Introduction
Do you frequently get overwhelmed with so many different approaches in homeopathy?
Do you get pressurized by this whole concept of finding the Simillimum?
Do you need more clarity in solving your cases without learning another new concept or approach?
Are you sick and tired of cases that go around in circles and really want to enjoy your practice for a change and offer the best homeopathy for your clients?
Well these were just some of my major frustrations as a student. This whole concept of homeopathic analysis really puzzled me. Having so any differences in opinion before actually testing things in practice was enough to discourage any new practitioner.
But I was determined to get to the bottom of this. Hence I decided to work as an assistant doctor with many different practitioners at the same time. I had the privilege of working under many successful homeopaths using various approaches. These homeopathic doctors had decades of clinical experience and specialisation in their own approach in homeopathy. In their full time clinics and hospitals, I had observed hundreds of cases unfold before my eyes.
Although intimidating and overwhelming to work with multiple practitioners using varied approaches to start with, I slowly discovered a very interesting phenomenon. I started connecting the loose ends and the picture became more and more clearer.
Let me share some observations I made during that period. I realised that different successful practitioners would find totally different remedies for the same patient (based on their approach).
Although every well chosen remedy gave results in some form, it was clear that some approaches yielded remedies which produced more consistent and deeper cures than the other.
However, the interesting fact was that not every approach was suited to every patient and not every approach appealed to every homeopath.
Further certain types of patients chose certain practitioners. It was not necessarily based on the practitioner’s ability to produce the best results but it was something to do with their individuality and the approach they chose to use and the outcome the patient expected from homeopathy.
I remember a patient who always demanded immediate relief for his severe acute headaches which did not respond to the strongest painkillers. And every time he had an episode his extremely confident homeopath provided that relief for him. Within minutes he chose a remedy for him on just a few of his keynote symptoms. We were in complete awe of this homeopath who asked the least questions and chose the best objective keynotes. For this patient this homeopathic approach was simply magical.
However, I could see how he was just unsuited to the homeopath next door. His case taking involved precision and art to understand the innermost disturbance in a patient. He had the patience to wait and understand his patient without being too fussed about the time or remedy. He preferred minimal repetition even during acute. But in the follow-ups we were amazed at deeper changes produced not just their overall health but life in general. Not to say he has his own large following of patients who wanted more than just symptom relief.
Eventually at the end of my training I reached some conclusions.
Firstly, that although as a homeopath I found certain approaches produced better results than others as a clinician I realised that an approach was not independent of a patient. So as everything in homeopathy it was all about individualisation of an approach.
Secondly I needed to gain enough experience on applying these different approaches for individual patients before I could decide if it all worked for me.
And with this intension, I started my own practice and journey as a homoeopath. Eventually after thousands of patients and making many mistakes as well as experiencing many Aha’s in clinical practice, I could distill this knowledge and fascinating connection between the different homeopathic approaches in my first ebook – The Quest for Simillimum. I call it the stages template of Integrative Homeopathy.
Today after 15 years of my journey as a consultant, teacher, mentor, supervisor and author, I am inspired to share this with my thousands of students both online and in person. My vision is to help them gain similar clarity so they are free to tap into their potential and give the best to their patients.
The Stages Template of Integrative Homeopathy
This simple template helps practitioner determine the most suitable approach for a patient based on the patient’s exact needs.
It is very helpful in clinical practice as it creates an immediate positive patient -practitioner relationship.
Further you build upon this initial relationship and offer to work with them through the different stages depending on how far they want to go in the treatment process. This way you use the best of homeopathy based on the patient’s needs and hence provide greater patient satisfaction.
This is also what I call integrative homeopathy.
To explain this process, let me start by sharing with you this fascinating connection between the different approaches in homeopathy. I have divided them into 4 stages as they evolved during the homeopathic time line.
Stage 1 – This was initially how Hahnemann discovered homeopathy. He had learned first hand that Cinchona had been used to treat intermittent fevers. He then observed that Cinchona bark produced fever with chills. This was similar to the symptom of intermittent fevers. This was the Law of Similars at work.
This model is similar to the allopathic way of using homeopathic remedies where medicines are chosen on the basis of the name of a disease or a disease diagnosis.
Homeopathic combination remedies available in pharmacies for various diseases work at this stage.
Stage 2 – Very soon he realised the name isn’t important and any fever with symptoms similar to those produced by Cinchona irrespective of the diagnosis can be treated with Cinchona bark.
Understanding the specific Cinchona fever led to this breakthrough.
And this is where the evolution began.
