins’ perspective on homeopathy. This is an expansion on a comment I wrote in a prominent skeptical blog, where I responded to an uncritically favorable review of the episode.

Dawkins’ arguments are naive

Dawkins views the worlds of conventional and alternative medicine in black-and-white: alternative medicine is unproven medicine, and as soon as a treatment is proven to work it becomes conventional medicine (or simply, medicine). Never mind that the clinical methods of homeopathy or Chinese medicine require years of concentrated study to master, or that these and other systems use specialized diagnostic systems and criteria of clinical improvement that do not even exist in conventional medicine.

Dawkins’ explanations for the efficacy of alternative treatments are standard fare, reducing all claims of efficacy to the placebo effect. To quote: “It’s all about attentive doctors listening to the patient.” In other words, homeopaths are successful because they are especially attentive to their patients and generous with their time. Never mind that doctors have the full right to engage with their patients as much as homeopaths do, and that homeopaths are attentive because they have to be: conventional physicians wouldn’t have use for a long appointment, because conventional diagnosis is based on a much narrower set of data than homeopathic diagnosis.

Yet another reason for the success of alternative practitioners, Dawkins claims without a shred of evidence, is that they are perceived as figures of authority in an era that has tired of traditional authority figures. Never mind that conventional medicine remains a colossal, authoritative institution, and that most people turn to alternative medicine due to dissatisfaction with conventional treatment rather than a distrust of conventional medicine.

Dawkins’ arguments are simplistic

Dawkins presents alternative medicine in a stereotyped fashion, as though it were a homogeneous entity like conventional medicine. But the reality is that there are countless practices in alternative medicine, ranging from ones based on conventional science (e.g., nutrition) to many that are not medical but are explicitly religious ceremonies adapted through market pressure for healing purposes, in detachment from their original ritualistic context.

Dawkins is at his best when picking on easy targets

When dealing with faith healers who present wacky theories about the universe Dawkins is flawless, instructive, and entertaining (in the best sense of the word): there is no doubt that a lot of what is grouped under alternative medicine is based on placebo, is often performed by practitioners who are poorly trained even in their own disciplines (let alone in scientific thought and medicine), and that some alternative practitioners are malicious in their intent.

Dawkins is at his weakest when picking on homeopathy

When faced not with random faith healers but with more serious, level-minded exponents such as Peter Fisher (homeopathic physician to Queen Elizabeth II and clinical director of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital), Dawkins fails seriously to engage with their perspective which is fully aware of science, its triumphs, and its failings. Dawkins is therefore at his weakest when dealing with homeopathy:

• In Dawkins’ brief allusion to Samuel Hahnemann, the latter is made to look like a faith healer instead of the polymathic scientist that he was. Hahnemann was not only a physician who railed against the superstitious practices of his day, but a leading-edge chemist and an early advocate of experimental method (such that it was in his day) in medicine. But even if Hahnemann were dead-wrong about homeopathy, to suggest that he was irrational or not a scientist is ridiculous. After all, Newton had a lifelong fascination with theology more wacky than homeopathy ever will be, yet no scientist is bothered by this.
• Dawkins blatantly omits the fact that homeopathic dilutions undergo a specific process of shaking (‘succussion’) that could produce some “memory-of-water” effect. While this description is speculative and metaphorical (as no one has yet explained scientifically how homeopathic information might be stored in water), describing the preparation process of homeopathic remedies as based on dilution alone is factually incorrect and leaves out a crucial step, as dilution alone (without succussion) produces homeopathically inactive remedies that are truly no better than placebo.
• Dawkins misrepresents the one scientific study that he quotes as a comprehensive “meta-analysis of meta-analyses.” (A meta-analysis is a review of clinical studies, so the claim here is that the study is a review of reviews of clinical studies). In fact, the study he refers to is a methodologically suspect comparison of an a tiny subset of clinical trials (not meta-analyses) of conventional medicine with an unidentified subset of trials (not meta-analyses) of homeopathy, coupled with conclusions that didn’t follow from the in-part positive evidence. Many serious criticisms of this study have been published, including this one by Peter Fisher, yet Dawkins has chosen to adopt the trial’s conclusions uncritically.
• At the same time, Dawkins fails to alert the viewer about truly comprehensive meta-analyses, some of which (e.g. this one) conclude that there is a modest evidential basis for the reality of the homeopathic effect sufficient to consider the phenomenon a possible anomaly vis-à-vis current scientific understanding.
• Peter Fisher is himself of a skeptical mindset, admits to doubt, and has performed research to address his concerns. He admits that he will not be swayed by evidence in the sense of abandoning his clinical practice, but doesn’t claim blind belief in the reality of homeopathy above placebo and against experimental evidence, and continues in his research efforts accordingly. Dawkins fails to engage with this position, which combines concern for patients over-and-above scientific ideals (which Fisher nevertheless upholds) with rational skepticism identical to his own.

