What is homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a tradition founded roughly two hundred years ago by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. At its core is a single idea: "like cures like." If a substance produces certain symptoms in a healthy person, a specially prepared form of that substance is used for someone unwell with the same symptoms.

Hahnemann explained it this way: the medicine creates a short-lived "artificial disease" in the body. Because this artificial picture resembles the person's actual complaint, it draws the body's attention; the original picture recedes. The artificial effect is brief, and once it fades, the aim is for the body to return to its own balance. This is homeopathy's own theory — conventional medicine does not accept this explanation, and its effectiveness has not been scientifically proven.

Homeopathic medicines are called remedies. Remedies are diluted in water many times over and shaken vigorously at each step. Which remedy corresponds to which symptoms has been recorded for two centuries through trials with healthy volunteers. Two people with the same complaint may not receive the same remedy — because the homeopath looks not at the name of the disease but at the person's whole picture: how it began, what aggravates it, what kind of person they are.

Today, homeopathy is a complementary practice in the UK and many other countries. It is not a substitute for your doctor. For serious or persistent complaints, see your physician first — and never stop prescribed medication without medical advice.

My homeopathic practice

The question I am asked most is: "What is homeopathy, really?" The piece above describes the tradition's framework. So how do I use that framework in daily practice?

Everything begins with your story. A first consultation lasts ninety minutes — because careful case-work begins with an unhurried story. I listen to when and how your complaint began, what makes it worse or better, your sleep, your appetite, your temperament, your worries and your joys. In the homeopathic tradition, body and inner world are never read apart; that is how I read them.

Then I look for the remedy that most "resembles" your story as a whole. This is called the simillimum. If you tell me, "I used to feel cold; now I run hot," that is no small detail to me — it is a signpost. The vital force speaks most clearly through the body — and the body doesn't lie.

I don't call myself a "classical homeopath." That label often stands for the search for a single "constitutional remedy." My practice stays faithful to Hahnemann's Organon: whatever troubles the vital force most, right now, is read, and the simillimum of the moment is given. As the picture changes, so does the work — which is why every follow-up re-takes the case from the beginning: you change, and so does the picture.

You are not alone between sessions either: we stay in touch briefly every two weeks, and in acute situations you have support between appointments. An average process runs four to five sessions. The aim is not to keep you in a process, but to hear your story to its end.

All these years later, I still stand by those lines. What I do at Novocura is exactly this: to listen, to find what resembles, and to keep you company on the journey.