Treating Autistic Spectrum Disorders

When my son Adam was diagnosed with Autism, it was the beginning of a life-changing journey for us both. His subsequent recovery through natural medicine and homeopathy in particular, has been an amazing experience and awakening for me.

My introduction to homeopathy came through the pursuit of healing for my son Adam, who was diagnosed with autism a number of years ago. Since graduating as a homeopath in 2009, as fate would design these things, a large and growing part of my practice has been in the treatment of children on the autism spectrum – Autism, ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome etc. Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are defined as behavioural disorders, characterised by impairments in social communication, social interaction and social imagination. Those affected typically have a restricted range of interests and display repetitive behavioural mannerisms, along with altered reactions to the everyday environment. Impairments in language development are common.

I am acutely aware that I would not be practicing homeopathy today, if it was not for Adam and I believe that that is one of his gifts to me and to many others. Adam didn’t die, but we lost him to autism. And, with the greatest respect to parents who have buried a child, it is the closest thing to bereavement on this earth. Thankfully, through natural medicine and especially homeopathy, he has come back to us more and more over the years. Today, Adam is eleven years old, attends regular school, has friends and continues to progress all the time under homeopathic treatment and healing.

Many children are described as having “Special Needs” but the important word is “Special”, special to have chosen such a difficult path in order to enlighten others. Adam’s autism has ironically been one of the best things that ever happened to me, though at times it felt like the worst. His situation has paved the way for me to bring the healing art of homeopathy to many sick people, including many autistic children. It seems that life tends to give us our greatest gifts brilliantly disguised as our greatest nightmares and how often does it require pain to bring out the best in us. When something is taken from your grasp, it’s not punishment, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. It has to get really dark before some people can turn towards the light.

It seldom happens for people to be able to pursue what their heart truly desires. It is proof to me that people can learn to align their deepest desires with their true purpose and talents in the service of others, thus creating fulfilment and abundance in their own lives.

When I look back on how I became a homeopath, it feels like something I was destined to do. I used to think that I chose homeopathy but I now know that it chose me. I had much earlier begun my search for something deeper in life. I felt stuck in my career, feeling some existential angst about the meaningless of how I was living my life and wanting to find something which allowed a greater expression of my true self. It was when I read the book, Impossible Cure, The Promise of Homeopathy, by Amy Lansky, that I had one of those rare intuitive moments in life when the brain finally realises what the soul has always known. Many little and some greater events conspired to come together in a type of constellation to push me in this direction. I am where I am today because of the bridges that I crossed, the turns I took and the paths I followed. But the important thing is that I merely followed these paths that were placed before me, I didn’t create them.

Once I had made the decision to study homeopathy, I had a feeling of destiny being fulfilled. The feeling was like destiny was looking right at me and I had never had a feeling quite like this before. It’s a feeling you have that you know something about yourself that nobody else does, that the picture you have in your mind of what you’re about will come true. The essence of it is a thing you kind of have to keep to yourself because it’s a fragile feeling and if you put it out there somebody may try to harm it.

I had longed for two things in my career; one was to do something enjoyable and worthwhile and the other was to be self employed. I wanted the freedom, flexibility and autonomy that didn’t come with the “nine to five” existence and I wanted to do something that made a real difference, to me and to others. In a sense, I didn’t want to work for pay but I wanted to be paid for my work. I had to take my own life in my hands and trust that it would work out and know that to get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. I firmly believe, that the energy that created this reality followed my thoughts and intentions.

It is fair to say that for a period I became obsessed about Adam’s situation, it completely defined me at times, and forced me to renegotiate my system of beliefs. There were times I lamented, felt bitter, rejoiced, as well as times of deep indifference – you run the whole gamut of experience. I began reading anything I could get my hands on that would shed light on this thing autism, and about people who had success with treating it. This is the reaction of so many parents when initially confronted with this situation.

Ultimately, it has led me to an understanding that the more I let go of my fears, my need to battle this condition, the more I grew in love and acceptance, the more I trusted in the process of natural healing, then the more Adam progressed, the more I developed personally and the happier I became. Love is the key. I grew to understand that by letting go of our limiting belief systems, the happier we become. Love and acceptance allow us the freedom to support our natural path, which leads us to health. Having fixed ideas about it can cause a great amount of suffering.

Autism – the diagnosis
It is impossible to describe the emotions a parent goes through when coming to terms with a diagnosis of autism for their child. One parent described it like this: “Imagine your child disconnecting from the world. A child whose eyes look, but don’t see, whose ears hear, but don’t listen, whose cries never end and doctors offer little help. We don’t know what’s wrong with this child. We’ll call them autistic and put them all in a box. And we don’t know what causes it. We have no idea how to fix it”.

We have a real crisis in Ireland and worldwide, with the numbers of children being diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. If we fail to take the right measures, a continuously and rapidly growing number of children will become severely handicapped in the near future. Never more so than now, there is a need for a greater role for homeopathy in this community. Most children on the autism spectrum, have never received homeopathic treatment and in my experience, the reason for this is lack of awareness. When a child receives a diagnosis, parents typically don’t know where to turn. The more success that homeopaths have in treating these children, the more the word will spread. There are few therapies like homeopathy that can treat at the core of the child’s problems. Most simply work on the level of the symptoms and the results are usually patchy. Homeopathy gives the parents hope, real hope, based on real healing. Real hope is the ground you can stand on when you feel you are suffocating and sinking fast.

