Although there is no current scientific explanation for how these remedies work, homeopaths believe that within every living person there exists a force, a life energy called the “vital force” that is responsible for maintaining balance and health in the body, mind and emotions. This idea is ancient and universal, and can be found in every culture and medical system throughout the world (except for modern medicine which ignores this concept). From this point of view, illness can be understood as resulting from an imbalance of the vital force. The symptoms of a disease, the complaints that we suffer are expressions of that imbalance.

Hahnemann theorized that giving a homeopathic medicine to a patient with a “similar” illness was like giving a tiny push to the imbalanced vital force, stimulating the body’s natural defence mechanisms to put the organism back into balance and heal the disease.

When a person is ill, that illness has a unique pattern. Everyone tends to get sick in a way that corresponds to the heredity, environmental factors, stresses and weaknesses that are unique to that individual. As a result, five different people with flu might require five different homeopathic remedies, because they have five different sets of symptoms. Treatment is thus individualized based on the unique way that each of those five people is ill with the flu.

Absolutely. Pharmaceutical drugs and homeopathic remedies can safely be taken alongside one another without any negative interactions. 

The conventional doctor views disease as being localized in organs or tissues. Thus arthritis is understood as a joint disease, neuritis is a nerve disease, angina as a heart disease. The treatment involves one or more drugs for each different problem, resulting in multiple drug therapy for patients with more than one complaint. A homeopath, on the other hand, views a person as a physical, emotional, and mental unity, so that all symptoms are considered to be part of one disease process. Thus, the homeopath would treat a patient with many complaints with only one medicine at a time.

Modern medicine tends to view symptoms as something bothersome to be gotten rid of or as a problem to be controlled. In contrast, the homeopathic has great interest in the patient’s symptoms because he realizes that they are the organisms’ only way of expressing the underlying disease. Each symptom is an intelligent expression of a complex living system out of balance.

Thus, the homeopath listens carefully to everything the patient says. The patient is encouraged to speak freely about any problem, complaint or symptom no matter how small or strange. Nothing is unimportant. It is by paying attention to the totality of symptoms from physical, emotional and mental sphere, that the homeopath can discover the best medicine for the patient.

Another important difference between homeopathy and modern medicine has to do with the way medicines act. The “side effects” of drugs that we often see result from their undesirable actions on body tissues. Homeopathic medicines differ in that they do not act on particular organs or tissues. They act on the entire organism to stimulate healing. There are no “side effects” with a homeopathic medicine.

Remedies are prepared from diluted substances, such as plants, minerals, or animal products, which are repeatedly diluted and succussed (vigorously shaken). As this standardized method of dilution and succession continues, the remedy more powerful. This process is called potentization and it is the hallmark of all homeopathic remedies.

There are several differences but the key difference is that naturopathy generally aims to ‘support’ the organs/system of an individual and not necessarily cure. The treatment often includes multiple herbs and supplements which are to be taken for a very long time. Homeopathy on the other hand, aims to ‘cure’ the individual by stimulating and keeping their vitality and immune system in balance. As their immune system gets stronger and the vital force learns to stay in balance, the need for an external medicine decreases and ultimately diminishes, leaving behind nothing but health.