Homeopathy and Mental Health
A resource file at CAMH Library

The science of homeopathy

Homeopathy is a system of administering medicines for the cure of the sick, based on the fact that drugs have the power of causing disease in the healthy, similar to their healing power over the sick. Thus, quinine, which cures ague, has the power of causing fever attacks like the ague fits. Belladona, which mitigates and prevents scarlet fever, causes sore throat and a rash very much like the symptoms of scarlet fever.

Homeopathy has logically evolved as an experimental science according to the method of inductive scientific reasoning. In this method, exact observation, correct interpretation, rational explanation and scientific construction of hypotheses plays a leading role.

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann of Germany has been credited with the discovery of the science of homeopathy at the end of the 18th century. The first promulgation of the principle- similia similibus curantur – on which the homeopathic rule of practice is based was made by Dr Hahnemann in 1796 in a classical essay, “On a new principle for ascertaining the curative properties of drugs”. He knew the curative powers of cinchona bark to cure ague. But he could not understand how it could produce a beneficial effect. He decided to test the drug on a healthy person – himself.

He took the usual dose and it produced all the symptoms of an attack of ague, not just chill, heat and sweating, but several of the minor symptoms usually accompanying an attack. After the attack had passed, he waited awhile and on repeating the dose, he repeated the experience. In other words, he found that the drug which he knew to be the best agent to cure ague, produced upon him an attack similar to ague. Could this indicate the existence of a general law applicable to all other drugs as well, or all drugs in general? He experimented patiently and painstakingly, with the aid of a few friendly physicians, for about six years. This resulted in his belief in a law of drug action that “let likes be cured by likes”.

Besides Dr. Hahnemann and his immediate associates and workers, Constantine Herring of Philadelphia, contributed the best evidence in the homeopathic Materia Medica. The law of similars is the fundamental law on which the system of homeopathy rests. The law, in its application, demands exacting scientific standards of precision, since an exactly similar drug alone can prove curative. This exact similarity can be ensured only if the patient is observed closely as an individual instance of the disease, making a special note of the characteristic feature that will positively separate it from another instance of the same disease. This is achieved through the “Principle of Individualisation”.

A homeopathic consultation

It is also called the art of interrogation. General symptoms of a disease are always present. A class of symptoms peculiar to the individual and differing in some way from those of the other cases of the same disease is a pointer to the curative remedy. In the doctor-client relationship, the most important aspect is what the patient tells us. Communication with the client does not have to be logical or adult. Communication with the client can also be magical or child-like. Dr. Constantine Herring’s Rule: “to listen, to write, to question, and to co-ordinate”. A homeopathic consultation involves skilled listening and skilled interrogation. A homeopathic physician should have accurate, unprejudicial observation; a cross sectional study of the client; a longitudinal study of the client, a diagnosis of the disease and a diagnosis of the homeopathic remedy.

Homeopathy and mental health

Homeopathy treats clients for varying disease experiences rather than named diseases. The mind reacts differently in different persons to the same set of external influences and manifests different reactions in health and disease. The mental and nervous symptoms of clients rank very high in value as drug indicators in selecting the homeopathic remedy. Unusual or apparently trivial symptoms are indicative of a client’s reaction to the environment.

The mental and nervous symptoms of clients rank very high in value as drug indicators in selecting the homeopathic remedy. Unusual or apparently trivial symptoms are indicative of a client’s reaction to the environment. The value of symptoms in homeopathy is indicated by the fact that symptoms represent the only perceptible form of disease, i.e., of the disordered functioning of the vital force. Symptoms can be

common and characteristic symptoms
chief and concomitant symptoms
general and particular symptoms
incomplete and complete symptoms
objective and subjective symptoms
recent and old symptoms
acute and chronic symptoms
physical and mental symptoms
strange, rare and peculiar symptoms
unusual and trivial symptoms
prescriptive and individualizing symptoms

A homeopathic consultation based on the above reveals the inner person. This system of healing looks at the whole person, not just the mind or the body in isolation. A complete diagnosis offers a full comprehension of the client’s personality, her constitution and the mechanism of the production of the symptoms. It gives an idea of the locations (tissues and organs affected), the pathological changes (type, degree, extent), the pathogenic agent, the physiological disturbances induced, and the psychological accompaniments. In homeopathy, far greater importance and attention is paid to what the client feels, what she desires and aspires, what she dislikes, etc.

The mental picture is all important to the homeopathic physician as it reveals the core of the individual. Every case, therefore, needs to be individualized. Every symptom from the head to the toe must be observed. Every variation from positive health must be understood. The mastery of the special technique of case taking and repertorization is essential for a successful application of the principle of individualization. This is at the very core of homeopathic practice.

The state of the client’s mind and temperament is often of the most decisive importance in the selection of the remedy. Mental diseases must therefore be treated like all other afflictions and they are curable only by remedies similar to the disease.

Most mental alienations are expressions of bodily diseases. Certain mental and emotional symptoms are peculiar to every bodily disease. These mental and emotional symptoms develop in some cases more or less rapidly, assume a state of a very conspicuous one-sidedness, are finally transferred like a local disease into the invisibly fine organs of the mind, where they seem to actually obscure the bodily symptoms.

The homeopathic physician has to recognize the mental state of the client. She is required to be sensitive at all levels, must learn to vibrate with the client at the level of emotion, while maintaining an intellectual discipline and poise. This will give her the necessary discrimination to arrive at proper judgments in respect of the troubles narrated by the client.

“Know the person behind the sickness. The person is an expression of the mind. Know the ramifications of the mind”.

Our minds reflect our world, or rather, what we have made of the world to which we have been exposed. Our mind is the result of our desires, our aspirations, dreams and ambitions which we exercise and imprint upon the world. We also imprint upon the world our disappointments, frustrations, failures and the results thereof: our loves, hates, suspicions, envies, jealousies, fears, anxieties, obsessions and fetishes.

Hahnemann provided the following fundamentals:

• Nothing can be known of a disease, except through the symptoms.
• It is the client who is ill, and not her organ part.
• Symptoms are the only unfailing guide to the selection of the remedy.
• Peculiar, characteristic, individualizing symptoms as against the common symptoms denote a similar remedy.

Useful references
1. Dr EM Ruddock, “The stepping stone to homeopathy and health”.
2. TS Iyer, “Beginner’s guide to Homeopathy”.
3. Dr. ML Dhawale, “Principles and practice of homeopathy”
4. Dr. RS Mathur “Homeopathy for the layman”

Compilation and report by Mrs Daya Patwardhan