Let’s be skeptical of the skeptics

Dawkins’ critique is ultimately one-sided because his underlying belief is that, no matter how imperfect, modern medicine is fundamentally on good ground and therefore its imperfections are something we just have to live with, whereas the same faults in alternative practices are damning. This is, for example, why he bemoans the profit motive and poor evidential basis of alternative medicine without addressing the same concerns vis-à-vis conventional medicine.

Most significantly, Dawkins’ association of alternative medicine with irrationality is unsupported by fact. Scores of people no less rational that Dawkins submit to alternative treatments out of real despair arising from incurable conditions, and they frequently persist in their rational-skeptical world-view even after being helped (i.e., remaining agnostic about the explanation for their improvement).

I therefore do not agree with Dawkins’ overall concern that alternative medicine represents an abandonment of rationality, rather than a legitimate adjunct to conventional medicine, which it is rational to pursue, at least once conventional methods have been exhausted.

Ultimately, I would expect Dawkins to be consistent in his argumentation and to evade the charge of hypocrisy by providing:

1. evidence (rather than anecdote) that people who submit to alternative practices are less rational than those who don’t;
2. evidence that reduced interest in science is harmful (and in what way) to modern society;
3. evidence that the modern world was built on reason alone and not also on patently theological elements of Western tradition;
4. above all, an explanation of what exactly he means when he uses the word “evidence” in multiple contexts throughout the program, as though one could produce a randomized, placebo-controlled trial on demand and automatically obtain “fact” at the other end. Ah, if only the world were this simple!

Update: I discovered this account by Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist whose revolutionary ideas may offer the key to understanding how homeopathy works, of an interview that took place between him and Dawkins during the filming of Enemies of Reason. Sheldrake reports that Dawkins quit filming as soon as he brought up the issue of available evidence (in this case in favor of telepathy) that he had himself produced, thus exposing the refusal of even the best scientists to be swayed by evidence that conflicts with their pre-existing beliefs.

Over the years there have been various attempts at formulating some of homeopathy’s hard-to-grasp principles in simple and logical form, in order to equip homeopaths with finer tools for handling the growing volume of information they were faced with.

In his 1991 book The Spirit of Homoeopathy — note the alternate spelling sometimes used, with the extra “o” before the “e” — Dr. Rajan Sankaran, a homeopathic medical doctor from Mumbai (Bombay), India, began developing an in-depth understanding of homeopathic theory with the goal of making homeopathic diagnosis and treatment more effective. Since the publication of this book Sankaran has established himself as an innovative theoretician and synthesizer of his and other prominent homeopaths’ ideas.

Overview of the main ideas in The Spirit of Homoeopathy

Sankaran begins by recounting the problems he faced during his homeopathic studies. He describes his studies as having consisted of memorizing lifeless information about the symptoms of hundreds of remedies, learning mechanical methods for determining which remedy to prescribe, and relying on obsolete theoretical foundations.

Although hardly everyone in the homeopathic community shares Sankaran’s critical view, it is this dissatisfaction with the status quo that inspired him to compile in book form the theoretical advances he and fellow homeopaths had made through the 1980s.

Emphasis on mental and general symptoms

Sankaran and his colleagues noted that prescriptions that they made based on mental or general symptoms, as opposed to local physical or pathological symptoms, were more likely to lead to cure. In fact, many prescriptions in which the pathology — even when it represented the patient’s main complaint — was disregarded homeopathically (i.e., not used to determine which homeopathic remedy to prescribe) were treated successfully when the mental and general state of the patient exactly matched the features of the homeopathic remedy.

For example, a person who is fastidious (orderly and finicky to a fault), anxious about his health or physical security, and very sensitive to cold weather is very likely to require the remedy Arsenicum album, regardless of whether he suffers from a skin problem, heart disease, or asthma.

The observation that general and mental symptoms were especially important was not a new discovery, but Sankaran put much emphasis on this fact and made it the basis of an entire theory of health and disease, as follows.

The central disturbance and its components

Given that disease is not characterized by local pathology (following the perspective of western medicine) but by the general state of the organism on the physical and psychological levels, one may speak of disease as a central disturbance of the organism. This central disturbance can in turn be described in terms of components, which are the most characteristics general and mental symptoms of the patient.

Disease state arises from a life-situation

Even when relying on the patient’s most characteristic general and mental symptoms, it remains unclear how and why the individual components are related to each other. After all, every person has one central disturbance at any one time, and accordingly requires one remedy to address the illness (following the previously described principles of classical homeopathy), so the components must be related to each other.

