Emotional healing with Homeopathy

Review

This review was reprinted from Volume XVII, Issue I, Spring 2004 edition of Simillimum with

Reviewed by Neil Tessler, ND, DHANP

Snapshot review:
Emotional Healing with Homeopathy, though full of interesting snippets of Peter's thoughts, is less a book for the professional and more a book of pop-homeopathy. It is in the anecdotal tradition and has lots of those digestible remedy bits that invite a more casual approach to homeopathy. The actual trauma information is interesting but full of arguable assertions presented as established fact. The materia medica and repertorial sections are developed in a number of different formats and offer many keynotes. In some remedies, reliability is a question.

Peter Chappell is well known in England as a long-time practitioner, teacher and one of the founders of the Society of Homeopaths, the organization of professional homeopathic practitioners which later became the model for NASH (North American Society of Homeopaths).

Peter Chappell's, Emotional Healing with Homeopathy was originally published in 1994. It is first a study of "trauma" and the author does a remarkable job of describing trauma of many types. The author does a remarkable job of describing many types of trauma. He approaches this from a general standpoint as well as systematically going through various stages of life and their attendant traumas. He also cites personal and medical denial of trauma, a useful way of framing one of homeopathy's chief criticism of regular medicine. As he says, "Papering over the cracks with drugs is a very common way of turning traumas into diseases."

There is considerable discussion of the importance of gestational emotional and physical trauma as well as birth trauma, which he goes over in much detail. He comments briefly on the unnecessary rise of caesarian birth, suggesting (unreferenced) that the numbers in some countries are as high as 90%. Then he adds, "That's a serious man made epidemic. It could destroy a whole society, leading to civil war."

While caesarian sections are certainly vastly overdone, the suggestion that it could "lead to civil war" comes off as flakey and weakens the importance of his book as a public presentation of the homeopathic experience regarding psychological trauma. Further reading in this section continues in this vein. Sometimes it seems to be more a book of speculative psychology then a book of homeopathy. Specific psychological patterns are attributed to specific types of gestational, birth or neonatal experiences, though there are no references for the sources of these matter-of-fact assertions.

In any case, it is his rich experience as a homeopath that he is essentially transmitting and he has lots of worthwhile anecdotes and insights to offer in this regard.

The section titled, "Ways to Find the Trauma Picture" has two indices. One is organized according to mental/emotional keywords such as "betrayal" or "jealousy" and related remedies. The second is a materia medica organized according to types of trauma. Several phrases are given for each remedy.

He offers his own typology for mineral, plant and animal types. Again, we don't really know how he has derived his attributions. They have several points of contact with Sankaran or Scholten, but are expressed and appended with interesting ideas whose origin is not explained. As with any suggestions in this regard, value can only be ascertained by reflection and observation.

The last third of the book is a materia medica based on the personality and the type of illnesses to which they are subject, which he terms, "Trauma as Disease". The quality of the information could provoke much debate and is uneven. Some of the personality snap-shots are extremely narrow, exactly in the manner we should have long ago learned is dangerously limiting. We also should know from the "essence" period of the eighties how catch-phrases can damage our clinical objectivity and distort our understanding of the remedy.

Yet, in other instances, his discussion is meatier and may be clinically useful or at least helpful in developing an understanding of the remedy. The issue of reliability of information is paramount and at the heart of a lot of struggle within the profession. In this regard, a materia medica of this type can be interesting reading and may have a lot of valid information. Yet it is very hard to decide, except on reflecting on one's own cases, or comparison with other materia medica discussions, when to listen and when to file it.