Autism – the experience
I often feel that the daily life experience of a child with autism must be like someone who is living in some foreign country without knowing the local language and who is constantly exposed to the sense of fear, insecurity and stress. These children are unable to get in touch with our emotional world. They have lost confidence in this world and are in an imprisoned state; and will remain there until they regain the confidence to return to the “normal” emotional world. This also helps to explain why autism so often arises after vaccinations. Being injected with toxic vaccines can be the last straw for a sensitive, susceptible child. However, I have also treated autistic children who were never vaccinated, but a common occurrence is some traumatic emotional experience during the pregnancy or early childhood. The bottom line is that the level of trauma has been sufficient to trigger the autistic state and as every child is an individual, that level of trauma and the response to it will be individual. If everybody understood how a little child can become autistic, many preventative measures could be taken to dramatically reduce the number of autistic children all over the world. These children are not grounded, they have not incarnated properly, their spirit is reluctant to enter fully or retreats at any early stage in response to trauma.

Autism – treatment by homeopathy
In my view, the essence of the autistic condition is a loss of the self through cumulative assaults from the moment of conception and through the first few years, when the self emerges as a conscious entity. The self as a conscious entity has not emerged in these children. Of course, the focus of homeopathy is not to treat the isolated symptoms of the autistic child, but to treat the child as a whole. While any remedy may be required in any individual case, in my experience certain remedies come up more often than others. Some of these include the Solanacea family, particularly Stramonium, Hyoscyamus and Belladonna. Spider remedies, Mercurius, Cuprum, Veratrum Album, Zinc and Opium often arise. A remedy of great effectiveness in many cases is Saccharum Officinale. I owe a lot of my understanding of this remedy to Tinus Smits, the Dutch homeopath who sadly passed away in February 2010 and who wrote extensively about this remedy.* Some other remedies I have found useful are Carcinosin, Milk remedies, Cicuta Virosa, Iodum, Baryta Carb, Placenta and Limestone.

*See the review of Tinus Smit’s book on Autism on pXX

If we look at some of the rubrics that three of these remedies have in common, we can get an insight into some causations as well as the terrible mental state of some of these children:

Belladonna, Stramonium and Mercurius all have

Ailments from fright. and

Ailments from vaccination.

There is a huge sense of being under attack:

Delusion, murdered, he will be [Bell, Merc]

Delusion, pursued by enemies [Bell]

Delusion, surrounded by enemies/everyone is an enemy [Merc]

Delusion, is being injured [Stram]

Delusion, dogs attack him [Stram]

Fierce animals are ready to attack:

Delusion, dogs sees [Bell]

Delusion, is alone in the wilderness [Stram]

Delusion, animals jump out of the ground [Stram]

A remedy that I have found very useful in some cases has been Thymus Gland. The word thymos denotes life-force or soul! The thymus gland is the organ that enables us to distinguish between what is “me” and “not me”. It helps create and maintain the immune system and it regulates the right amount of immunity, like a thermostat. It is very important in Cancer and Autoimmune diseases and, interestingly, many ASD children have biological markers consistent with an autoimmune disease. The thymus gland has been described as the “Black Box” of negative events, recording whatever has changed the original life pattern and the remedy can open the person up to past traumas, explore the darkness within and unlock and resolve maintaining causes of trauma. Part of its picture is also birth trauma (very common in ASD) and the overuse of all kinds of drugs, as well as a set facial expression (again common in ASD). I have found this remedy to be particularly powerful in bringing “hidden” symptoms into full view, often to be treated with other remedies.

Autism and vaccination
The use of homeopathic antidotes to vaccines, antibiotics and other medications the child has been exposed to, can give great results. I have seen some cases respond very favourably to this approach, especially to MMR and DPT but also to BCG. Of course, the success of this approach proves that for some children, vaccines are at least part of their difficulty. Despite the damage from them, more and more vaccines are being pushed, with more and more viruses and adjuvants in single shots. I think the word “shot” is very appropriate as it is like playing Russian Roulette with a child’s health. There’s so much evidence of this harm and yet the mainstream media continues to push the establishment line that all vaccines are necessary and safe. Even when harm is mentioned, anodyne words and phrases are used about how the policy is well intentioned, for the greater good etc. This is a difficult area for people exposed to the constant propaganda and brainwashing that masquerades as healthcare.

Autism and the bigger picture
One of the delightful consequences of treating autistic children is how often other family members also come for treatment. This is a gift from those children to their loved ones and from their loved ones to them, as the healing of an autistic child often involves wider family healing.

This article is dedicated to my son Adam,

who is my joy, my happiness, my inspiration. He teaches me acceptance, perseverance and the ability to embrace change and difference.

To my mother and brother Sean who both passed away in recent years, you will always be fondly remembered.

Also, to all the special children calling out for healing

for themselves and others.