The Happy and Prosperous Blog

Having mentioned rapport between homeopath and client in Part 3 of this series yesterday, I’d like to talk about what a consultation is like. I’ll describe the sort of thing I cover in a consultation which is typical of homeopaths.

First Consultation

Firstly, I would like to find out about your symptoms now – what are they like exactly, when did they start ? How do you feel when you experience these symptoms ? Is there anything that helps relieve them (heat, cold, pressure, lying down, fresh air etc. etc.). I’d also like to know about your personal medical history – previous illnesses, accidents, operations, emotional traumas.

I also need to know something of your personality – how you react to situations, how you would describe yourself, how others might describe you, etc. I would ask about more general things like sleep, food likes and dislikes, thirst, body temperature, nature of periods (if applicable !). I will also ask about any drugs (prescribed, over the counter or recreational), herbs and supplements you may be taking too. This generally takes an hour or an hour and a half. Of course, this is fine for adults, but must be varied for children and especially for infants where information from the parents coupled with close observation will be the principal sources of data.

Follow up Consultation

I like to see clients again about a month later to make a detailed assessment of how they have reacted to the remedy. At this stage I may repeat the remedy, change the potency, change the remedy or do nothing. It depends entirely on the patient’s reaction. This follow up consultation usually takes 30-45 minutes. The number and frequency of follow ups thereafter depends very much on the client and their ongoing reaction to the remedy. I just need to see some people twice, others I may see 6-8 times over the course of a year. Rarely I will see someone for 2 or more years on an increasingly infrequent basis. I make myself available by phone and by email for any questions of concerns patients may have throughout their treatment.

Deciding on a Remedy

Using the information that a client has told me, I will then analyse this looking for themes and connections between the various pieces of information. I will use this and some of the specific symptoms to find an appropriate remedy. There are books and computer programs that can help with this process. The analogy I often use with clients is a lock and a key. I imagine the client as the lock - a complex lock with all sort of levers and mechanisms - and it’s unique. My job is to find the key (the remedy) that fits that lock which can help to turns things around.

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Part 2 of this series, which I published yesterday, talked about homeopathic remedies. Today let’s have a look at how they work.

I’ve already said that remedies act as a stimulus or a catalyst for changes in a person’s internal health system. That’s fine as far as it goes but exactly how this happens is unknown. There are theories around concerning how homeopathy works – but that’s all they are – theories.

No Scientific Explanation ??

I’ve come across a few people who have said to me that homeopathy must be a complete load of nonsense because there’s no scientific explanation for it. This argument does not hold water to me – I cannot see how the premise leads to the conclusion. Gravity was working very happily before the apple fell on Newton’s head, the ancient Chinese were using lode-stone for navigation before there was any explanation for gravity, hearts were pumping blood before Harvey discovered this fact. Homeopathy is like gravity in the pre-Newtonian era. It’s an observable, reproducible phenomenon, we just don’t have a detailed explanation of the empirical facts as yet.

And it may be some while before we arrive at that position as there are no companies, institutes or individuals with the interest or the money to finance research programmes. But that’s OK – homoeopathy, like gravity, still works.

Placebo ?

How do I know it works ? Couldn’t it be just the placebo effect ? First question first. I know it works because I see it working in my practice. Other homeopaths report the same. Homeopathy has been going for over 200 years and there’s a large body of literature available which includes a huge array of cured cases. There have been some studies published in the recent medical literature which show that homeopathy is more effective than placebo and I’ll talk about one of those in a minute.

Trials

Designing trials for homeopathy is not easy. Since homeopathy treats individuals and not their symptoms, then, for example, 30 people with asthma might each need a different remedy to reduce or remove their respiratory symptoms. It’s not one size fits all ! So if remedy X is the right remedy for one of these people and we do a randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial, giving 30 people placebo and the other 30 remedy X, then only one of the 60 people in the trial is likely to show an improvement which is not terribly impressive (apart from the lucky one person !). Homeopathy is individualised so a different type of trial is needed.

On type of trial that is often used is called an outcome study in which clients are asked to rate the improvement they have had since starting homeopathic treatment. This doesn’t help us understand how homeopathy works, but it does give evidence that it does work.

One of the most comprehensive outcome surveys was done at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital which involved over 6,500 individual patients. More than 70% of these follow-up patients reported clinical improvement following homeopathic treatment. Many of the patients in the analysis had previously received mainstream medical treatment and had either failed to respond satisfactorily or had been unable to tolerate the medication prescribed. Homeopathy showed positive clinical outcomes in a whole range of conditions (e.g. Crohn’s disease, depression, eczema, headache, menopausal syndrome). Read an abstract of the article.)

Rapport

It’s also worth noting that homeopathy is not a mechanical process with a fixed set of questions and answers which lead to a remedy. The rapport between homeopath and client is important so that the necessary information can be elicited to allow an accurate prescription to be made. A homeopath with poor interpersonal skills is likely to get consistently poor results. (I’ve not met such a homeopath as yet !) So personality plays a part but I don’t accept that it is the placebo effect. Infants and animals improve under homeopathic treatment. Surely the placebo effect is not working there. Also clients don’t just say they feel better after treatment, there can be measurable improvements in signs and symptoms which are indisputable. So, no, I don’t believe that the placebo effect is the reason remedies work.

In the next part of this series, I’m going to talk about what’s involved in a homeopathic consultation and what you should expect !

Yesterday, in Part 1 of this series, I introduced the basics of homeopathy. Today, I would like to go into some more details about homeopathic remedies.

Remedies can be made from anything but mainly they’re derived from plants, minerals or animals. Examples are jasmine, nettle, sodium chloride (salt), sulphur, oyster shell, various snake venoms. Remedies are made by dissolving the substance in an alcohol/water mixture initially. If the substance is insoluble then it is finely ground with lactose first. This is all done according to a specific, pre-defined process. Successive dilutions then take place (1:10 or 1:100) with vigorous shaking at each stage. (Insoluble material, after several dilutions and grindings with lactose, is then dissolved in an alcohol/water mix and the process continues as for soluble material.) The process carries on until the desired potency is reached A 6x potency is a 1:10 dilution carried out 6 times with vigorous shaking at each stage. A 6c potency is a 1:100 dilution carried out 6 times with vigorous shaking at each stage.

6c and 30c potencies are readily available in some chemists and health food shops but homeopathic pharmacies also prepare remedies that have been through many more dilutions. All of these are medicinally active when prescribed in the right circumstances. As you would expect, homeopathic pharmacies prepare remedies under carefully controlled conditions, following strict procedures and with rigorous quality control to ensure consistency of product.

You will appreciate from the above, I’m sure, that homeopathy is different to herbalism in that herbalism uses only plants and herbal remedies do not go through the dilution process I have described above. As I mentioned in Part 1, homeopathic remedies act as a stimulus to the healing process. They do not have a direct biochemical effect so that can work perfectly well in such dilute form. But dilution is not the only factor – the vigorous shaking at each stage of dilution is important. I have heard people say that making a homeopathic remedy is like dropping a grain of something in one end of a swimming pool and taking a teaspoon of water from the other end. Not true ! This totally ignores the kinetic energy input at each stage of the dilution process.

In the next part of this series, I will take up the issue of how homeopathic remedies work.