This is a model similar to using homeopathic remedies for local particular symptoms very closely related to patho-physiology.
The therapeutic medicines based on common and peculiar disease symptoms work at this stage.
Stage 3 – Eventually, practitioners realised that differentiating the different types of fevers in patients was necessary to determine which would benefit from Cinchona.
It was then seen that differentiation of two similar diseases in different people was possible based on symptoms that belonged to the person and not disease.
This was the dawn of person specific treatment, the striking advantage of homeopathy over conventional medicine.
The model of using physical and mental generals and PQRS symptoms related to the man and not just related to the disease itself developed.
This has been and is the most popular and widely used model in homeopathy.
Even though Hahnemann was the first homeopath to discover this stage in homeopathy, the two major influences that revolutionised this stage were Boenninghausen and Kent.
Both of them spoke about the same fundamental concept – the individual comes before the disease – but expressed that in a variety of different ways. It is largely a matter of understanding the symptoms of the man (his physical, mental, general and constitutional symptoms) beyond just his disease symptoms that helps in individualising two individuals suffering from a similar disease.
Boenninghausen identified the concomitants as an expression of individuality in a case, while Kent proposed a pyramid or hierarchy of symptoms with mental symptoms being the most important at the apex and the physical symptoms at the bottom. Patients were being understood as personalities with different constitutional traits, which gave rise to understanding of remedies as drug pictures and essences. Now it was not enough to know the local symptoms of Cinchona, an understanding of the individual personality and constitution of Cinchona was required.
It was Kentian homeopathy that remained popular throughout history and strongly influenced the way homeopathy is practised even today in most parts of the world. It was also known as classical homeopathy or constitutional homeopathy.
Stage 4 – Stage 4 is where the latest developments of homeopathy have evolved today beyond the so-called Hahnemannian homeopathy methods.
Homeopathy believes disease to be a disturbance in the vital force, but it requires this to be expressed initially as constitutional traits and then disease signs and symptoms in order to treat them traditionally.
Stage 4 is trying to finding the disturbance of vital force itself at its core, before it is expressed as symptoms.
This case taking process has been revolutionised by Rajan Sankaran and he calls it the understanding of the Vital Sensation.
These are not mind or body symptoms but sensations equally expressed at both levels – somewhere where the body and mind meet. It is trying to get at the root of our patient’s vitality and existence. He describes it as the closest expression of the disturbed vital force or the energy.
This is disease expression never assessed before, a level beyond just the man and his constitution.
So it is about understanding the vital sensation of China in a patient, a sensation is an experience beyond the mental and physical symptoms of China.
Sankaran stumbled across this while tying to find the common themes of plant remedies in the same family.
The kingdom analysis is not new, it is one of the newer ways of understanding the common themes of particular kingdoms and their subkingdoms and then understanding and prescribing remedies based on that developed by homeopaths such as Jan Scholten, Massimo Mangialavori and Sankaran,
.
However it was Sankaran who actually took the understanding of kingdom analysis further to reach a deeper level of eliciting the sensations beyond symptoms.
Another homeopath, Irene Schlingensiepen – Brysch in her book ‘The Source of Homeopathy‘ fine tunes this stage further. She goes beyond the understanding of the sensation during the case taking process until she dives into the very source structure of an individual itself. It is an attempt to understand not just the sensation but the very source of ‘China the substance’ within a patient.
Thus Stage 4 homeopathy is this fascinating process of eliciting and connecting the source within an individual to the source of the remedy itself.
Conclusion
Thus through homeopathic evolution at every stage, you are one step nearer to understanding the entire disease in its totality, the disease in man as well as the man in disease. It is taking a journey towards the inner core of man himself and his disturbed vitality.
Thus for me this represented a useful classification of various approaches and methods of prescribing in homeopathy.
It not just connected the old and new approaches together but also reduced the confusion in understanding the wide spectrum of homeopathic practice. It helped me classify the case taking, case analysis, miasmatic approach, remedy understanding, potency selection and every other part of case management no matter what approach I chose.
As a teacher it helped me explain to my students the connection between the differences in each approach. Eg Between the classical Hahnemannian or Kentian and non classical Jan Scholten’s or Sankaran’s Methods.
If the reader wants to understand this further, I have written about this in my ebook – The Quest for Simillimum – an overview. This book is completely free and you can download it from http://homeopathy-books.com/book-1-overview/
Hope this simple yet powerful template empowers you to align the right approach with the patient his disease at the right time so that more and more patients are encouraged to complete the journey and get the best of what homeopathy has to offer.