Please excuse me if you have already seen a Homeopath, used a homeopathic remedy or been treated by a homeopathically trained GP. This article is not for you.
This article is for those who:
Have never heard of Homeopathy
Have heard of Homeopathy and want to know more
Have heard of Homeopathy and think we are untrained, reckless therapists bent on deceiving the general public and using methods that are:
un-proven,
dangerous,
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eric.chopin/homeo-e.htm
life-threatening forms of witch-craft
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-451908/Homeopathy-worse-witchcraft–NHS-stop-paying-it.html
and hocus-pocus,
snake oil salesmen/women,
http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2009/06/homeopathy_and_snake_oil.html
quacks
and money-grabbing,
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091108134222AAn1D6o
cherry-picking,
http://layscience.net/node/630
forms of evil
and wonton deceit.
This above list isn’t exhaustive but it covers most of the current internet criticism for Homeopathy and homeopathic practitioners.
I must also add at the beginning of this article that I am a ‘lay’ or non-medically-trained Homeopath.
I have a Diploma in Homeopathy from The School of Homeopathy
which took me 5 years to gain, I have insurance, a counselling skills certificate,
8 years experience of working with a wide range of pathology in a drugs and homeless charity http://www.drugsandhomeless.org.uk/
and am past Chair of a Homeopathic charity and past Trustee of another homeopathic charity.
I also have over 10 years experience in private practice working on the ‘front-line’ treating a wide range of clients from birth to old age, with an equally wide range of diseases, from skin conditions to severe pathology.
I don’t claim anything with my therapy and I abide by the laws of this country, which ban me from treating clients with the following complaints including cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis,
I am also respectful of the fact that most of my clients are genuinely unwell and have not had any lasting success with their treatment within the NHS.
I charge a reasonable fee, which my clients are happy to pay. If I feel I can’t treat someone, I tell them and refer them to someone who can. I give my clients options, advice, a listening ear and space to let them express their fears, hopes and dreams and I prescribe a remedy to help them, after having weighed-up and analysed their symptoms, pathology, past health, presenting complaint and general energy levels. www.maryenglish.co.uk/Questionnaire.doc
I do not make rash pronouncements, or scare my clients, or bamboozle them with long words and technical data and I take as a given that they know more about their own health than anyone else.
I have also received as part of my homeopathic training, competence in anatomy and physiology training.com/courses.php?c_h_id=3&c_s_id=44
pathology and disease,
and I know when a client is exhibiting symptoms that point to a serious state of health, so I can advise them to seek further medical advice from their GP or A&E.
As part of my homeopathic training, I am also trained to recognise when a client is recovering from a complaint, as homeopaths base their treatment on the assumption that the average person’s body will aim for homeostasis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis and wellness.
We, as humans, don’t randomly become unwell. We were taught about susceptibility.
Certain people are susceptible to certain diseases. These might come about because of something genetic, from certain life-style choices: smoking, alcohol abuse, a diet low in nutrients, stress in a relationship or the workplace, adverse weather sensitivities, anxiety, grief or sadness due to loss, death or terminal illness of a family member or friend.
If my clients want, I will write to their GP and explain my methodology and prescribing plan so everyone is kept in the loop.
Now one of the present major criticisms of Homeopathy is that the remedies I prescribe are un-proven, water, and placebo. I find that rather an incredible accusation. If I were to just routinely prescribe my clients with inert ‘sugar pills’
how come their anxiety reduces even though they might have been to see a counsellor or psychiatrist? How come their rash or croup, or asthma or infected toe-nails, or tinnitus or menopause-hot-flushes, or sun burn or digestive disorder or bowel complaint starts to improve after taking their remedies? How come all the creams and anti-acids and pain-killers and over-the-counter and prescribed medicines made no difference prior to seeing me? Why didn’t their previous visits to specialists, G.P’s, pain-clinics, psychiatrists, physiotherapists, asthma clinics, and various medical departments of major hospitals make a difference to their presenting complaint?
There is only one answer. It’s not me that makes the difference, it’s the remedies. It’s not my listening ear, my empathy, my concern, my professional approach, my time-keeping or my certificates hanging on my clinic wall. It’s the correct choice of the correct remedy in the correct potency. All the other context issues contribute to a healthy client outcome, but without the remedies working, my phone would not ring, my website would receive no hits, my clients would not refer me to their friends and I would be as quiet as a dormouse.
I treat humans. I treat and help other people like myself, with all their quirks and anxieties, their worries and feelings. I treat their humanness.
I have over 200 years of homeopathic written record to refer to; two hundred years of actual people suffering from actual diseases and conditions to read about and learn from. Homeopathy didn’t evolve from a vacuum. It evolved and spread from Germany where it was ‘discovered’, to the whole of the world. It was spread by word of mouth, by doctors, therapists, and homeopaths. It spread by written account by hundreds of people who were amazed by its flexibility and whole, person centered approach.
It spread because it worked. It grew from one man’s personal experience to where it is today. It doesn’t suit everyone. It doesn’t help everyone or everything .but does anything? There is no one therapy that suits or treats or cures or helps every single person in the world. How could it? We are a species of complex and wonderful anatomy, of mind blowing physiology, and leaning or relying on one therapy would be narrow-minded.
Homeopathy works alongside conventional medicine. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann worked in a time and age when he was ridiculed by his contemporaries. But his patients, who numbered by the time of his death in the thousands, were healed of a wide variety of serious complaints and conditions. We should remember with respect his last words, which were engraved on his tomb-stone:
Non inutilis vixi
(I have not lived in vain.)
http://www.homeoint.org/books4/bradford/chapter78.htm
No Samuel, you have not lived in vain and Homeopathy will continue to treat, gently and without side-effects further generations of the ill, sick and diseased. It will continue to heal all sorts of people because it treats the person, not the disease.
The wesen https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/some-questions-regarding-verspoors-terminology/
not the boil, the mother not the headache, the father not the indigestion, the baby not the croup, the teenager not the bulimia, the student not the sleeplessness.
Homeopathy and homeopaths exist in every country in the world. In the UK, Europe, in English speaking countries
And the rest of the world
It has grown from one person in 1755 http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/homeopathy_1755_1799.html
To the present day and will continue to treat and heal.
“The physician’s only mission is to cure the sick; it is not to speculate on the nature of disease. The ideal cure is rapid, gentle, permanent and removes the whole disease in the shortest, least harmful way, according to easily comprehensible principles.”
Samuel Hahnemann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann
December 2009. Mary English www.maryenglish.co.uk on twitter and facebook
