Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 21
The purpose of this study was to describe patients’ experience and outcomes of successful homoeopathic care.
Phenomenology was used to examine the experiences of 36 ‘extremely successful’ classical homoeopathic patients. Participants were asked to describe what it was like to receive homoeopathic care, what their responses were and what those responses ‘felt like’.
The essential structure of the experience of homoeopathic care was described as ‘an intensive process of self exploration and self discovery that was facilitated by a trusted partner in care’. Themes reflective of this process include openness, equality, trust, ebbs and tides in response to remedies, trial and error, paying attention to self, learning through silence and getting into the flow. The essential structure of successful healing was described as a ‘transformative process of coming home to self’. Positive homoeopathic outcomes included perceptions of unsticking, powerful sweeping change or fluctuation, intense knowing/not knowing of self, surprise/comfort with self, immediacy of freedom, focus and purpose, ‘mustness’ of response, and permission to seek and explore.
Although many of the descriptions of successful outcomes are consistent with previous findings about outcomes of homoeopathic care, additional descriptors of change associated with successful treatment were identified. These need to be explored more fully so that methods of examining homoeopathic outcomes systematically can be developed. These findings also indicate that the successful homoeopathic treatment engages the whole being receiving care, signalling the need to continue the dialogue about whole systems research and appropriate methodologies.
Funding for this study was received from the US National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (# 1 R-21 AT 001319-01).
