Minutus

Roberts question is a valid one. Now that the membership of SoH is almost
open to anyone from any college, how does one find a good homoeopath?

Should the criteria of being licensed by the colleges and being accepted by
the Society of Homeopaths, UKHMA, or ARH (Three main UK Hom groups) be that
the people who license and accept you would be happy for their nearest and
dearest to be seen by you?

What do you think?

Soroush

> Should the criteria of being licensed by the colleges and being accepted
by
that

WAY too subjective. What each of us are happy with individually reflects our
own individuality. This is tantamount to saying that those you personally
don't agree with should be excluded.

I personally don't have a problem with licencing via approved colleges,
providing those courses are subject to regular review, and also immediately
reviewed when major changes occur in any of the approved colleges which
impact the overall ethos - this is when I've experienced the system failing.
If any individual has passed through a system which has been rigorously
assessed according to a comprehensive range of criteria (both educational
*and* organisational), then it's not unreasonable to expect a certain
minimum standard of education and a certain overall "outlook" which reflects
the particular biases of any individual institution.

When that person then goes on to *individually* apply for registration,
there is an opportunity to assess their own personal perspective and
practice after a suitable interval has passed for them to develop somewhat.

IMO that's a pretty robust assessment process. No doubt there's room for
improvement and no doubt there's failures. But no system is ever going to be
watertight because people aren't machines and you can't predict how their
individual lives and experiences will impact them and change their outlook
as time goes on.

People usually find "good" homeopaths by personal recommendation. What
Jeremy Sherr refers to as the "great cosmic magnet" works pretty well to
ensure that patients get drawn to healers who can help them. Some may need
to try a few before they end up with someone they resonate well with - well,
that's not much different to how we all find friends, partners, etc, etc.
That's the way life works.

It is part of our own individual responsibility as seekers of health care,
each and every one of us, to ensure that we find someone we feel comfortable
with. No amount of letters after the practitioner's name can provide a
substitute for that responsibility and neither should we expect it to.
Caveat emptor and all that.

There are all sorts of people out there and not all of them will resonate
with the practice of rigidly-defined classical homeopathy. The folk who
practice in ways you personally may not understand get good results too.
Like cures like, remember. That works on levels other than just remedies.

Regards
Wendy

Dear Wendy

Just assume that someone calls you and needs your guidance about a
homoeopath somewhere. And let us say you have some kind of directory
listing you the names of people and where they operate. How do you choose
an unknown.

As one of the colleagues mentioned in an earlier post, at least if we know
which college they have attended you can make a choice (and hope that they
have not suddenly changed in their method of practise as some do!). But for
example in the Society Of Homoeopath's register there is no such info. In
effect, what I am saying is that although registration process of SoH is
perhaps something some people wish to attain, I need to express my
reservations about it.

If the final exams/assessment of graduates from all colleges were set and
marked by the SoH (or whatever other professional body you would care to
select), then one would have more confidence in the whole process and
standards of attainment.

I know from personal contact and also from reports of other colleagues that
the teaching of some colleges literally breaks many of Hn's instructions and
may also be regarded as suppressive. In that case I would not wish their
treatment on any one least on my dearest and nearest, or on any one who has
sought my advice!

Talking of resonance and cosmic resonance, does one pick up the pendulum to
pick a good homoeopath? ))

Someone PLEASE show me the way to Croydon - I need to see Nohj!

Soroush

Hi Soroush

I appreciate the points you're making, but what I'm trying to tease out of
your viewpoint here is the aspects that are grounded in common sense and the
aspects that are grounded in personal preference. Common sense you can
reflect to a certain extent in letters after one's name (by virtue of the
fact that it's common), personal preference you can't. Unfortunately,
there's no clear dividing line between the two, since many personal
preferences are shared by others to a greater or lesser extent.

I couldn't help but focus on an element in your views that appears to be
inflating the personal (or narrowly common) viewpoint into something much
larger and thereby seeking to "objectify" it by some means. Homeopathy is a
diverse practice, and each and every one of its various practices have a
lineage that can be traced back to Hahnemann. Each can be justified on its
own terms. Each has its successes, each its failures. And naturally every
homeopath of whatever method considers his/her method to be the best of the
bunch, so focuses mostly on its successes while seeing mostly the failures
of the others. (This is human nature, after all!)

The Society of Homeopaths is not the Society of Classical Homeopaths, though
at one time it came close. It attempts to represent a reasonable range of
approaches and I think it is the wiser and richer for doing so. Some would
still consider it too narrow, I'm sure.

Now as to whether individual homeopaths choose to abbreviate their college
licentiateships and/or diplomas after their names - surely that is an
individual choice? I know some that do, also some that don't. These things
are only going to be meaningful to other homeopaths anyway! If you want to
recommend somebody on the Society register and you're concerned about their
pedigree, then why not phone them and ask what college they attended? Or
compile your own list of practitioners you feel comfortable with. But why
not let the patient make the choice? It is their responsibility, after all,
and if you don't have any knowledge of relevance to their choice then you
just don't have that knowledge. Is that a problem?

to

Where does the pendulum come in? Do you use a pendulum when you pick a
friend, or decide whether your used car salesman is trustworthy or not? Or
do you use your own senses which are so beautifully designed for exactly
that purpose?

Regards
Wendy