by Louise Mclean LCCH.
Nowadays most people are unaware that homeopaths have a whole armoury of homeopathic medicines to very successfully treat depression and anxiety.
Homeopathic medicines, which treat 'like for like' have undergone rigorous clinical 'Provings' to ascertain their healing qualities. There are over 4,000 homeopathic medicines and a great many which treat mental and emotional symptoms.
Homeopathy has been used for 250 years, so there are a huge number of books outlining thousands of cured clinical cases that were treated for clearly defined mental, emotional and physical symptoms.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, homeopathy was the first choice of medicine in America and greatly used in Britain, as well as lots of other countries. There were fourteen homeopathic hospitals in Britain and a large number in America, as well as numerous homeopathic pharmacies. Today it is the most widely used medicine in India with about 350,000 homeopathic doctors.
For homeopaths, mental and emotional states are very clear cut and easily treatable without resorting to the suppressive influences of anti-depressants and sedative drugs, which can often be addictive and don't treat the cause as homeopathic medicines do. Clear the cause and you clear the effect!
Also, when using homeopathic medicines there is often no need to take medicine every day (unless there is a severe physical illness). Sometimes, it takes just a single high potency dose to release the state of anxiety or depression.
The homeopath must take all the details of the case and especially find the causation.
Nowadays more and more people are beginning to realise that their feelings and emotions can ultimately affect their health. Very simply put, when we feel really happy and carefree, we feel well and when sad and miserable, we feel tired, lacking in energy and low. When we are feeling depressed, we can become run down and are easy prey to colds and flu for example and this can be true of an even wider range of illnesses.
We are born with weaknesses and susceptibilities inherited from the gene pool of our ancestors. For example, if our parents suffered from eczema and asthma, it is quite possible we will inherit those tendencies or if a grandparent contracted tuberculosis, there will be a predisposition to chest colds and respiratory problems in the descendants. Very often when we are depressed or unhappy, these weaker susceptible areas of the body will be the ones that are most likely to be affected.
In the long term, negative emotions can have a devastating effect upon our health. Very often even these can run in families, as children pick up their parents' behavioural patterns. For example, families who communicate poorly, eating their meals in silence or suppressed anger, may suffer from digestive problems, stomach pains and abdominal cramps.
According to homeopathy and other ancient systems such as Chinese medicine, the body is an energy system which should work in perfect harmony, then no illness is possible. Very few people nowadays enjoy this luxury!
Only when the energy systems are in disharmony can disease manifest itself.
Negative emotions cause disharmony in the body. You feel them in the body and they affect the body. When you feel happy, you have the feeling of expansion. When unhappy, the feeling of contraction. Think of something that makes you feel happy and experience the expanded feeling. Then think of something or someone that you hate or that makes you angry or frightened and feel what happens to your body.
What happens is a thought produces an emotion, which produces an effect on the body. The long term state of negative feelings, such as fear, anger, sadness or depression can make people ill.
People who are continually happy and positive tend not to get ill. They believe in themselves and trust in life, so don't brood on injustices. They are emotionally healthy enough to move on after a setback.
Whereas people who are consumed with negative emotions can eventually become ill. We all know of people like this. Over a period of time the neighbour who holds a long term grudge eventually develops an illness, perhaps gallstones. The business man who is continually worried about running his company, develops a stomach ulcer.
Men or women who can't show any love and shut out the world, can develop heart disease and eventually heart attack. The child who suffers from asthma, brought on by an acute state of anxiety. The person who is continually stressed out or anxious may develop high blood pressure.
Stress and depression can be caused by a wide variety of reasons and is a very loose term. Very often people experience life events that cause sadness, grief, heartbreak, shame, guilt, fear, anger, resentment, jealousy and betrayal, which they may never get over and become 'stuck', so that they can't move on. Major shocks, mental and emotional, can remain stuck in the body too.
For people who can't move on in their lives, homeopathic medicine provides the catalyst to powerfully release these blocked emotional states that are holding them back. There are many homeopathic medicines for all of the above negative emotional states.
Sometimes an illness may manifest after grieving the death of a loved one and Ignatia is needed for the initial state of shock and grief, then Natrum Muriaticum when the grief persists long after the event. In homeopathy, we find that when you give the remedy for the grief, the illness will often disappear, if it caused it. This is because the illness was caused by grief. We are always a whole and made up of mind, emotions and body. To treat the part instead of the whole, can never be as effective.
Some examples of homeopathic medicines might be the following: We all know someone who is bitter and unforgiving (Nitric Acid). The husband who never got over his wife leaving him for another man, who feels angry and betrayed (Hyoscyamus). The woman consumed with jealousy and revenge, who talks of nothing else but getting even with a rival (Lachesis). The young man who is jilted by his girlfriend who mopes and pines in silent grief (Ignatia).
Someone who feels consumed with guilt and remorse because they feel it was all their fault (Aurum but other remedies apply, depending on the case). Those in a permanent state of fear and anxiety about their health (Arsenicum and Phosphorus). People who are perpetually angry, becoming nervous and highly strung (Nux Vomica). For each of these examples, there are many other homeopathic medicines that may be even more appropriate and a professional homeopath will know the differences and how many doses need to be taken. (Believe it or not, too many doses of a remedy can be detrimental. You need just enough to clear the problem),
It sometimes happens that men and women in their later years feel that their lives have been a disappointment and have not turned out the way they would have wished. Over a period of time this can bring on a lowered immune system and rundown state, thus being open to disease or even to diabetes or cancer. It may lead eventually to a belief that their lives are ruined. Phosphoric Acid is one of the main remedies for ailments from disappointed love, disappointment generally, grief, fright, with total exhaustion and indifference to life.
For all these states there are a number of corresponding homeopathic medicines and the homeopath will select the one that most closely matches your symptoms and behaviour. This in turn unblocks the negative state of mind and emotions and it is then possible for the individual to see their problem from a new healthier perspective, enabling them to move forward to a happier state.
Very often if patients could visit the homeopath before they reach a critical stage, when their physical symptoms are just starting to manifest, they could be saved from a possible lifetime of prescription drugs and even from the operating table. If they could have homeopathic treatment in the early stages of their physical symptoms appearing, it is not difficult to cure.
The wonderful truth is that our bodies were designed to heal themselves. The homeopathic medicine that most closely fits, acts as an energy catalyst to unlock and ultimately remove those symptoms, as it will jump start the body's own healing powers.
Usually this results in not only a curative physical state but also in greatly improved state of overall health. Children especially respond extremely well to homeopathic medicines.
People are so busy nowadays, they often don't have time to tune in and listen to their bodies and their feelings. They think that if they have a problem, the doctor will fix it. Very often they find themselves on a downhill road, taking one prescription drug after the next and ending up much worse than they were in the first place. When people try to take more responsibility for their own health and happiness, they can reclaim their own power.
