Homoeopathy At Allen College: A Students Eye View

Learning how to be a Classical Homoeopath

Forget everything you thought you knew.

Listen and learn, turn theory into practice.

Learn the main aspects of case-taking, use the Organon.

Listen to yourself and what you really need to do. Other demands will be made of you throughout the course; needless to say it is a big commitment, but like any challenge, if you ask the right questions the answers will appear.

Materia medica (and repertory)

The most daunting aspect of homoeopathy is how to remember all the remedies and instantly recall appropriate information. Even after you have got the remedies, choosing the relevant potency and dose is quite tricky.

Use the notes and the way the medicines are organised to link them together. Group medicines together.

Modalities better for >, worse for <, these are great!

Doctrine of signature

Think snakes, rabies, spiders. Pulsatilla, changeability of symptoms, Hypericum pin-prick holes in the leaf . These help make remedies memorable and the stories that go with the remedies and picture of the remedies help you to remember them.

Miasms – These are difficult to get your head around, though essential for accurate prescribing. Entually you will have to buy that book.*

Constitutional – Every remedy that you study you will think is you, or hope it isn’t!

Pulsatilla; Phosphorus; Nat mur; Nux vom; Staphisagria; Lachesis; Stramonium;

Think polychrests, lots of areas -6 systems of the body.

Keynotes of main remedies – Acutes remedies for accidents, injuries, coughs, colds, fever, Dulcamara, Gelsemium, Arnica Aconite. Nothing worse than learning it A-Z .

Repertory – mostly choose on the basis of understanding of Materia medica. Use repertory as back up

Just looking at Allen’s keynotes 29 A’s; 33C’s; 19 S’s a recipe for confusion with the names! Arg Nit; Ars alb; Arnica; Aconite; Baryta, Bryonia; Calc Carb; Carbo Veg; Causticum; Carcinosin; Hypericum; Hamamelis; Rhus Tox; Rumex; Ruta.

Philosophy – The Organon- surely there must be an easier way…there isn’t really, but keep it in chunks, the way the book is organised, E.g. § 82-104 case taking

§210- 230 mental diseases, § 147-150, 153, 155 , choosing the right medicine

Other areas include choosing the right dose, drug proving and knowledge of medicines, homoeopathic aggravation.

Anatomy and physiology – Keep it visual, from the simple to the complex, systems, hang notes on the pictures. Year 3 therapeutics / pathology. Cell structure: helps to get a bigger picture. Systems: Respiratory, Digestive, Circulatory, Nervous, Endocrine – how they work and the pathways for endocrine and the circulatory system and how the food is digested. Use pictures, flow charts, pathways and labels.

Clinics – Listen and learn, take notes….not always easy at the start. Summarise every now and then, keep a record of the main points to recap when following up a case. Smart and confident, don’t lead but have information to help clarify what you are trying to find out. Let the patient talk. Beware itchy fingers (don’t give a remedy for the sake of it). Watch and wait…but how hard is that.

Homework – Don’t expect to go out at all! Then realise you can manage your homework effectively. Compare and contrast, use a table format, highlight modalities make it homoeopathic.

Revising for exams – Devise your own way of revising, some sort of layered approach seems to work for Materia medica, with two or three points for each layer. It is up to you how many layers you do. e.g. Yr. 2 remedies: put them under topics, right sided; liver; pain; Remember the set of remedies Lyc; Chel; Mag. Phos;

e.g. Lyc;

Level 1 – loss of self confidence, <4-8 p.m. gastric; canine hunger;

Level 2 – craves sweets; constipation since puberty

Level 3 – one foot hot the other cold,

Remedies (27) 9 groups: mostly groups of 3

Sulphur, Lachesis Iodum Hot

Phosphorus, Calcareaphos. Tuberculinum Tubercular

Lycopodium, Chelidonium. Mag.Phosphorus Right sided, liver, pain.

Argentumnit., Causticum, Plumbum, Gnaphthalium. Neurological (group of 4)

Onosmodium. Sanguinaria (2 odd remedies)

Spigelia, Colocynth, Thuja. Left sided x3

Ignatia, Sepia Nat.mur Grief x3

Berberis, Cantharides, Sarsaparilla Kidney x3

Arsenicumalb, Silica, Hepar Sulph. Oversensitive/supperativex3

Remembered as SPL Scottish Premier League/ 4,2,/x3 left sided, x3 grief, x3 kidney x3 oversensitive /supperative. E.g. Remedy cards for Lycopdium ‘right sided, liver, pain’ group; Sulphur ‘hot’ group

