What is Cure?

By Grant Bentley, March 2007

This second instalment discusses the concept of cure and its relationship to chronic disease. Early homepaths could talk liberally about cure because for the majority of time they were dealing with acute disease. However with chronic disease the term “cure” seems less appropriate because as Hahnemann explained, chronic disease is influenced by the miasm which is an inherited fault or groove that shows itself in times of stress.

For most people chronic disease begins when energy levels drop below a certain point. Miasmatic weakness means we are all born with inherited strengths and weaknesses that require energy for normal functioning. Areas that are weak require more energy from the body to maintain normal levels of functioning than strong areas. Therefore, if your liver has normal functioning capability but your kidneys are inherently weak, your kidneys require more vital force to maintain normal levels than your liver. In times of stress, when excessive energy is being used there is less vital force available to supply the kidneys with the extra energy they need and as a consequence energy dysfunction through signs and symptoms begins to manifest.

When examining the biography of patients with chronic disease, they often highlight how signs and symptoms of the present condition exhibited themselves momentarily in the past. For example a patient with chronic migraines in a highly stressed position or after the stress of childbirth explains how they were migraine free for years until this recent period. Many also explain how they had sporadic migraines in their teens or in their last year of school or in a pressured situation such as exams, a new job, marriage or the end of a relationship.

The fact that migraines or kidney dysfunction is returning shows the patient is once again under stress. This is not Hering’s Law of cure and is not to be seen as a positive sign. This return of old symptoms is due entirely to the fact that the patient is using more vital force or vital energy and diminishing the reserves needed to supply their weak miasmatic areas.

Understanding chronic disease in this manner brings the whole question of “cure” into the spotlight and throws the concept open for debate. We know our medicines are energetic and we know they supply a chronically energetically deficient patient with the vital force or energy they require. This is why patients who are run down tired and in pain, begin to feel symptom free energetic and alive after the administration of the appropriate remedy, but there is a very significant point that needs highlighting. If this treated patient feeling good and free under the remedy places themselves in a situation where they are using more energy through work, stress, anxiety or grief than they can produce, their signs and symptoms without HomÅ“opathic treatment will return. What this shows is Hahnemann’s perception of a miasm as an inherited weakness such as psora being the “fault” or “groove” is accurate, but whether or not this fault or groove can be completely removed is a different question altogether. While there are many cases where under homeopathic treatment a patient can have a condition removed never to return, there are many more that have been successfully treated where the complaint does return if stress or energy output is strong enough. Does this mean that the person whose complaint did not return has had that layer removed, or have they readjusted their lifestyle to ensure that energy output does not exceed energy input?

Too many times I have “successfully” treated a chronic condition to see a patient return sometimes six months, sometimes two years later with the same complaint re-emerging and upon questioning find they have been through a stressful or extremely busy period. The administration of the remedy that held the condition at bay is often the same remedy needed once again and after it has been re-applied the condition once more subsides. Because events such as these are in the majority, a theory to support this clinical observation is required.

My personal theory regarding the cure of chronic disease is as follows. Individuals are born with inherent states of organic strength and weakness and the weak links in the chain will always be weak links. Weak links cannot be removed they can only be supplemented. Weak links will always require more energy to maintain normal functioning than strong ones, and as a consequence they will be the areas that suffer under stress when energy drops below a sustaining level. Under homeopathic treatment reserves of energy are sustained at levels that supply the body’s miasmatic weak areas with enough vital force to prevent signs and symptoms occurring. This is not the same as eradication of weakness.

This understanding is important in case management because it involves the patient in their own health. A theory of this nature takes away from the practitioner the full responsibility of health and illness and places them in a co-operative position with the patient. The homeopath’s role in chronic disease now becomes a facilitator of knowledge as well as the provider of a remedy. The remedy will get the patient back on their feet and symptom free or at the very least symptom diminished, but it is also important that the homeopath impart their knowledge regarding energy balance and signs and symptoms, so the patient can manage or change their lifestyle as well as recognise the indicators to return to the clinic. If chronic disease is viewed in the same way as acute disease; that is something that can be overcome and removed completely, then each return of symptoms will be viewed as a failure and the homeopath will look for a “better” remedy than previously given. However, if the patient’s lifestyle is not conducive or is in homeopathic terms energy expensive, then any return of chronic disease symptoms under this paradigm is expected and not treated erroneously as a “failure”.

What about palliation and what about suppression? Palliation is when the symptoms return to their normal chronic state immediately after the removal of continuous medicine. If a patient is given Nat Mur 200C single dose for example and they are symptom free for anywhere between one to three months how can this be called palliation? If the patient was on Nat Mur 200C daily for their complaint and every day they forgot to take the medicine their symptoms returned – that is palliation. Palliation is not the aim of the homeopath. Balance of vital force is the aim of homeopathy in chronic disease. Human beings are interactive, this means we respond and react to the stresses of life. The concept that patients will go through life surrounded by a force-field never responding to emotion or events is wrong and yet that is the only way we could remain uninfluenced by life. Homeopathic remedies supply us with the vital force we need to maintain normal functioning during times of stress. When stressful periods re-occur and more energy is required, signs and symptoms will re-emerge because excessive energy has been expended and from our point of view another remedy is needed – this is not palliation.

Suppression is when after the administration of a remedy, presenting signs and symptoms are replaced by stronger more dangerous symptoms than before.

Viewing the treatment of chronic disease as a process of balance has none of the hallmarks of suppression or palliation. Correct treatment improves health and vitality as well as diminishes symptoms and often removes them altogether. A return of old chronic symptoms after the previously successful administration of a remedy should not be viewed as failure or suppression or removal of a layer. It is simply that the balance of outward energy to inward energy has been tipped and needs to be replaced by a remedy.