The key insight in The Spirit of Homoeopathy is that symptoms can be related by postulating a life-situation which the patient wrongly perceives himself to be in. For example, a person who is anxious with a highly elevated heart rate and a sense of impending death may be perceiving the world as though he were about to be killed in a car accident. Such a person will frequently require Aconitum napellus (Aconite for short), a remedy whose central feature is an acute fear of death.

The Aconite state could occur following an actual recent event, as in a patient who has just witnessed or survived a car accident. In this case the disease stems from the fact that the actual event is past yet the person still perceives the event as ongoing. In other words, while the symptoms were an appropriate response during the event, their undue persistence after the event (a state that might conventionally be diagnosed as “acute post-traumatic shock”) is inappropriate and therefore treatable homeopathically. The same logic applies to a more chronic state, in which the person is permanently stuck in a false perception of reality.

Disease as delusion

When a person has the experience of living in a life situation in a state which does not correspond to reality, his disease state may be described as a delusion about reality. The term ‘delusion’ as used in homeopathy does not refer to the psychiatric state encountered under LSD intoxication or in schizophrenia, but simply to the fact that a person’s perceived life-situation does not correspond with reality. Many fully functional people (i.e., most of us) may be said to be suffering from some delusion in the homeopathic sense.

Disease in the homeopathic sense is thus a much broader concept than in other systems of medicine: it is a fixed perception of reality that is inappropriate under the present situation. It is like an imbalanced posture that the organism adopts in response to a subjective sense of reality that objectively does not exist.

Disease is therefore not confined to medical conditions, but includes complaints that may have no associated medical diagnosis. These may include non-pathological, ‘functional’ complaints such as low energy or various aches and pains, as well as subtle psychological or spiritual complaints. All of these are as treatable with homeopathy as are full-blown diseases in the conventional sense.

The root causes of disease

If a delusion refers to a reality not existing in the present, then where in the past did that reality arise? In acute cases such as the Aconite example above, the delusion refers to an obvious recent event, whereas in many chronic cases it is unclear where the disease has originated. But this is not a concern: as I’ve written in This is Why Homeopaths Emphasize Clinical Results over Theory, homeopathy only needs to deal with the what rather than the why or how of disease in order to provide effective treatment.

Insofar as homeopaths delve into the root causes of diseases, they have discovered that these may range from physical or psychological shocks encountered during one’s lifetime, to stresses experienced by the mother during pregnancy, to features inherited from previous generations.

Still, even if the homeopath fails to get any insight into the origin of the disease state in a particular patient, he or she can address the disease by fully understanding its present manifestation as the peculiar set of sensitivities or predisposition that characterizes every patient. This contrasts sharply with conventional medicine, where ignorance of the cause of a disease usually means that the disease can at best be kept under control rather than cured.

What is health?

The definition of health according to The Spirit of Homoeopathy can now be extracted from its novel definition of disease: Health is the freedom to experience every moment of life just as it is rather than through the lens of some perceived reality. The healthy person responds to reality with full and undivided awareness, does not need reality to be different from the way it is (except in the positive sense of thinking up an even better reality and acting to realize it) in order to feel comfortable, and is ultimately free to pursue the higher purpose of life, whatever it may be for each individual.

Sankaran’s ideas are controversial

Sankaran’s writings, which have included many professional articles and several books since the publication of The Spirit of Homoeopathy in 1991, have influenced many homeopaths while inciting much controversy within the profession. This is because what began as a reformulation of well-established theoretical principles has more recently become a full-featured clinical system that differs significantly from the traditional approach of homeopathy.

Many homeopaths have praised his ideas as revolutionary and have come to adopt them in their practice. But several prominent homeopaths claim that his ideas have distorted and debased classical homeopathy and that they are causing damage to the profession; others see his early ideas simply as reformulations of other homeopaths’ thought and therefore not as original as they are claimed to be; and others still find the ideas theoretically appealing, but argue against the novel clinical approach that he has developed over the years.

My own opinion of Sankaran’ system is generally positive, but with reservations. I use his ideas frequently, but at the same time find that his system is a stepping-stone rather than a destination: it is helpful in some cases but it doesn’t consistently contribute to an improved rate of success in the clinic. Perhaps this is because diagnostic skill is ultimately intuitive rather than systematic, and so a systematic diagnostic approach is limited by its very nature. Still, Sankaran is indisputably an excellent communicator who conveys complex ideas in an easy-to-understand, lucid manner, and as such he has made a positive contribution to the profession.

Further reading

The Spirit of Homoeopathy is available from Amazon or from Whole Health Now homeopathic bookstore. Although the book is written in simple and clear language, it presupposes some prior knowledge of homeopathy. A classic, in-depth introduction to homeopathy is available in The Science of Homeopathy by George Vithoulkas (Amazon,  Whole Health Now).

