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Renita Herrmann MS, Classical Homeopath, Health Consultant

What is homeopathy?
 
This brief explanation of homeopathy acquaints you with one of the services provided. During the intial consultation, other information and observations will be discussed to create the most healthful program for each individual. Diet and lifestyle may also be discussed.

Homeopathy is an energy medicine. Like cures like. That which has the power to harm the healthy has the power to heal the sick; a medicine repeatedly taken by a healthy person causes symptoms; in a sick person with those symptoms, those symptoms will disappear. In order to do so, a homeopath individualizes that person's illness, taking the most characteristic traits of that person's vital force and finding the most similar remedy. 

The practitioner looks for why one isn’t well. Life is a progression of energy into matter; disease is a disruption of that energy. An individual has three main parts: life force energy, susceptibility (the degree of receptivity to internal/external stimuli), and inherited predisposition to disorder. These three main parts make up the first 3 tenets of homoeopathy, of which there are nine.

 

             LIFE                               Your life force is in constant interaction with you, the

              ↓↑                                 individual. You are in constant flux with the state of     

      INDIVIDUAL                       your health, disease and cure, with balance being the 

   (or animal or plant)                 key. When you become sick, you are susceptible to  

    ↓↑        ↓↑         ↓↑              disease; when you become well, susceptible to cure.

Health    Disease     Cure                     

 

Health is ENERGY flowing freely in an organism, with balance, order and adaptability. We are in a constant state of adjustment, in harmony; the entire universe is related, all in health is balanced. In health, we have purpose, meaning, and function, we’re completely fulfilled on all levels. Creative energy is expressed satisfactorily. Rhythm, direction, order, will; spirit, mind and body are all taken into the picture, which we call totality (another tenet). 

 

Disease (acute or chronic) is a change of state, from health to disorder, health to ill health, by degree. Harmony is disrupted, disturbed. In the person, order, function, harmony are all distorted in disease. We are uncomfortable, vulnerable, susceptible to disorder or dysfunction. This leads to loss of function → loss of will to live → and eventually, death.

 

Each person is an individual, each state is different. Your allergic reaction is not the same as your best friend; she may have sneezing and itchy red nose, and you may have itchy eyes and headache. This calls for a different remedy, unlike allopathy. We treat the person, not the disease. Some people are more affected than others, depending on inheritance or cause. The state of disarray is reflected in signs or signals of an organism; we call them symptoms. In homeopathy, we don't suppress symptoms, we use them to find your remedy. If you don’t have symptoms, we can’t treat you, which can happen if the life force is weak. For instance, if a person suddenly discovers he has an advanced disease, with no prior issue, the life force was too weak to have manifested symptoms. Symptoms help us perceive imbalance of life force. Life force energy is also what cures you, with the help of your carefully selected remedy. Disease and health are dynamic because the life force is dynamic. Disease and cure work from innermost to outermost; if you suppress your symptoms, you may drive them inward. Skin is less vital than lungs; having eczema is healthier than asthma. The weaker the life force energy, the deeper it goes; thus the skin disease shows a stronger life force than the lung cancer (within to without). Symptoms soothe life force energy, they give it a vent, a way to temporarily relax the imbalance. 

 

Applying the Law of Similars (the fourth tenet), we aid the life force, completing the process already begun. Your carefully selected remedy will now reestablish harmony throughout the organism, free to express itself once again. In order to do this, we use scientific provings, done on healthy individuals to find the symptoms they cause. These are published in a repertory, a wonderful tool for the homoeopath. We match your symptoms to those already known.

 

Remedies are energetic medicines that are now thought to employ quantum physics. The essence of the remedy is transferred via succussion and dilution (potentizing it; 2 more tenets), and then taken one remedy at a time (yes, another tenet), with longer periods between remedies in chronic cases, short ones in acute. There is no contraindication for pharmaceutical drugs, but it may make it more difficult for a homoeopath to find the totality of the disease, and to determine the effectiveness of the remedy. Totality is very important. You may have 30 remedies that reflect chilly people, love spicy food and ice cold drinks, but only 5 that love the fog, and only 1 is a person that thrives in the morning. This is the elimination method we use to find your remedy.

The Program Overview
 
During the first phase of your program, you will be speaking with the homeopath in what is called an initial intake, lasting anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. During and after this time, all the relevant information is gathered, classified, and sorted. The most important characteristics will be put into a hierarchy, and many other bits of information will be analyzed. The key is you; the more information about what makes you who you are, the more likely your remedy will be found quickly and easily.  

Common complaints are:
  • sleep problems
  • anxiety
  • allergies
  • panic attacks
  • breathing problems
  • asthma
  • depression
  • chronic illness
  • allergies
  • fatigue  
  • chronic aches and pains
  • behavioral problems
  • menopause/hot flashes
  • menstrual irregularity and pain
  • headaches

 

During the second phase of the program, after you have taken your remedy, you will be scheduling follow-up appointments about one month in advance. These follow-up appointments may last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half.  You will be asked a series of approximately two dozen questions about your health and wellbeing during the last month. Often, mental worries and sleep improve very quickly.
 
You may experience some surprising things, or you may think you experienced nothing, but your symptoms may disappear so quietly, you will be surprised when questioned about them; you may have forgotten about them. This is a common occurance.
 
As your case progresses, you may find yourself in a gentle state of change, and your outlook should improve along with any physical changes.
 
Additionally, there are individuals with problems such as repeated poison oak outbreaks, eczema, hayfever, motion sickness that are helped by being treated chronically with homeopathy.  Your remedy treats the whole being, gently balancing your life force, from inside to out.
 
Although chronic treatment is preferred, occasionally an individual comes to homeopathy through being treated (or self-treated) for an acute problem, such as motion sickness or during pregnancy, or for infants with illnesses that are difficult to treat with allopathic (Western) medicine.
 
An acute flu, for example, is easily treated with a remedy or series of ascending potency remedies, especially in an epidemic situation, where it is common to have one or two remedies that fit many if not most of the cases.

Office location: 221 El Camino Del Mar, San Francisco, CA 94121
For any questions or to schedule an appointment please call
415-221-6635 or email:

info@sfhomeopath.com