Lycopodium	Chelidonium	Mag. phos
Loss of self confidence Canine hunger <4-8 Baby cries all day sleeps all night >uncovering head >warm food and drinks >loosening garments	Right scapula pain Hot drinks Forceful opinionated Jaundice	lightning pain toothache>heat <eating and drinking esp. Cold things Ovarian Menstrual colic>warmth,>flow
Haughty Craves sweets Gastric / throat Constipation since puberty	Aetiology change of weather Lessen after dinner Right foot cold as ice	Cramps/ writers, violin players >heat hard pressure <cold air, uncovering, motion, touch

Sulphur	Lachesis	Iodum
Skin – voluptuous itching Hot Aversion to bath Upper part hot lower cold Hungry at 11 am Dirty and filthy	Menses, pain> flow Exhaustion/ trembling < a.m. <scarf <clothing >whole food Erotic Egoistic Revenge	ravenous hunger much thirst thin profound debility > eating
<standing Menorrhagia NBWS last miscarriage Diarrhoea a.m. Burning :red	Jealous Sleep into aggravation NBWS change Likes to be fanned slowly at a distance One word leads to a story	Glands up Top tub remedy Child grasps larynx pale face Sensation as if heart grasped with iron hand Constipation >drinking cold milk

Take Brahmi, or Aethusa, for memory. Aconite for the stressed out.

Books

Allen keynotes; Boericke, Materia medica; Organon; medical anatomy books;

A range of Materia medica, Nash, Tyler, Kent, Clarke, Lippe, Spirit of the Organon,

Buy books for fun!

Changing your life

Homoeopathy will change your life, not in the way you want it to or hope for necessarily, though there may be some interesting surprises on the way.

Learn to fit in exercise and meditation and saying no, saying yes. Learning to set fair boundaries. Start as you mean to go on. Value yourself. This is essential in charging a fair price for a consultation. Nothing is set in stone and the rules that you set up for yourself are liable to change at a moment’s notice, though it is important that you keep in mind these points even if you do a favour for a friend occasionally.

Time line- you will go through a whole range of feelings while doing the course.

1. Realise that you want to do homoeopathy.
2. Panic that homoeopathy in general, and the homework, reading etc in particular, will be too difficult.
3. Get quite excited that you got a bit of the first few lectures Bellis- remedy snatch and catch, remedy an old gardener’s remedy.
4. Heart failure when you realise that you don’t understand the homework and that there is way too much to remember.
5. Portion a night a week to do homoeopathy and realise that you are not able to stick to that rigid routine, learn to do homeworks/ reading a bit at a time.
6. Know that next week you might have to sit up front at a clinic and talk to a patient, or use the phone or be put on the spot to decide a remedy.
7. Relief that you have finally organised all the notes in readiness for revision.
8. Make a cup of tea
9. Phone a friend
10. Panic, take rescue remedy Aethusa, Aconite, etc.
11. Relief when results come through.
12. Realise that you have a project to do by February and that it is so long and that you have to do a presentation too.
13. More exams and year 2 over already.
14. Can’t leave it at 13. There is the next project, more homeworks and cases to take for real. Oh yes and patients to find.

Putting it out there

Though it is an old fashioned idea synchronicity seems to work. Go along to the lectures or the clinic with a question or an idea that you want to find out the answer to, and lo and behold the answer comes up. It might not even be you who raises the question.

Seeing a homoeopath

There comes a time when you know that you have to see a homoeopath, not only for supervision but as a patient. It is essential to feel well while doing the course and to understand how things are from a patient’s point of view.

Case taking for real

Have all the paperwork at hand; letters, introduction to homoeopathy, notes, proforma, contacts with supervisor, work out a timetable for your day and when you can have clients or when you can see them, organise your remedies, have a policy on charging.

Thorny Questions

Asking for money?

Getting clients?

Fitting it all in?

Affording it?

Managing your money?

Key quotes

Don’t get lost in the jungle – re repertory

Your failure is my failure.

I take no credit, this comes from Hahnemann

Re-evaluate your progress

Fill in the journal. It seems like a chore but looking back you can see progress and find out what worried you before and doesn’t now! Put in my experiences. There is a non-judgemental environment in the college, teachers and practitioners leading by example resulting in non-judgemental consultation.

Difficult Concepts: You want to run before you can walk?!

PQRS; NBWS; MIASMS; CONSTITUTIONAL REMEDIES; DOSE; POTENCY; REMEDY (starting potency). USE OF TWO POTENCIES; SAC LAC;

Location, sensation, modalities, concomitants. Boost/ sac.lac.

India clinic / college Calcutta?

Take on board a whole philosophy a way of life.

Einstein: I don’t need to know everything I just need to know where to find it when I need it.

Iodium is a modern world medicine