What cannot be explained is nevertheless real

What is important for homeopaths is that their observations correspond with the reality of the clinic rather than with the rational-scientific point of view in which we are taught exclusively to think. This is because many things about people do not make sense rationally but are nevertheless real. This is simply because reason can explain only part of human reality.

For example, we regularly experience symptoms that cannot be explained physiologically, unusual sensations that we find hard to describe without first apologizing that “they do not make sense,” and strange phenomena we have experienced but likewise find embarrassing to tell others (or at least our doctor).

Respecting patients’ experience leads to better treatment

Conventional medical thinking is based on the view that what cannot be explained cannot be addressed, so it regularly excludes many ‘strange’ symptoms that patients complain about. In contrast, homeopaths seek to include all such phenomena in their investigation of the patient, with the goal of fully perceiving the patient’s own life experience rather than imposing an external interpretation of it.

Clearly the first approach has its advantages, and conventional medicine is indispensable under some situations such as emergencies. What homeopathy offers, in contrast, is a system of medicine that respects all of our experiences and successfully integrates them within the homeopathic diagnosis. In this way it is able to deal with medical situations that make no sense to the medical doctor, as well as to cure many conditions which doctors declare as incurable.

At its best, homeopathic treatment can address lifelong spiritual challenges (e.g. self-defeating behaviours), mental-emotional issues (e.g. persistent thoughts or feelings), and constitutional weaknesses (e.g. allergic tendencies from birth).

To read more about the principles of homeopathy, see Overview of Classical Homeopathic Philosophy.

This runs contrary to the “mechanistic” view underlying conventional medicine, which is based on the principle that it is possible to subdivide the body into components and analyze their function independently of the rest of the body. Following this subdivision, medical scientists commonly ‘put it all back together’ and assume that the models they have just created correctly represents real-life patients.

Sometimes their models are sufficiently true-to-reality, and conventional methods then prove effective. But often enough their models will not accurately represent the patients in front of them, and in such cases medicine will not provide adequate solutions.

What we’re made of (according to vitalists)

While vitalists admit that the mechanistic perspective of modern medicine is often very useful, they insist that it is limiting in many cases and ultimately incorrect. Vitalists claim that a more accurate way of analyzing people is by noticing their pattern of being.

Each of us is imbued with a vital force which guides and unifies our being. Its components are not body organs, tissues, cells, and molecules, but components such as:

• heredity
• early childhood environment
• family relationships
• social environment
• temperament (psychological tendencies, strengths, weaknesses)
• past medical interventions
• past physical or psychological trauma
• stressful life transitions
• food intake
• physical activity, and
• exposure to environmental toxins.

Together these constitute the complex web of interacting factors that form the corporeal (physical) and spiritual (non-physical) self.

What vitality is (according to vitalists)

Vitalists and non-vitalists differ in their understanding of health. Mainstream scientists and modern medicine (following a non-vitalist philosophy) reject the non-physical self, while vitalists embrace it. Although many scientists believe in elements of the vitalist tradition, when they publicly discuss psychological phenomena they usually insist that they are talking simply of the operations of the brain. But vitalists analyze bodily illness mainly in terms of the spiritual factors that might be contributing to it.

In other words, the person’s spirit or vital force determines the health of the body in a very real way. Vitalists point to the fact that we often feel better or worse depending on the extent to which we are able to be the masters of our life, especially during times of stress. Disease, accoring to vitalists, is simply a more advanced stage of the stress that we exhibit when we persistently fail in the pursuit of physical and spiritual goals.

Clinical implications of vitalist philosophy

The vitalist philosophical perspective translates into naturopathic treatment methods that do not target symptoms directly but instead strive to shift the organism away from its current state toward a state of better overall health. In fact, interventions that target symptoms without addressing the underlying pattern are generally regarded as non-ideal or ‘suppressive’ and are used only as temporary measures.

Ultimately, the attainment better health commonly requires one to stop chasing symptoms as they arise but instead focus on fundamental, long-term improvement, even at the cost of short-term suffering. That this strategy is often capable of re-establishing a healthy state when conventional medicine has failed is regarded by vitalists (be they homeopathic or various naturopathic practitioners) as proof of the validity of their philosophy.

The first reason is that the term “homeopathy” is little-known and is often confused with other, similar-sounding terms. But underlying this linguistic confusion is the fact that most people know little more than what they pick up from the media. This state of confusion extends even to many patients of homeopathy.

Homeopathy’s exotic appeal

The word “homeopathy” has an exotic ring to it that has lent to its being used in advertising a whole range of health products, mostly ones that have very little if anything to do with homeopathy. Thus it is very common to find people promoting some “homeopathic remedy” that has helped them or, conversely, complaining about how the “homeopath” that they visited failed to help.

