Homeopathic Self-Help

People say that more people have been attracted to homeopathy  and homeopathic self-help through the use of Arnica than from anything else! Arnica Montana, to give it its full name, is a plant found in the Alps.

Traditionally, mountain guides apparently used it. They chewed the plant as they walked and climbed, because of its reputation for reducing the effects of trauma, such as from falls.

The Vital Force and Homeopathic Self-Help

Nowadays, we use Arnica for all sorts of disturbances in the Vital Force with symptoms of trauma. When you analyse it from the point of view of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it seems to harmonise what are called ‘Qi and Blood’. 

In an accident, shock often leads to

• pallor, 
• shortness of breath, 
• anxiety, 
• shakiness, 
• increased pulse, and so on. 
• In bad shock, you may fall in and out of consciousness. There may be bruising, 
• sore muscles, 
• twitching and 
• prostration. 
• Though tired, the victim cannot get comfortable or sleep. 
• There may be involuntary bowel movements or urination.

• Breath may smell of bad eggs. (I once diagnosed myself on the basis of this! Soon after arriving on holiday, after a very heavy work schedule, I felt exhausted. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get comfortable in bed. After a few days my wife complained about my breath. I took one dose and slept like a baby. AND my breath improved!)

But you can get this – or some of it – from other situations too:

• fright, 
• anger, 
• indignation,
• shock, 
• overuse of some part of the body, 
• overexertion, 
• excessive sexual indulgence, 
• even from being stressed or over-hurried. 
• The symptoms also arise in some kinds of septic fevers, such as typhoid and after an operation, or where there are pustular swellings.

Vital Force? Homeopathic Self-Help 

Homoeopathy treats disturbances in what is called the Vital Force. It does not treat diseases as such. 

The materia medica repertories such as those by Kent described symptoms which people experienced. This allowed homoeopaths to grade what patients said in a way that lead to a choice of the most suitable remedy.

So it did not matter what the Western or orthodox medical definition of the disease might have been.

Indeed, the name of the disease is often a distraction from the essential task of finding the remedy that is homoeopathic to the patient.

In classes with people interested in learning more about homoeopathic self-help, this important point is hard for them to understand, so used have we become to defining disease in terms of a Western orthodox medical diagnosis.

Just to repeat:  homoeopathic remedies interact with what is called the Vital Force. Every classical homoeopath understands this but often only after several years trying to get their heads round it!

Patients who understandably want help, define their problem in terms of Western orthodox disease, and seek reassurance that homoeopathy can treat that disease successfully.

Do Symptoms match Materia Medica enough?

But homoeopathic teaching deals with the Vital Force and its disturbances. Only when symptoms, ie disturbances in the Vital Force, experienced by a patient match those described in the homoeopathic Materia Medica for a particular substance can the latter be said to be homoeopathic.

If you would like to know more about homoeopathic self-help and the homeopathic theory of disease, a theory developed mostly by qualified doctors over the last two hundred years, have a look at the following pages.

(By the way, should you decide to keep a supply of Arnica in your house, keep both the 6th and the 30th potencies – Arnica 6c and Arnica 30c. Read Homoeopathic Remedy to find out how to store and take it.)

More information on Homoeopathy

• Homeopathic Study
• Homeopathic Treatment
• History of Homeopathy
• Definition of Homeopathy
• Homoeopathic Remedy
• Example of a remedy fairly new to homoeopaths – diamond
• Homeopathy Workshops in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
• Homoeopathic Self-Help – this page
• Primary and Secondary Actions
• Suppression
• Aggravations with homoeopathy
• Vital Force by Jude Wills
• Disease Process by Margaret Roy
• Scottish Association for Professional Homeopaths.

Stressed?

If you are always stressed by everything, in a continuous state of shock, or frequently get pustular swellings, or always feel as if you have over-exerted yourself, or your lifestyle is such that you put yourself in these situations, you need to stand back from your life and take a longer view.

Perhaps your occupation, unless you alter it, will cause you illness. Perhaps you need a different job or house or relationship. And perhaps seeing a homoeopath will help you towards a healthier, less stressed way of life.

Click for consultations with Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott.