How do I find the right homeopathic remedy or, more specifically, how does the homeopath find the most appropriate remedy? This is a good question and the subject of this short blog post.
Previously I wrote about the nature of the homeopathic consultation and I am now going to consider the next step.
The Homeopathic Remedy
I shall not go into to much detail here but every homeopathic remedy or medicine has a ‘picture’. This comes from various sources. One source is the ‘proving’ where a group of people take the remedy and note how it affects them. The resultant data is analysed and collated. Clinical experience adds to this ‘picture’ as does toxicological data from literature (as Agatha Christie can tell us, poisoning by arsenic has definite characteristics!). Please note that homeopathic remedies are potentised ultra dilutions and such as arsenic are not used in material doses.
From these sources every homeopathic remedy ‘picture’ comprises physical, general, and mental / emotional symptoms.
Remedies or medicines have certain affinities, sometimes described as keynotes. For example a remedy may have a particular affinity for a certain system (respiratory or digestion) or organ, or have particular mental or emotional characteristics.
To make matters a little difficult remedies overlap to a greater or lesser extent, leading to a constellation of possibilities. An example from my last blog might be the possible remedies to help with fever. One ‘right’ remedy is an oversimplification.
The remedy ‘pictures’ are compiled into books generally termed ‘Materia Medica’ (from the Latin). There are several – old and new – and practitioners tend to have their ‘favourites’.
The Homeopathic Principle
The word – homeopathy – comes from the Greek meaning ‘similar suffering’. Simply stated the principle is that ‘like cures like’; what is termed the law of similars. This contrasts the dominant medical model which tends to follow the principle of opposites (hence the prefix ‘anti-‘ before many medicines, for example antibiotic). Simply different approaches – that is all.
Following the ‘like cures like’ principle, the general approach is to find the remedy that best matches the ‘picture’ of the patient or client to the ‘picture’ of the remedy.
The Consultation Outcome
From the consultation which can take an hour, the homeopath collects a holistic picture of the client. Obviously this includes the main symptoms that the individual wishes to resolve. These may be clear – let’s say a skin complaint or recurrent headaches or whatever – or more vague (say low energy). This is what needs to be resolved, so must be part of the remedy picture.
However there is more. If the complaint is of a physical nature, there will be a also be a mental / emotional picture. This may relate to the physical complaint (so the physical has impacted the emotional) or it may just be the general nature of the person.
It has long been recognised that people can be grouped into ‘types’. Tall, short, chubby, slim and so on. One of my teachers notes that the entire Materia Medica can be divided between those who are chilly or hot by nature. Hot types wear shorts in winter and chilly a pullover in summer! Sulphur is an example of the former and Arsenic the latter. That is not to say that you cannot have a chilly Sulphur but simply that the probability is lower.
Finding The Right Homeopathic Remedy – Repertorisation
If you are lucky, this may be fairly obvious, more likely unravelling the information received from the consultation presents a challenge. Older age often brings a long history and maybe too much information; youth sometimes the opposite.
The moustachioed gentleman in the photo is Dr James Tyler Kent (1849-1916) who worked in Chicago. In particular, he is remembered for his Repertory of Homeopathic Medicines.
In modern parlance he created a database linking symptoms to charactistics. Below is just one ‘rubric’ of a list of remedies associated with anger. For example, ‘Cham‘ is Chamomilla well known to console teething babies who metaphorically and literally throw their ‘toys out the pram’. Bold print indicates a strong link to the headline MIND – ANGER.
Kent’s Repertory remained ‘the‘ reference work up until the 1970s and remains the foundation for subsequent repertories.
Enter the Computer Age
It should come as no surprise that computers and databases go together like the proverbial horse and carraige. And so today there are several computer packages that should – at least in theory – speed things up. That may be somewhat illusionary as more data can lead to ‘analysis paralysis’. But at any rate they can be useful tools. Here is an example (split in two for legibility).
Input:
Output:
Critically, these programs never provide ‘The’ answer. Just possibilities that become probabilities based on the quality of the symptom picture gathered. The homeopath must then go back to the Materia Medica and make a judgement.
When it comes to computerisation the old adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies equally to the repertorisation process.
So how do I find the right homeopathic remedy, or anyone else for that matter. The answer is that it remains as much an art as a science. Like all things experience counts and that takes time and practice.
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