Telling homeopathy apart from other natural therapies

Because of patients’ confusion about the matter, it is important to outline some distinctions between homeopathy and other systems that are at best cousins rather than siblings of homeopathy.

One of those is naturopathic medicine, a medical movement and profession that has recently positioned itself at the forefront of health-care innovation in North America, and is beginning to exert a worldwide influence.

Naturopathic medicine is a comprehensive medical approach which integrates scientific knowledge with several well-established alternative therapeutic systems. It combines what has been known as naturopathy (an approach based on correct living, optimal nutrition, and herbal medicine) with up-to-date medical knowledge and a multifaceted perspective on healing.

The scope of contemporary naturopathic medicine

In addition to the methods of traditional naturopathy, naturopathic medicine currently encompasses the use of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, classical homeopathy, physical manipulation, and more. Practitioners known as “Naturopathic Doctors” usually possess a common medical educational basis followed by a specialization in one or more of these disciplines, including homeopathy.

In contrast, a “Homeopathic Doctor” is generally a practitioner who has been trained as a naturopathic or a medical doctor before specializing in classical homeopathy, while a “homeopath” is a practitioner who has not had extensive medical education. But because there is no worldwide consensus about these terms, they are often used interchangeably.

Homeopaths focus on spiritual aspects of health

While homeopathic doctors do encourage a healthy lifestyle with proper nutrition, their treatment focus is not on the material aspects of health but on its spiritual aspects. Often people who consult with homeopaths have already made significant changes in their lives, but find these changes ineffective or else overly restrictive. In these cases there are internal factors that contribute to ill-health, such as a fixed way of thinking or of perceiving things in daily life.

The influence of vitalism

Ultimately naturopathic medicine, homeopathy, and other natural method all share in the ancient philosophical roots of vitalism. To read more about these shared vitalist roots, see The Influence of Vitalism on Naturopathic Medicine.

Homeopathic remedies are made from a seemingly limitless variety of substances, but all of them share a similar preparation process. It is the specialized process of preparation that makes homeopathic remedies unique. In addition to being prepared correctly, a homeopathic remedy must be prescribed correctly according to the principles of homeopathic philosophy in order to act effectively.

Sources of homeopathic remedies

Each homeopathic remedy originates from a any one of a huge variety of substances of natural or man-made origin. Remedies can be prepared from various minerals, from plants, from animal products, from synthetic chemicals, and even from sources of radiation such as x-ray.

Samuel Hahnemann (the founder of homeopathy) prepared his first homeopathic remedies from substances that were in medicinal use at the time: chemicals such as mercury, silver, and sulphur; plants such as Belladonna and quinine; and animal products such as musk. By the time of his death in 1843 Hahnemann had prepared around 100 remedies.

Homeopaths that followed him have expanded the selection of remedies to well over 1000, preparing many remedies also from many more chemical and plant sources, from animal sources such as snake poisons, from microogranisms, and from various synthetic chemicals.

Remedies are preparated by alternating dilution and ‘succussion’

Whatever the source, the starting material is next dissolved in a mixture of water and alcohol. Soluble substances are dissolved directly, whereas insoluble ones need to be ground to a fine powder before they can be dissolved. Following the initial dissolution of the substance, the remedy is prepared by a serial process of alternating dilution and succussion. Dilution involves taking one part of the original solution and diluting it in a much larger portion (usually 10 or 100 times as much) water. Succussion involves vigorous mixing of the solution — a specialized process which is unique to homeopathy.

The entire process of dilution and succussion is repeated anywhere from three times to many thousands of times. This is nowadays performed by homeopathic pharmacies with the help of specialized equipment that automates this otherwise tedious process.

Final product

Regardless of the source product, the remedy is dispensed either in liquid form or as sugar-based tablets suffused with the mixture. The remedy contains very little or none of the original substance, because the process of preparation has diluted away the original substance to such an extent that there is no possibility that its action is through chemical means. Because of the remedy’s ultra-diluted nature, the patient need not ever worry about ingesting a harmful substance or about chemical interaction with other medications.

Mechanism of action

The claim that the homeopathic remedy does not act through chemical means alone makes most people view the claims of homeopathy with disbelief, because all medicines are assumed to work through chemical means. But the only effect that homeopathic remedies could have is through a mechanism, possibly electromagnetic in nature, that is still not understood by science but nevertheless is shown to work in the clinic.

Although homeopathy continues to be shunned by most scientists, in recent years several clinical trials have provided results that provide support for the mysterious efficacy of homeopathy, and research in the field is gradually becoming more and more widely known.

What is ‘potency’?

Potency basically refers to the strength and depth of effect of a homeopathic remedy. Potency is expressed in terms of the number of times the remedy has undergone the process of dilution and succussion (as described in The How and What of Homeopathic Remedies), and the factor of each dilution (1:10, 1:100, or 1:50,000).