This book review is reprinted with the permission of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians

Review: lain Marrs

Peter Chappell is one of the founding members of the Society of Homoeopaths and is currently director of Overseas Training for the London College of Classical Homoeopathy. He has much experience of the utility of homeopathy both in countries at peace and those recently at war or recovering from decades of oppression and brutality. The material in this book, and in particular some of the illustrative case material, draws upon this more than usually broad experience. It is perhaps this aspect, and the fact that he has taught in Eastern Europe under less than perfect circumstances (availability of books, of language skills) that gives this book a refreshing tone, - the tone of the 'barefoot' homeopath, who can pare homeopathy down to its essentials for the purposes of offering self-help to the prospective patient and education to the would-be homeopath.

This refreshing quality, along with a writer who grasps the personal as political, and the political as personal, frees this book both from the usual false simplicity of the self-help book and the apolitical nature of the contemporary self-help movement.

This volume is certainly the first popular book that this reviewer is aware of, published for the self-help market, which reflects the deeper understanding of homeopathy as represented by George Vithoulkas, Vasilis Ghegas, Rajan Sankaran and others, - all of whom are cited in the author's acknowledgements, A self-help book, it is always understood, must begin at the very beginning; it must encapsulate everything within itself; and, finally, it should not simplify in such a way that its use is in truth a barrier to the student's further development in the field. There are numerous 'everybody's guides' and 'handbooks' and so on, which introduce ways of presenting homeopathy which in fact block any further understanding of our discipline. By going against homeopathic principles, - either in the promoting of polypharmacy, or by arranging information according to pathological, disease-oriented groupings, or in some other way, - these books, while appearing to promote homeopathy, in fact demote it, sometimes in combination with promoting the book's author.

Peter Chappell, RSHom, is a professional homeopath, a teacher and practitioner of classical homeopathy, and thus the very type of person who should write a self-help book, and the very type (due to commitments, the depth of their knowledge, or whatever) who usually does not write such books!

The book falls into two parts. The first part is a general discourse on the nature of trauma and suffering (from which there are excerpts printed elsewhere in this issue of Simillimum) and includes illustrative homeopathic cases while generally supplying the setting with which to make sense of homeopathy. This involves both discussion of the general nature of trauma and of various types of trauma (womb trauma, birth trauma, grief, shock, betrayal, assault, war, sexual abuse, dysfunctional parenting, vaccine, and many others). In the second part, dealing more specifically with homeopathy, the classical principles are put forward, as are the tabu subjects of placebo, Avogadro's number and the interview effect. Guidance on how to take the case, sample cases, and common questions are dealt with. Before coming to the trauma patterns, - which is Chappell's name for his remedy word-pictures, and which take up just over a third of this 245 page book - he offers forty pages of indexes. These are, in fact, minor repertories; there is an index of trauma causation, an index of various emotions (for example: Anger externalized onto others; Anger internalized as sadness, etc; Chaos; Possessions, Money and Trust; Self-Esteem Inflated; Self-Esteem Low; etc.), an index of fears and phobias, of food desires and aversions, of sleep position and then a series of indexes dealing with 'unusual body signs and symptoms,' going through each of the systems (vertigo, head, headache, eyes, etc). Trauma patterns for thirty-seven remedies follow, each delineating a keyword, a source, typical stresses, attitude, and suggested 'trauma as disease,' offering pointers on pathology. The latter is introduced with a caveat that it is subsidiary to the understanding of the whole person and 'a helpful confirmation at best' (p.156). (See this issue of Simillimum for Chappell's trauma pattern of Carcinosin.) He states that these pictures are, at times, crude, and that they reflect the author's bias:

'They are difficult word-pictures to paint and the artist is part of the process, so you have my choice of colourings, my blind spots, my wrinkles. There is a difficult balance between picture, bias and the many faces of people, so please be tolerant of the result and try to find the fluid, multi-faceted image I am trying to project to you.' (p. 158)

Thus the author is aware of some problems around essence and facet and, while aware of this, goes ahead and presents a psychological essence. Thus he proceeds further than those self-help books which do not offer any essence but, this said, he does tend to remain within this limit of psychological essence.

