ADVANCED AND CLASSICAL HOMEOPATHY

Advanced and Classical Homeopathy

Advanced and Classical Homeopathy

Anyone who has practiced homeopathy for a while will notice that there is often a discrepancy between the initial presenting problem that brings a person for treatment, and the eventual outcome, which turns out to be something altogether different. Conventional homeopathic wisdom states that less is more, and yet every year we are bombarded with hundreds of new remedies, such that the repertories are out of date before they even make it to the printers. The paper presents the comparison between traditional or classical and advanced homeopathy practices in a holistic context. It argues why is advanced homeopathy better than the classical one.

The paper argues that the traditional methods of case taking, remedy selection and prescription are no longer sufficient to deal with the complexity of contemporary patients and their ills, and those new approaches and tools are not only relevant but necessary.

It is six years since Ian Watson has described himself primarily as a homeopath, his work having branched out into areas he describes as involving personal growth and self-transformation. He writes that the impulse for this work came out of a feeling that 'the miasm theory developed by Hahnemann contained a built-in limitation' Ian sets out to identify a 'limitation' in Hahnemann's miasmatic theory and to elucidate a modern approach to understanding miasmatic theory with a view to increasing the usefulness of these ideas for homeopaths working today In keeping perhaps with his interest in self-transformation, he suggests that a new way to look at miasms is to see them as transformative influences, embracing both positive and negative aspects, which can be understood, learned from and integrated, rather than viewed simply as disease-producing forces that need to be overcome (Shelton 2004, 90).

Homeopathic remedies can be thought to have a resonant effect on the body. Similar to the way in which a specific note, played on the violin in a specific octave, can have an effect on the molecular structure of a wine glass, the homeopathic remedy which exactly resonates with the symptom picture of an individual will have a catalytic effect. Although the clinical evidence available may differ from that for conventional medicines, there is now a sound basis of evidence. Most importantly, the main difference between traditional homeopathy and conventional homeopathy is that modern medicines contain a combination of chemicals, as opposed to a single pharmacologically active substance. Modern medicines may also be used in a diversity of ways: they are prescribed by modernists, often as part of a treatment (which makes claims for being holistic); and they are commonly available as OTC products for self medication, or after consultation with a pharmacist.

It is one of the principal tenets of modern homeopathy that within a plant several compounds act on each other, either moderating or opposing, or enhancing in an additive or a synergistic action, whereby the combination of constituents is greater than would have been expected from the sum of individual ...