Higher potencies are stronger-acting than lower ones, even though they are apparently more diluted (remember that the effect of the homeopathic remedy is not chemical, so the concentration of the original substance is unimportant to the potency). This counterintuitive fact is proven as valid in everyday clinical practice.

Frequency of intake

In the case of acute illnesses, homeopathic remedies are in a frequency proportional to the severity of the condition. For example, a stroke victim will receive a remedy once every minute or two to begin, then once every few minutes, and several times daily in the few days which follow. On the other hand, treating the common cold might require one to three doses per day.

In the case of chronic illnesses, where remedies are used in order to effect a gradual, deep change in the organism over many weeks and months, there are generally two styles of prescription. The first is the “single-dose, wait and watch” approach, whereby a single dose, usually of high potency, is given. Following this the patient’s state is observed for a while without further intake of the remedy.

How is it possible to give a remedy once and then wait for weeks or months with no further action? The answer to this lies in the fact that the homeopathic remedy does not cure directly. The effect of the homeopathic remedy is not like that of a medication, which attempt to cure directly but frequently cause symptomatic relief or suppression of symptoms. The action of the remedy is indirect, whereby it stimulates the organism’s self-healing capabilities.

The action of the homeopathic remedy is thus like that of a catalyst. Catalysts are used in chemistry to stimulate reactions to progress at a much faster rate than otherwise. Many chemical reactions that take place within seconds with the help of a catalyst would take many thousands of years to occur naturally. Similarly, the homeopathic remedy accelerates the body’s self-healing capacities . This is why a single dose of a remedy could, under the right circumstances, produce a long-lasting reaction from the organism. This reaction often persists for several weeks to several months before before further dosing is required.

The second approach involves regular (usually daily) dosing using a relatively low potency. This is done in some cases where a high potency might produce too strong an effect, or as a routine way of prescribing which avoids some potential pitfalls of the single-dose approach. For example, stressful circumstances and some other antidoting factors can blunt or even reverse the effects of a single dose, resulting in treatment delays if this is not addressed promptly by redosing once more, a step which usually requires a careful assessment by the homeopath. Another difficulty with the single-dose approach is determining exactly when the effect of the present dose has been exhausted sufficiently to warrant another dose.

On the other hand, the daily approach is frequently more agreeable to patients, many of whom feel uncomfortable with the idea of taking their “medication” only once every few weeks. The approach is also easier to customize to the patient’s particular condition, allowing for increased control of the pace of healing by the homeopath.

For much of the history of homeopathy the single-dose approach was dominant in the treatment of chronic disease. But because of the expectations of modern patients, and complicating factors that largely relate to modern living, it is becoming increasingly common to prescribe homeopathic remedies on a simple daily schedule, reserving the single-dose approach for small children (who respond very effectively to remedies) and rural people who live a healthier life under fewer environmental stresses.

Dispensing the remedy

The homeopathic remedy can be dispensed either in liquid form or in tablet form. The liquid form is based on a water-and-alcohol mixture, whereas the tablet form is made of sucrose or lactose suffused with the homeopathic remedy.

The choice of format is based sometimes on personal patient considerations, and sometimes on therapeutic considerations. For example, those averse even to the small amount of alcohol found in a daily homeopathic dose can opt for tablets; children can be give the sweet tablets to encourage intake, or conversely the liquid form to avoid sugar intake; those who are lactose intolerant can opt for sucrose tablets or the liquid form; and so on. In addition, there are subtle differences between the effect of these two formats of the homeopathic remedy that might also dictate the choice between the two.

Whatever the starting potency, frequency of intake, and physical format — as determined by the homeopath for each and every patient — the homeopathic remedy is taken over a period of time during which the dosage (potency and frequency of intake) is continually adjusted based on the progress of each individual patient. This homeopathic treatment is not only individualized with respect to the remedy given, but also to the management of the case.

This totality is a carefully selected subset of the collected symptoms, one which emphasizes certain symptoms while de-emphasizing others. The least-important symptoms for determining the homeopathic diagnosis are general symptoms that lack qualities that differentiate them from person to person. Such symptoms are considered common, and they are rarely useful in pointing toward the correct diagnosis. Uncommon symptoms, on the other hand, are homeopathically the most important. They can be described as strange, rare, or peculiar:

• Strange symptoms are ones that do not make sense from a logical point of view, for example a “pounding headache made better by hitting the head against a hard surface.”
• Rare symptoms are phenomena observed only in unusual cases in the population at that time and place, for example a case of tuberculosis in contemporary North America.
• Peculiar symptoms are very detailed symptoms whose presentation is unique, for example a “tickling sensation inside the left knee felt only when drinking water.”

