The Place for Professional Homeopathic Care

Today, virtually every type of health professional practices homeopathic medicine, though the greatest number of homeopaths are medical doctors, naturopaths, and chiropractors. There are also numerous unlicensed homeopaths who have diligently studied homeopathy in one of the various homeopathic training programs. Although these unlicensed practitioners are not well trained in conventional diagnosis and treatment, many of them are excellent practitioners of homeopathy. Because of the inherent danger of practicing homeopathy without a medical background, people are encouraged to seek homeopathic care from someone already licensed or seek other conventional medical care concurrently.
Professional homeopathic care is usually focused on what is called “constitutional care,” that is, the prescription of a homeopathic medicine that is highly individualized to a person based on his or her genetic inheritance, past health history, past medical treatment, and the totality of physical, emotional, and mental/spiritual symptoms that are presently experienced.
The concept of constitutional treatment is foreign to most people in the Western world because there is nothing like this in all of Western conventional medicine. The closest concept that Western medicine has to constitutional treatment is the idea of reducing a person’s susceptibility to disease. Although Western medicine has developed specific treatments, such as immunizations, that reduce susceptibility to particular diseases, there is nothing in Western medicine that has the capacity to strengthen a person’s overall resistance to disease.
The professional practice of homeopathy, like the practice of acupuncture and ayurvedic medicine, is a system of healing that is primarily based on strengthening a person’s overall state of health. This strengthening helps increase resistance to various diseases and raises the person’s health status.
Homeopaths are trained to find a constitutional remedy that can have profoundly positive influences on a person’s health. The correct constitutional remedy can cure chronic disease, reduce the influences of hereditary diseases, strength a person’s emotional and mental state, and reduce the intensity and frequency of acute ailments. Of course, this is an ideal situation. Most of the time, a constitutional medicine is not a cure-all, in that the person may still have some chronic symptoms, but they will usually be reduced in their frequency and intensity. In such instances, homeopaths observe that the constitutional remedy removes a “layer” of disease, for which another remedy is needed to help remove the next layer.
Due to the various dis-easing influences that beset a person in this lifetime and that have affected their genetic make-up, most people need to receive a series of individually chosen homeopathic medicines to effect the most profound healing.

Although one of the great benefits of professional homeopathic care is the real possibility of significant reduction, if not cure, of chronic ailments, the problem with homeopathy is that it is not always easy to find the correct medicine(s) for everyone. The results from homeopathic medicines often occur relatively fast, but it sometimes takes more than a single visit to a homeopath to find the correct remedy to start the healing process. However, because the benefits from homeopathic medicines are so great, people are encouraged to be patient with themselves and with their homeopath.
Ultimately, people can use this book to learn to treat themselves, their families, and their close friends for many common acute ailments. However, chronic and serious ailments require professional homeopathic care. Learning to know the place for self-care and the place for professional care is not always easy, but as distinct from much of conventional medicine that tends to encourage a passive patient, the patient in homeopathy plays a central, even starring role.

1 Because homeopathic medicines are recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as primarily “over-the-counter drugs” (drugs that do not require a doctor’s prescription), homeopathic manufacturers are required by law to state the specific disease or ailment for which this homeopathic combination medicine is useful in treating. This is distinct from herbal remedies or supplements for which the FDA does not allow specific disease indications, but does allow manufacturers to list specific structure/function claims which the product has been proven to have.