Homeopathy is a system of medicine developed between 1790 and 1843 by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician whose aim was to restore health to the sick through rapid and gentle means. By restoring health and harmony, homeopathy helps enable you to strive for your highest potential in life. It is a profound and complex science that applies a set of definite principles to all cases and situations, making it comprehensive and logical in its reasoning and methods. Below you will find a basic outline of some of the principles and methods of homeopathy as described by Samuel Hahnemann and other renowned homeopaths.

Homeopathy is a Holistic Medicine that Treats Your Totality of Symptoms.

Homeopathy is a holistic system of medicine which understands that when you are ill, you will display a unique set of symptoms through your mind and body together. The totality of your mental, emotional and physical symptoms reflects the whole of your health. It is precisely this totality of symptoms that homeopathy treats. Treating you as a whole person, rather than simply treating one condition, symptom, organ, or vital system, is what makes homeopathy a truly holistic system.

Treatment consists of giving the one remedy that best matches, and therefore is most suitable for, your unique symptom totality. Giving the remedy that is most suitable for your symptom totality, and therefore for your whole state of health, stimulates your body's inherent ability to heal itself. This way, you receive the best treatment for your unique health needs.

Treatment Requires Knowing Your Symptoms in Great Detail

The totality of symptoms you experience is comprised of a collection of individual symptoms, and each individual symptom is itself a totality with several details. For example, if you get headaches, your headaches may feel dull, splitting, pounding, pressing, or like a nail in the side of your head. The pain may be aggravated by light, noise, moving about, eating, being outdoors, or at night; or it may be better from lying down, sleeping, eating, being outdoors, or applying pressure or cold to your head. Your headaches may be accompanied by nausea and vomiting, a raised body temperature, perspiration, a need to lie down or to be alone, sparks in your vision, or anger. Your headaches may be brought on by perfume, sunlight, heat, certain kinds of food, or from not eating when hungry. You can see that a simple headache actually has a whole host of characteristics to it. The homeopathic remedy best suited for you and your headaches has to match these characteristics, along with all the other symptoms you experience. There are many remedies that help for headaches, but there is only one that suits your headaches and your totality of symptoms.

The homeopathic consultation, then, is a dialogue between you and your practitioner with the aim of getting to know the details of your symptoms. First, you would convey all that has been troublesome about your health and all that keeps you from living life to the fullest. The practitioner then asks for clarification by inquiring about further details, for example, about how all your symptoms feel, what makes them better or worse, where they are located or felt, and when they first started. In this way, you and your practitioner together arrive at a full description of your health. The practitioner then uses your detailed symptom picture to find the remedy that would be most suitable for you.

Homeopathy Holistically Treats Chronic Illnesses

If you get headaches regularly — for instance, every week, or every time you are exposed to heat, sunlight, perfume, or certain foods — then headaches are part, and only one part, of your everyday, chronic state of health. To treat your chronic headaches successfully, the remedy must address not just the characteristics of your headaches, but the entirety of your mental, emotional and physical symptoms as they have existed over the course of your life. The reason for this is that the headaches are not an isolated occurrence, but an aspect of your overall health. It is be.