Homeopathy can be considered a "complete medicine" since it goes beyond the simple treatment of an illness or disease. In the process used to determine the appropriate medication for a particular patient's symptoms, the "whole" person is taken into consideration. This means that the physical symptoms are evaluated as well as the patient's mental and emotional well-being.
An Individual Medicine
In a given illness, no two people will react with exactly the same symptoms. As a result, two children with the same infectious disease who both have a fever may display other opposing symptoms : one thirsty, one not; one perspiring, one not; one restless and the other listless. Homeopathy relies on these individual reactions to prescribe a medication that is unique to each person's symptoms.
A constitutional Medicine
Everyone is endowed with a particular constitution that makes them susceptible to various diseases. This constitution is unique to each of us and can be studied by researching clear and precise signs found in a person's history. Therefore, to be effective, homeopathy requires the knowledge of a patient's personal background, heredity, morphology, temperament and disposition.
Homeopathic paradigm of Health,disease...
Health, to the homeopath, is a state of harmony between the parts of the body and also between the person as a whole and the cosmos. In real health, the as yet unexplained vital force - the immune power - in each person is vigorous. The human being is in perfect harmony on all the three levels of viz., mental, emotional and the physical. The object of giving the remedy is to stimulate the vital force. Homeopathy believes that, no remedy can cure disease, it can only at best enable the vital force to function properly again.
Disease, to the homeopath, is a state of disharmony involving at least three different factors,
-A disease causing factor
-The susceptibility of the person affected
-The individuality of the patient modifying the form the disease takes
Homeopaths do not try to cure the disease causing factor but help the patient to cure himself, by giving the most similar remedy in the 'least possible dose', which would be just enough to intiate the healing process.
Symptoms, to the homeopath, are the language of the body expressing its disharmony and calling for the similar remedy. For prescribing, a homeopath takes the so-called 'totality of symptoms', which includes the mental symptoms; the "generals", predicated of the patient as a whole, which include his reaction to meteorological conditions, time, bodily functions, food, etc. The particulars, predicated of any part of the patient, and the "modalities" ( that which aggravates or ameliorates) of these particulars. The causative factors such as riding in a cold wind, overeating, drinkng cold water when perspiring, grief, suppression of menses etc.; and the pathological symptoms, namely any inflammation, swelling of organs, an ulcer etc.
Cure, to a homeopath, does not mean just the temperory alleviation of the symptoms of the patient. Symptoms often have periodic recurrence. The permanent annhilation of the disease in its entirety, with a state of well-being in all the three levels ( Mental, emotional and physical ) of the human being is called Cure. Further, it should follow Law of cure, which states :
Cure takes place from above downward, from within outward, from an important organ to a less important organ; symptoms disappear in the reverse order of their appearance, the first to appear being the last to disappear.
A True Body-Mind Medicine
Homeopathy has recognised the importance of the state of mind of the sick individual in determining the nature of his illness, and used this information therapeutically. An Homeopathic case-taking never becomes complete unless the changes the disease has produced in the patient's mental state are recorded. Dr. Samuel hahnemann has wrote in his magnum opus Organon in the year 1833 :
"....the state of the disposition of the patient often chiefly determines the selection of the homeopathic remedy..."
"We shall, therefore, never be able to cure conformably to nature....if we do not....observe, along with other symptoms, those relating to the changes in the state of the mind and disposition..."
This was hundred years before any modern research, from neurology, internal medicine, and psychiatry, mapped the links between specific psychological states and certain diseases. Thus homeopathy foresaw the vital importance of the mind in the causation of sickness.