What is Homeopathy?
Homeopathy is a fascinating system of medicine that treats the whole person, encompassing mental, physical and emotional illness. Although, an increasingly popular system of medicine, it is not new. It was developed by a German doctor and chemist, Samuel Hahnemann, in the late eighteenth century. Being disillusioned with orthodox medicine and the way many patients became worse after treatment, Hahnemann discovered that a substance that produced certain symptoms in a healthy person, would cure those symptoms in a sick person - 'like cures like'.
Homeopathy stimulates the natural tendency of the body to heal itself. In homeopathy, symptoms are seen as the body’s way of showing there is a problem regardless of whether or not this can be given a medical label. When we are ill, we experience symptoms both physical and emotional. Generally, doctors make a diagnosis of a specific named disease and prescribe treatment for that named disease.
Homeopathy is different and offers a patient-centred approach, putting the patient at the centre of each homeopathic consultation, treating their own individual symptoms rather than the disease itself. Just as symptoms vary from one individual to another, so do homeopathic prescriptions, which are necessarily tailored to each patient.
A homeopath pays special attention to the unusual symptoms which relate to the specific individual. So three people who have 'asthma’, who may well be given the same medication by a doctor, would each be given a different remedy by a homeopath according to their individual symptoms.
What homeopathy is not
Homeopathy aims to help not merely the symptoms but the whole person. Homeopaths do not make a diagnosis and will always refer you to your GP if further investigations are required. Although many patients experience a great improvement in their state of health after only a short period of treatment, homeopathy does not provide ‘magic bullets’. Generally, a serious level of commitment to a course of treatment will be required.