Whether common or not, symptoms belong to one of two categories — pathological or characteristic:

• Pathological symptoms are those that are bothersome to the patient or problematic from a medical point-of-view. These include physical pathology, pain, unpleasant sensations, and thoughts or feelings which interfere with normal functioning.
• Characteristic symptoms that are phenomena that are non-pathological but nevertheless individualize the patient by distinguishing him or her from everyone else with the same pathology. These include details of the patient’s personality, reactions to external influences of food, weather, and the like, and significant past events in the patient’s personal and family history, such as accidents, emotional trauma, and serious disease. To these are added the homeopath’s observations of physical appearance and behavior.

The categorization of symptoms just described is in reality a highly refined art that can only be roughly sketched in words, an art which combines clinical experience, intuition, and a deep knowledge of human psychology. When correctly practiced, this method forms the first step of case analysis in classical homeopathy.

This and subsequent steps (which will be outlined in future posts) together aim for the ideal of individualization of treatment: each and every homeopathic patient is given a blank slate on which to draw his illness, and each will ultimately receive a different homeopathic treatment from the next patient complaining of the same ailment.

The interview process

The homeopath begins by listening to the details of the patient’s ailments as well as anything else that the patient feels is relevant to the case. In addition to eliciting objective symptoms relating to these complaints, the homeopath, through the use of many open-ended questions, encourages the patient to describe his or her exact experience of the illness or discomfort in progressively greater clarity, depth, and detail.

The aim of this interview process is for the homeopath to perceive the inner state of the patient, a single state that best points to the correct single prescription. This inner state is expressed through mind and body but is deeper than both. Although in everyday life many of us remain unaware of it, it is constantly expressed in the way we speak and interact with others, in what we choose to do in our spare time, in how we dress, and (often most clearly) in the content of our dreams.

How does the homeopathic assessment differ from a conventional one?

Unlike a conventional medical intake, which follows a preset formula whose goal is to choose from a relatively limited set of diagnoses, a homeopathic intake is open-ended. Because the homeopathic diagnosis is based on a wide variety of factors (including how the person reacts to the interview process itself), the homeopath gives maximum room for the patient to describe the ailment exactly as he or she experiences it.

This seemingly peripheral information is often more important than the objective information that medical doctors typically rely on, and it forms the basis of the homeopathic diagnosis. There are literally many hundreds of homeopathic remedies, which means that correct diagnosis requires great precision in understanding the patient’s state.

This elaborate interview process, when competently guided, inevitably leads to a holistic view of the patient’s state, and to a perspective that ties together seemingly disparate phenomena into a unified story and portrait of the illness at hand.

This philosophical basis is of course the ideal foundation of all forms of natural medicine, and are embodied in the principles of naturopathic medicine. But there are features which further distinguish classical homeopathy even from many forms of alternative medicine. The following is one such feature.

Homeopathyic diagnosis leads directly to treatment

What makes the homeopathic perspective especially powerful is that the homeopathic diagnosis leads directly to homeopathic treatment. This is markedly different from conventional medicine where a clear diagnosis does not necessarily guarantee clear or effective treatment.

For example, in the case of the very common condition of hypertension, diagnosis is simple — three repeated blood-pressure measurements exceeding 140/90 are usually considered diagnostic — but treatment involves the permanent intake of drugs which do not resolve the underlying problem and cause side-effects of their own. Similarly, in autoimmune diseases such as asthma, allergies, arthritis and various skin conditions, diagnosis will often be obvious from the clinical signs, yet treatment is both usually complicated and frequently ineffective.

The homeopathic diagnostic method

Homeopathic diagnosis relies on a sophisticated and thorough clinical methodology. A typical first appointment lasts 1 to 2 hours or more, during which the patient is asked to describe his or her concerns in great detail (if needed, with the assistance of family members).

With the help of very specific yet open-ended questions the patient is led exactly to describe the symptomatology and own experience of the disease. Following that, areas which the patient has not already touched on are enquired about: major illnesses, traumatic events, childhood history, recurrent dreams, fears, food cravings or aversions, reaction to weather, etc. This allows for information from diverse aspects of the patient’s life to be used in determining the picture (recurrent pattern, morphology) of the disease.

The resulting diagnosis is only mildly dependent on the diagnostic label (‘flu’, ‘diabetes’, ‘depression’); rather, it is based mainly on many small details about the pathology (when did it begin in relation to stressful events in the person’s life? what is the exact sensation? what factors make it better or worse?) and about the person in general (stress factors, lifestyle and hobbies, physical constitution). So it may happen that two people with arthritis will receive completely different homeopathic treatment, and conversely that one homeopathic treatment can be effective for addressing multiple diseases.