Who is the ideal reader of this book? Someone who has more than a first-aid interest in learning about homeopathy, who has perhaps tried and become frustrated with the purely physical pictures other self-help books are prone to; a reader whose interest is in finding a book which practices what it preaches and actually orders itself along whole person lines rather than reverting to pathological categories. Firstly, then, a reader who wants more than the previous self-help books offer. Secondly, a homeopathic patient who would like to understand what the homeopath is doing and check that they are receiving the best version of homeopathy available. The patient with this book in hand will keep their homeopath on their toes. It is made clear by Chappell that he engages his patients in dialogue:

"By going through each index, you may spot things that are strongly linked to the friend you are helping. At this point an interactive understanding may take place between the helper and the helped, translating ideas into homoeopathic clues, clarifying an agreed 'right feeling' about the situation, and relating these clues through the indexes to possible trauma pictures.

I find this an important step. When I discuss with a patient how I see their life and one or both of us modify our views, we rapidly converge on the truth and get to the point where we agree." (p. 105)

I have no way of knowing the general commitment of the homeopathic community to such educative dialogue with patients. It is clear, however, that Peter Chappell is committed to an educative interpretation of homeopathy where something approaching a verbal simillimum is arrived at, in dialogue, before the homeopathic remedy is given. I find myself in sympathy with an educative interpretation and practice of homeopathy while being aware that such is often seen precisely as the trademark of the amateur homeopath, whereas the professional instead finds himself or herself too busy to spend time 'educating patients.' (And, in saying this, I certainly do not mean to imply that this is likely to be either more or less true of the so-called 'Professional Homeopath' as against the 'doctor Homeopaths'.)

Peter Chappell, RSHom, seems to find it hard to differentiate between homeopathy and education and this excellent self-help book is the fruit of his refusal - or clear-thinking inability - to seperate the two. May there follow many more self-help books, written by educators and homeopaths, which can replace those volumes put together by those who lack much of both the truly educative and the truly homeopathic impulses. Chappell gives clear guidelines on where professional help is needed, clearly distinguishes what is to be expected from a professional homeopath as opposed to what can happen with some doctors trying to prescribe homeopathically and, again, clearly marks this book out as a guide for the barefoot homeopath or the therapist desirous of adding homeopathy to their healing repertoire. He often presents the practice of 'homeopathic self-help' as the practice of friends helping each other when in need; he does not equate it, per se, with self-prescribing, though he leaves the latter as an option. The author would seem to agree with that classical advice with which homeopathy has such difficulty, - that to 'know thyself' is the root of all wisdom - and he abides by this classical wisdom just as he abides by the classical wisdom of one remedy at a time. "Self -awareness is essential to unprejudiced observation, a key quality in homeopathy." (p. 158)

The volume ends with guidance on prescribing and on signs of cure, how to use LM's, and on repetition; a bibliography including a concise comment on the politics of potency, and on how to spot the non-classical homeopath (combination, etc.) and what to do about it, - search elsewhere!

You may read excerpts of this book on pages 6-12 in this issue of Simillimum I will leave the last word to Peter Chappell:

'... our institutions - home, school, hospitals, prisons, armies, politicians, etc. - are acting out suffering and are badly distorted by it....

There is a way of changing this situation of universal suffering that would be incredibly effective, easy to implement at very low costs and very safe in sensible hands. It is, of course, homoeopathic medicine. But it is currently a very slow process, so I hope this book will bridge the gap while you are waiting.

There are, of course, many other wonderful movements and healing systems that are doing similar work, spreading the word and helping to transform society right now. I have experienced many forms of alternative medicine - meditation, psychotherapy, shamanism, etc. - and, as I see it, pluralism is the way forward in all walks of life, including medicine.

But I wish to stress that, beyond all this, the power of homoeopathic remedies applied by correct principles and methods is unique, and the world has yet to appreciate it fully. There is nothing else in my experience that can act so deeply and effectively.' (pp. 232-33)

SIMILLIMUM / Fall 1995 Volume VIII No.3