If you have ever been confused about some of the terms used in describing natural medicine, homeopathy and naturopathy for example, you are not alone.
Naturopathy is a practice of medicine that relies on the power of healing (inherent in all organisms) to bring about optimal health. A naturopath might use homeopathy, hydrotherapy, botanical medicine, nutrition, or bodywork to stimulate a healing response. Although I practice all these modalities, I have found homeopathy to be the method that most resonates with me.
It can be said that homeopathy is a practice of energy medicine, and in a strict sense this is true. But the term energy medicine has various connotations. Conventional medicine's use of sound energy to break up a kidney stone is a practice of energy medicine as is shamanic journeying. Homeopathy falls somewhere in between these two extremes.
Modern medical science has shown that our bodies' cells are several times more responsive to energetic stimulation than to the physical chemical stimulation of drugs. This makes sense because chemical stimulation is a crude method of manipulating a cellular response. The chemical is distributed throughout the body even though it is only intended for a specific organ or system, creating many unintended side effects. Energy medicine is much more specific and non-invasive.
Having been discovered only 200 years ago, homeopathy is a relatively new system of medicine and as such, has not yet been fully described. We are working every day to discover new aspects of it. Besides acupuncture, it is the only other "alternative" energy medicine that has its own scientific foundation and can be consistently reproduced from one practitioner to another. This is not to say that other modalities of energy medicine are inferior; we just haven't discovered ways of understanding them in the same way.
Let's say you have the flu. You have a fever, a terrible headache, aching limbs and a touch of nausea. You go to the doctor and she finds that this picture fits the remedy Eupatorium (commonly known as boneset) to a "T." You follow her advice and take the remedy. You immediately feel yourself start to mend-not instantaneously, mind you, but your mental outlook does begin to brighten, and after a day or two you are more or less your old self. The explanation for this event is described by the fundamental principle of homeopathy: "Like cures like." That dose of Eupatorium you took was an extremely diluted preparation of the plant Eupatorium perforatum. So diluted, in fact, that it can be said that the only thing left is the energy of the plant. What's more, if you were to ingest a giant helping of this plant while in good health, you would find yourself suffering very similar symptoms to those described above. This is why it is so important that the remedy be diluted.
It often takes a while to find just the right remedy for a given condition, especially if the condition is long standing and chronic like diabetes or arthritis. An office visit may take up to two hours because your doctor needs to know about both your symptoms as well as your physical and emotional responses to them. Sometimes the first remedy you try will not have any effect and a second and maybe a third will be tried. This medicine is extremely individualized and requires determination both on the part of the doctor as well as the patient.
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