This clinical approach, unique to classical homeopathy, results in superior clinical effectiveness by addressing much beyond the patient’s chief complaint. Homeopathic treatment typiclaly improves secondary complaints (in those who have more than one illness), and will increase energy, improve mood, and enhance overall vitality and joy-of-life

Homeopathy is rare among systems of medicine in possessing a clear and thorough view of the dynamics of health and disease. In homeopathy disease is regarded as an affection of the spiritual core of the person, and the treatment of disease is guided by specific laws of healing.

The Law of Similars

First, the law of similars calls for the application of remedies made from substances whose pattern of illness best matches that of the person. This is the fundamental law of homeopathy, and the term homeopathy (“homeo” + “pathy”, from the Greek homoios [similar] and pathos [suffering]) derives from this idea. The pattern of illness is determined through a combination of sources including formal experiment and collected clinical data (as will be explored in future posts).

The Single Remedy

Second, the disease pattern encompasses the whole being of a person, so classical homeopathic treatment usually consists of prescribing one remedy at a time even when multiple symptoms are present, in order to address the (singular) spiritual cause of illness. A homeopathic remedy is a specially prepared formulation originating in some natural or synthetic substance and used in homeopathic treatment.

Individualization of Treatment

Because the single remedy depends on many factors and not just on the presenting complaint or medical diagnosis, the remedy is necessarily custom-fit to each and every patient. Thus homeopathy is said to offer an individualized prescription that cannot be predicted in advance of case analysis.

Suppression

Fourth, classical homeopaths are very attentive to the phenomenon of suppression, and carefully distinguish between it and true curative action. Suppression happens when symptoms disappear under some treatment but the person as a whole feels worse (more tired, depressed, or otherwise lacking in vitality). Many conventional and alternative therapeutic approaches rely on suppressive treatment (and sometimes suppression is necessary and even life-saving), but it is a harmful approach in the long term.

Order of Healing

Fifth, homeopaths note that usually healing under homeopathic treatment (or any other treatment that respects the natural laws of healing) takes place in a certain order of healing. During homeopathic treatment the following are positive indicators of correct (non-suppressive) healing:

1. Past symptoms or sensations will frequently reappear (in weaker form and for a shorter period) before disappearing for good.
2. In cases of deep pathology, symptoms relating to vital organs will improve first while superficial tissues (such as the skin) will improve later on.
3. The head and upper body will tend to improve before the lower body and legs

Throughout treatment, it is essential for both the homeopath and the patient to respect this natural hierarchy of healing and not interfere with it.

The Minimum Dose

Finally, the ideal of minimum dose was the main reason that compelled Samuel Hahnemann (the founder of homeopathy) to establish a new system of medicine in the first place. Working as a conventional physician in late-eighteenth-century Germany, he was looking for a way of reducing the side-effects from the aggressive medical approaches of the time (which included the frequent use of mercury and bloodletting). Through this he was led to the serendipitous discovery that whenever there is a correspondence between remedy and disease state (following the law of similars), a medicinal effect will persist even if the original substance is diluted so much that it is no longer present in chemical form.

In summary, classical homeopathy rests on (1) the law of similars, (2) prescribing one remedy at a time in (3) individualized form, (4) avoiding suppression by (5) respecting the natural order of healing, and (6) prescribing the minimum possible dose required to achieve a therapeutic effect. This means that whenever a practitioner claiming to be practicing homeopathy does not respect one or more of these principles, he cannot be said to be practicing classical homeopathy, the original and still most-effective form of homeopathy.

Homeopathy untaps the full healing potential that each of us possesses within. Through its action on the spiritual core of the organism (a claim that will be made much clearer in upcoming articles), homeopathy can address anything from the common cold to complex and serious diseases. Both physical and psychological illness can yield to homeopathic treatment through the indirect effect it has on individual symptoms. Homeopathy works by changing the whole state of the organism for the better, so that disease can no longer take hold as it used to.

For the patient, the process of homeopathic treatment is at once simple and complex. On the one hand, it does not demand sweeping lifestyle or dietary changes like some other natural approaches. On the other hand, it requires emotional maturity to realize that symptoms do not exist in isolation, and that in order to achieve a deep and lasting cure it is often necessary to change the way we think and act in daily life. Homeopathy helps in making just such changes, but this process of change often takes time. This means that for many chronic conditions, it is essential to approach homeopathic treatment with faith in the healing process. By “faith” I do not mean that homeopathy works only for those who believe in it (what is know as suggestion or the placebo effect), but that in order to achieve success one must be patient enough with the body’s healing process and not expect an quick reversal of symptoms that may have been many years in the making.

You host is David Nortman, N.D. I am a naturopathic and homeopathic doctor, having studied naturopathic medicine (encompassing fields such as nutrition, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, and more) and specialized in classical homeopathic medicine. I work with patients mostly online (this is possible with homeopathy), and my clinic site is www.homeopathic-doctor.com.

May you enjoy this homeopathic journey of discovery!