Medicine is a unified discipline, and Homeopathy, as a holistic therapeutic system, should be practiced by physicians. In order for someone to assume responsibility for a patient’s medical care, and indeed for the patient as a whole (holistically), it goes without saying that they require the comprehensive and thorough knowledge provided by a medical education.
Nevertheless, the medical community’s persistent refusal to free itself from its close association with the pharmaceutical industry leaves a significant therapeutic gap.
Homeopathic medicine can and does provide therapeutic solutions for a wide range of chronic conditions in which conventional medicine intervenes only palliatively, delaying their progression or merely shifting the problem, through the side effects of pharmaceutical treatments, to other systems of the body. Homeopathy treats many chronic, persistent, multifactorial, autoimmune, degenerative, and psychogenic disorders, as well as psychological conditions, in a simple, gentle, and harmless manner. This therapeutic effectiveness, together with the increase in overall psychosomatic well-being and creativity that it also brings about, has driven a strong social shift towards alternative medicine, and Homeopathy in particular. This is especially true today, as we live in an era of revolution in information and communication, with the expansion and widespread use of the Internet.
Given the hesitation and unwillingness of the academic medical community to embrace it, this strong social shift towards alternative medicine and Homeopathy is often appropriated by holistic therapists and “homeopaths” who are not physicians. While this may relieve a social demand, it nevertheless involves significant risks. Homeopathy owes much of its therapeutic capability to its holistic approach, which views the human being as a biological, psychological, and social entity. Therefore, a non-physician homeopath is simply less holistic in their approach.
There is also a risk that Homeopathy may be downgraded from an alternative medical system to a complementary therapeutic practice, with all that this entails for its therapeutic scope and social benefit. On the other hand, all these non-physician practitioners, at least those with a university education, could contribute significantly to the dissemination of the alternative and holistic approach. Every professional and social group has the right to protect its interests. However, when it fails to take into account the broader reality and the public interest, and does not serve the overall health of society, it can easily degenerate into a harmful corporatist practice. Here, the well-established model of cooperation between the Psychiatrist and the Clinical Psychologist could serve as a starting point for both institutional and substantive discussion. In this model, the appropriately trained Clinical Psychologist provides counselling and therapeutic support, while the responsibility and authority to prescribe medication remain exclusively with the Psychiatrist, as a physician.
The major question, however, remains: Will our medical community catch the train of Holistic Homeopathic Medicine, or will it continue to run behind developments and social trends?
The signs coming from across the Atlantic are encouraging.
It is no coincidence that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration of the United States), which has often been accused of providing biased protection to pharmaceutical companies and of waging a “war” against alternative therapies and methods, recently, surpassing its own previous stance, approved electromagnetic therapy for depression and cancer. Specifically, it approved the treatment of brain cancer (glioblastoma, an extremely aggressive form of cancer) in adults when the disease reappears following chemotherapy.
A series of articles began two years ago in one of the journals of the American Medical Association (AMA) under the title “Less Is More”, emphasizing that the overuse of medical treatments may ultimately result in harm, whereas the application of fewer and milder therapeutic interventions may lead to better health.
It is no coincidence that this shift towards greater maturity within the medical community is taking place in the midst of the recent economic crisis. An entire network of physicians, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and various intermediaries had been drawing enormous amounts of money from public finances in the name of routine treatments of questionable effectiveness. It became clear that this vast flow of money was not inexhaustible. Here, the saying that every crisis is also an opportunity for change and reform is once again confirmed.
Today, the industrial-consumer model of development and reductionist scientific thinking increasingly reveal their limitations and inadequacies. The recent economic crisis, the ecological crisis, and the crisis of values and meaning are three of their consequences. Nevertheless, an alternative model exists, namely the holistic, participatory, and ecological model.
An example of the holistic model in the field of healthcare is alternative, holistic medicine, with Homeopathic Medicine as its principal representative.
The individualized philosophy of Homeopathy (where emphasis is placed on the patient’s constitution rather than on the disease itself) is not compatible with the mass-consumption industrial model. However, its holistic approach has often provided unexpected therapeutic solutions for chronic and persistent conditions, and its wider use could save both healthcare systems and patients from unnecessary polypharmacy and the vicious cycle of side effects associated with pharmaceutical drugs.
Sources
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=415863
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=225309
http://www.tovima.gr/science/article/?aid=329588
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185157
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/health/views/06depress.html?scp=2&sq=ssri&st=cse&_r=0
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mainstream-Medicine-Goes-A-by-Jeffrey-Dach-100513-843.html
http://www.otyposnews.gr/archives/20981#axzz2Q3YhyX00
Konstantinos Fytopoulos
(Psychiatrist – Psychotherapist – Homeopath)