When people have no idea what homeopathy is, let alone the depth and the breadth of its scope, it’s understandable to be sceptical. So here, my aim is to help you understand what to expect from a homeopathic consultation.

The first thing you’ll notice, is that we homeopaths take our consultations very seriousely. Most of us ask you to fill out quite a lengthy intake form, or questionnaire. That’s for two reasons: to give us a bit of knowledge about you before we start, and to get you used to the type of questions we may ask.

Homeopathic consultations also take time - mostly one or two hours.

If we’re just treating an acute condition, that can take less time, perhaps half a hour. Especially if this is experienced while using a remedy for a chronic condition.

The questions you will be asked are always around what you’re experiencing. This covers the type of pain (amazingly, there are so many such as aching, shooting, pinching and so many more), what naturally relieves the pain (that could be a position of your body, the time of day, temperature, etc) and what exacerbates the pain.

Being very open and candid about your troubles tend to bring your problems alive, not unlike a story. And that makes our job much easier.When someone is coy or shy about their troubles, it’s like putting a veil over you; we just can’t see you clearly.

Beyond any problem you consult us for, we want to clearly see what troubles you, what stresses you, what keeps you awake at night as well as how you deal with it.

In addition we want to know what you want from life. And your ability to achieve it. You could say that all this is the tune you dance to. It’s your vibration. It’s your energetic footprint.

Why do we need all this, what some would consider totally irrelevent information?

Dis-ease is the absence of ease. In other words, you’re off balance. It’s impossible to be sick unless you’re off balance energetically. To put it another way, your immune system is not working correctly, as it was designed to do.

There are many reasons for this. Some are physical, but most are emotional. Most are set up in childhood by ‘the system’ - family, friends, culture, school, religion. Children adapt to the conditions they live in, to survive. However, if they’re not nurturing, they set up imbalances. The negative energies become trapped. Survival techniques become a habit which continue into adulthood, where they could be released as no longer necessary, but seldom are. 

When the consultation flows easily, the homeopath may recognise your ‘vibrational tune’ quickly and prescribe immediately. However, it is not unusual for us to want more time after the consultation to verify signs and symptoms and/or to consider.

Most homeopaths do try our very best to find a matching remedy for you from the very start. However, life can be complcated and people often come with multiple problems.

So sometimes it’s a question of starting with the most recent problem, healing that, then working down through the rest. It can be like a zig zag approach.

Of course, this can take time. But the end result can still be the same. 

This varies with individuals. No-one is exactly the same. There is no fixed time period. Very often, the results are so subtle, people don’t see them. However, at the first followup, we homeopaths can. That’s when we can see we’re heading in the right direction, or we’ve not made any impact. Or, often, somewhere in between and we have to wait a bit more to see how it develops.

Homeopathic treatment can be a bit of a waiting game when we’re treating a chronic condition. It took years to manifest. It’s not going to vanish quickly. Being impatient is understandable, not not helpful!

I want to paraphrase an experience of a man who consulted me recently. He came about his extreme anxiety. The consultation flowed easily and it was a joy to engage with him.

Within the first couple of weeks, his anxiety lessened. His physical condition remained unchanged. However, his confidence dramatically improved. He was now able to make decsions, major decisions, that before would leave him ‘biting his nails’. He was more assertive. He had better energy. For the first time, he was able to release guilt over past errors of judgements, that troubled him.

And what most men might identify with, his sex life took an unexpected turn for the better.

Over the coming months, I expect to see his physical condition improve and his anxiety to dramatically diminish.

He may need the remedy for a year or two to maintain this. Regular followup consultations will keep track of his ongoing improvements, with possible deviations for the odd acute condition. Or even changing his main remedy.

Ultimately, he’ll be fine ‘swimming on his own’.

It’s best not to be too fixed on what to expect from a homeopathic consultation. Your focus is on what you want healed. Our focus is more on healing all of you, including what you want fixed. We want to see you back in balance energetically speaking.

Maybe we have lofty goals, but we know they’re attainable.