I am wondering what the typical homeotherapist thinks about perscription anti-depressant/anxiety drugs such as Prozac or Paxil; or mood stabilizers like Depakote.
Do they go along with Homeothpathic philosophy? Do you think they work? What do you suggest to a person, namely myself, who may in the future seek a homeotherapist but is currently on anti-deppressant/anxiety medications through a regular psychiatrist right now?
I don't know much about homeopathy, let alone it's opinions on this topic; So I'd really appreciate any help from anyone who can let me in on the loop, thanks peeps!

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kiwihaley

Hi,

Am not sure about the compatibility & am a patient, not a homeopath but my experience of taking Prozac and Seroxat over different periods in the past has been very mixed.

I really felt that when I was on Prozac my feelings were muffled and not natural at all. It did remove my emotional excesses but I would have been unable to become overjoyed at good news or cry at a funeral and this felt very weird - kind of cut off from myself. Feeling very insulated against my natural responses, I became very unconcerned about things which really ought to have concerned me - eg, my driving was not so careful because I really couldn't have cared less whether I had an accident or not!

Realise that these are just my personal experiences but I did recently watch a documentary in which many of the patients interviewed echoed my feelings on this. So it would be interesting to hear from others on this board.

One thing I can definitely say is that homeopathy has helped me to cope with the underlying problems which my GP was attempting to treat with Prozac. It hasn't been an easy process, with lots of difficult emotions emerging before being dealt with properly, but I have felt that we have got to the heart of the problem, instead of merely smothering the symptoms.

Generally, we aren't too keen on ANY drug treatment. Although I understand the desperation that drives people to prozac, ultimately it merely disguises the depression, which continues to eat away the person underneath. Or worse, due to a suppression of your condition, the illness that is causing the depression, will focus itself on some other part of your body or psyche. I have seen people on prozac go on to develop debilitating physical illnesses - this shows the us that the depression has "changed places" if you will, and settled into a different place.

Depression is not a "chemical imbalance" as the medical profession would like to believe. It is a spiritual one, and pills are not the answer. Homoeopathy is definitely one of the therapies that can truly help, by going to the source of the depression. I have worked with many depressed patients, and it is rarely an easy process, and becomes harder and longer the more time spent on prozac.

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David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

When you have more experience using homoeopathy, seeing the miracles, listening to the spiritual changes that occur under treatment, perhaps you will come to believe.

I was once very much a materialist, only believing what I could see or what another materialist (conventional scientist) told me.

Over the years, homoeopathy taught me to believe in a universal intelligence, THROUGH MY EXPERIENCE AS A PRACTITIONER. I would have considered myself an atheist before - perhaps even I would go so far as to say a believer in nothing at all. Now I sense the world around me quite differently.

Through my patients, I have seen premonition at work, intuition, profound spiritual crisis - I cannot believe that our lives can be reduced to a series of chemical reactions. There is more to us than that - homoeoman, can you not feel it? Have you never been truly in love, felt great despair about your existance, been moved by beauty, been repelled by an evil act, felt overwhelming terror when faced with something that will not harm you - even just had a moment where you felt connected to something greater than yourself?

Depression is more than a sickness of the brain - it is a sickness of the soul. The soul, the mind, the heart, the body - of the vital force.

We are all free to believe whatever we want - in theory. In truth, most of us believe whatever our disease causes us to believe - our basic delusion, as Sankaran puts it.

You will not find answers by looking at the smallest parts of things - you will only find them by looking at the whole, the connections, the web that binds things together.

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David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

I'd go so far as to say that ALL problems are spiritual problems and if we dig deep enough into the case, we will always find a spiritul basis for the dis-ease. In fact if we were able to resolve all of our spiritual problems, we would have no reason for incarnating into material existence.

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Shirley Reischman

First things first. Psychoactive medications such as Prozac etc have their place in the management of emotional disorders. Since they tend to work quickly, when they work at all, they are good for managing emotional crises that interfere substantially with the quality of life and with the ability to function. Depending how severe your emotional disturbance, they may be necessary to sustain you during the time your homeopath finds the appropriate remedy for you, and as that remedy begins to work. The goal, however, would be eventually to discontinue the medication, under supervision, as homeopathic treatment begins to resolve your difficulties. A major problem with homeopathic treatment is the difficulty finding a good homeopath, but its advantage is that, when successful, it cures your symptoms, makes them ‘go away,’ and doesn’t just suppress them. If you are fortunate, a short course of treatment with allopathic drugs may be all you’ll ever need, but many, many patients only get off of them for brief intervals, if at all.

There are other measures that may also help, that are consistent, imho, with homeopathic treatment, either concurrently, or before, or during breaks from, or after completion of homeopathic treatment. For more detail see my comments in the thread, “Bipolar/Anxiety Disorder…can homeopathy help?” (last post December 2002).

