Homeopathy – what is it?


Homeopathy is a system of medicine based on the principal that “like cures like”.  What this means is that a medicine that can induce particular symptoms in a healthy person can be used to treat those same symptoms in a sick person.


While homeopathic medicines can be used to treat any symptom (whether it be physical, mental or emotional), the possibility is that they can stimulate a deep healing of the whole patient.  To use homeopathic medicines holistically, we must understand that disease is a state of distress: the vital force (the spirit-like intelligence that governs the body) is unable to maintain balance.  Symptoms are the manifestation of the struggle to establish a new balance, even though it is out of kilter (chronic disease states). Because symptoms reflect the state of internal imbalance, they guide the homeopath to the remedy that will restore health.  It is the vital force that must be healed, not the symptoms themselves. Once the vital force is brought back into balance, the body can stop struggling so the symptoms resolve.  Because the vital force is a spirit-like entity, only energetic medicines are capable of restoring it to balance.  They do so by re-tuning and strengthening it.

Correspondingly, allopathic practitioners use physical substances (drugs or herbs) to alter body chemistry and affect physical symptoms.  Homeopaths use energetic medicines (remedies) to rebalance the vital force.  Also, we interpret the response to a remedy differently than we interpret a response to a drug.  We are not attempting to “get rid of symptoms”, but to restore health.  Successful homeopathic therapy results in increased vitality, emotional balance, and an overall sense of well being.  By strengthening the patient, he/she becomes less susceptible to infectious agents and better able to withstand the various stresses of life.​

For case examples, see Case Reports

For further information:


  1. Homeopathy-Beyond Flat Earth Medicine by Timothy R. Dooley, ND, MD. This short book is a great introduction. To order, call (619) 299-1140
  2. The Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy website: www.theavh.org
  3. National Center for Homeopathy website: www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org
  4. Dr. Richard Pitcairn: www.drpitcairn.com

Although both western (allopathic) practitioners and homeopaths classify and categorize disease, they do so from opposite perspectives.  Allopaths use end-stage (pathological) symptoms to classify disease: all animals with that pathology will get the same treatment.  Homeopaths use individual (characteristic) symptoms that together, reflect both the central (energetic) disturbance and the remedy that matches that.  Thus, animals with the same allopathic diagnosis usually require different remedies.