Homoeopathy: Heart and Soul

"Actually, this is a well put together book. The author also seems kind and concerned about his reader's needs. Too concerned; and this is where the trouble starts.

He works with flow-charts to find your remedy for your problem. A novel and very good approach. It makes it fast and easy to find your remedy. Unfortunately, it made it easy for me to find that in all categories, I'd already sorted out my remedies with the help of Phatak's and Boericke's Materia Medicas and Repertories. And not only am I not a trained homoeopath, I've only started busying myself with the subject seriously for the last few months.

What worries me is that any more complex problems are avoided and the book is even plastered with advice (in CAPITALS) that if you suffer this or that more complex affliction, you should seek medical advice, even see your doctor/GP.

From my point of view, one of the beauties of homoeopathy is to NOT see any of those lay-people with GP-tickets who think a little yellow pills 10mg t.d.s. will make your problem go away, so they can go on earning money.

If someone needs flow-charts to find out how they feel, they likely 'should' see a professional, though I'd recommend a homoeopath (if ever you've been through the NHS-mill, you can't but agree). If someone finds the flow-charts only confirm their own findings, they are likely good enough at 'listening inside' to not need this book.

I'm sorry to say, but I read 'the whole book' (as in, 'the confirmations that I don't need it') in an hour or so, and am now sending it back.

Still. I do think it has its points and I do think it will be helpful for beginners a) to homoeopathy, but, more importantly, b) to learning their own emotional self-discoveries.

If you suffer depressive moods or become irritable easily (and are too depressed or irritable to plow through large Materia Medicas), yes, this is a helpful starter-kit with some sound advice. If you are looking for more complex issues, get something else or 'do' go and see someone. The books stops at a level of a minuscule, flow-chart-less, uninformative section on trauma and bulimia is the highest that still is given a tad more consideration.

Of course, were you to suffer from more complex afflictions, the book anyway would recommend that you see a doctor - probably the worst advice one can give any poor sod who really need care and help. I've yet to meet anyone in the NHS or in homoeopathy who has a grasp of complex psychological or psychiatric issues - and, unfortunately this book makes no exception. What the author's knowledge of complex issues is, we'll never know because he avoids every one of them with warnings in CAPITALS. Another book for people with average-level mood issues that need a quick fix for a short time.

A nice plus are the careful explanations on potencies in the beginning section of the book, but any more general books on homoeopathy 'should' cover this. However, this author does it very well, and in clear, simple, easy-to-understand language.

SUMMARY: The book is very likable and the flow-charts are great idea. There are lists of remedies sorted by mood irregularity/disturbances (I'm careful to go as far as to say disorders, as those are outside the scope of the book); there is a Materia Medica of the remedies involved and a therapeutic index that, however, doesn't even list "confusion" (something almost all people - especially those, who are 'new-comers' to dealing with emotional problems - experience).

If you're very unsure of yourself and what's perhaps bugging you, this book is a nice easy starting point. If you are looking for serious help with serious issues, look elsewhere (of which there is, admittedly, shockingly little around - something homoeopathy sadly has in common with conventional medicine).

Nice book, and I'm glad someone tried - but not for me.

Sandra"
~ Written on 2007-10-16