Second things second. This should probably get kicked into the Coffee Shop, but O well, here goes anyway. David and Shirley and John, apart from being a materialist, I would respectfully suggest that treatment, especially anything resembling psychotherapy in method or objectives, should not establish a particular set of beliefs, to which the patient must subscribe if he is to be deemed truly cured. It is certainly not stretching credulity too far, to assume there are a few happy atheists out there, or a few of the devout who are miserable. The trick of the therapist, and I would include the homeopath in this, is to assist the patient in finding balance and peace in his life, regardless his beliefs, attitudes, opinions…. I’m not sure you would disagree with any of this, but your comments raise the concern.

As for personal or professional experience, that can lead in many directions. For example, when a patient tells me I’ve turned his life around, or his wife tells me I’ve saved their marriage, and all I’ve done is tell them to eliminate dairy from their diet, then I am witness to the effects of essentially toxic substances (materia) on mental health; their effects on physical well-being (cancer, heart disease, etc) are better documented but no more real.

In short, your observations, or mine for that matter, don’t translate neatly into verities—for if they did, then how would we reconcile the marked contrast in the conclusions I draw from my experience, compared to the conclusions you draw from yours? All observations must be interpreted. For this reason, I also mistrust ‘scientific’ investigations and scientific method, because these experiments must be designed and interpreted by human beings. Honest inquiry, common sense, logical debate, and a commitment to scrupulous analysis of results override any statistical or observational or experimental methodology, in my book. Do our findings make sense? Is our defence of them thorough and logical?

For my part, I can’t understand how you can look at the color and drama and scope of galaxies and nebulae, planets and storms, oceans and sunsets, smiles and gestures, the intricacies of the biosphere and the intricate precision binding one species to another, and the enormous variety of the tiniest particles, without reeling at the incredible creativity of the physical universe. All—the most distant and the largest as well as the nearest and the smallest—built out of the same few hundred elementary particles. This is no ‘mere’ pool table. It is a pool table fit, metaphorically, for the gods, and is in my book quite capable of producing emotions of ecstasy and doom and everything in between.

Best regards to all,

Bach

[ 05. January 2003, 05:07: Message edited by: bwv11 ]

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Hi Bach,
I don't judge the person's progress by how closely their philosophy mirrors mine. I use my philosophy to determine what the core issue is, but I judge their progress by how good they think they feel.

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Shirley Reischman

Hi Shirley,

Yeh, that's really what I figured. That's pretty much what all of us do, I think, or should be doing. Actually, "raise the question," as I look at it, would have been better than "raise the concern" - just an interesting perspective you guys present here, that I don't usually get to talk about - I just hope Snoopy's not looking in, or I'll be getting some more "overexplaining" demerits ."

Bach

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

I agree with what Davidk and Sreischman say as I have seen many people who were atheist, completely change their views on religion. While homeoapthy can not make us whole spiritually as only prayer can do that, it does remove obstacles like greed, hatred, etc, create guilt and remores and allow people to forgive and move forward in life. Often this is in a spiritual direction. Homeopapthy simply allows people to be the best they can be.

While I have only treated 5 people on prozac and celex as I have only practiced for 2 years on a very part time basis, all were winged off their meds in 30 days or less by cutting the prescription in 1/2 every 5-7 days. of course if I did not give them the right remedy it would not have gone smoothly and in 1 case the person had to go back on meds again as I missed the simillimum initially and they cut down before we relaized the remedy was not correct. This was later reversed once I gave the right remedy.

What was interesting is 3 needed anacardium initially as they were on both meds and main complaints of lack of confidence and focus and confusion, etc and they really matched the cycle of Anacard. as Dr. Herscu describes it. They needed other remedies afterwards but it got them off their meds. Also Nat-m for old griefs seems common for depression cases, but you have to find out what the person was like before the meds. This often requires talking to friends and family members to help build the case as the person on meds often can not accurately describe how they felt and responded to what caused theri state, but it works well as the pattern or cycle emerges and can still be seen even though they are masking it. It is still there!

This si what I find most interesting and of moat value about herscu's method is that by taking the history and in analysis of the CC and in looking at the bigger picture over time, you cna see not only why they need a certian remedy now, but a strong likelyhood of what other remedies they will need. As Dr. herscu sauys it often becomes highly predictable and this does pan out in practice as everyone knows remedies form bridges sort of speak with other remedies as they share so many symptoms. By understanding how the person has responded to major stresses in their life you can see where they are at today and where you need to get them to be healthy.It is not always easy to see this but it is there and often you can predict which remedies they will need.

In summary, depression is highly treatable when people are on meds. I am fairly new to all this but with Herscu's I have not had any difficulty with these cases. Again, I think talking to family members and firends can help determine the state they were in before the meds and knowing the state they are in on the meds and where you need to take them helps simplify remedy selection.

Finding a homeoapth who really understands the affect of the meds and how to determine what state they would be in without them is the key.

regards
John O.

[ 05. January 2003, 00:54: Message edited by: john oljace ]

Let's see...That's 10 demerits from the coffee shop, 20, 30....

Snoopy

[ 06. January 2003, 05:15: Message edited by: Snoopy ]