Can a case be made for the use of homeopathy in the treatment of depression?

Cognitive behaviour therapists believe that “thoughts, expectations, and interpretation of events- are important determinants of behaviour”. In this method of treatment, the therapist attempts to help the patient control disturbing emotional reactions, such as anxiety and depression, by teaching more effective ways of interpreting and thinking about experiences. Psychodynamic therapies use various techniques to discover the client’s problems, one of them being dream analysis. This consists of “talking about the content of ones dreams and then free associating to that content”5.1. Humanistic therapies emphasize the individual’s natural tendency toward growth and self-actualisation. Client-centered therapy developed in the 1940’s, is based on the assumption that “each individual is the best expert on himself or herself and that people are capable of working out solutions to their own problems”5.2 and the purpose of the therapist is merely to facilitate this process.

There are various forms of depression, with the most common form being clinical depression. Another form is when one alternates between two extreme states, where one of the extreme states is depression and the other is mania, and which is classified as bipolar I disorder.  “Manic episodes may alternate with periods of deep depression”. Only about 1 percent of adults are affected by this condition and men and women are affected about equally.  Bipolar II disorder is even less common. The patient alternates between major depressive episodes and hypomania, which is less severe than the phases of mania in bipolar I disorder6.  Some authorities have suggested that severe traumatic events during childhood may lead to biological changes in the brain that lead to adulthood depression in those who are prone to it. Less speculatively, there is evidence that stressful life events are more clearly related to the onset of earlier, rather than to later, episodes of depression.

Modern clinical psychology speculates that depression is largely based on a neurotransmitter-receptor mechanism. Figure 1 shows this relationship. Research suggests that mood disorders may result from changes in the sensitivity of the neuronal receptors but the  precise nature of these neurotransmitter-receptor mechanisms, and just how they affect mood, is not yet fully understood6. It is also said that bipolar disorder is genetic and people who are closely related to someone who had bipolar disorder are more likely to get it than those who are not. There is an ongoing search for the specific genes which could be involved in the transmission of increased risk for mood disorders6. an increasing amount of money is being spent on research to try and find the cause of depression. However, it seems that we are not getting closer to a solution and people are continuing to suffer from this disorder.

Figure 1 is a diagram showing the neurotransmitter/receptor mechanism:

3.5 Some ‘problems’ with treatment:

The problem with modern psychology and psychiatry is that they often treat diseases chemically e.g. using tranquillisers or Prozac resulting in side effects such as addiction. If someone is in a state of depression, they follow a certain emotional and behavioural pattern. They experience days where they feel good, but other days when they feel “down” and after some time, they may be stable again. This is the natural cycle for a depression. When a patient is treated with Prozac, Prozac simply ‘hides’ the days where the patient feels low in order to allow the patient to reach a stable state without putting them through the bad days. Some patients are be able to work through their problem with Prozac and eventually reach a stage where they are able to overcome their problem, but others will just not be able to cope and never break the pattern thus remaining in a vicious circle of illness and drug dependency.  This is when addiction to Prozac comes in and so the patient very rarely gets cured. Another downside to antidepressants is that they have many side effects such as dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation, severe drops in blood pressure upon standing up, and changes in heart rate and rhythm. Sometimes an overdose of try cyclic antidepressants can even be fatal.

One other problem with treating a patient with psychotherapy is that it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of psychotherapy. In 1952 British psychologist Hans Eysenck reviewed studies evaluating the effectiveness of psychotherapy and concluded that psychotherapy did not work. People who had received psychotherapy “fared no better than people who were not treated or were placed on the waiting list”. Also, psychotherapy is long term and expensive, often excluding those very patients who are at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum and by definition are more likely to have reason to be depressed.

3.6 Some conclusions:

As a result, the search for antidepressants that are more effective, have fewer side effects, and act more quickly has increased over the past few years. New drugs appear on the market almost daily and are even advertised on television.  However, even these latest and newest drugs have severe side effects such as dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, nervousness and inhibited orgasms8.1.

Given the problems mentioned above concerning the chemical treatment of depression and the seeming lack of effectiveness of modern psychotherapy, what other alternatives are there? In my research, on different therapies, I found that one is supported by the National Health Service in Britain which is homeopathy.

4. Homeopathy:

Homeopathy has been in use for about 250 years. It was founded in Germany by Samuel Hahnemann M.D. It is used in many countries and is spreading very rapidly. 40% of French M.D.’s have treated 40% of the French public. 40% of the Dutch people use homeopathy, 42% of family physicians refer to homeopaths, 20% of German, 20% of Scottish physicians have had training in homeopathy. India, Mexico and South America are also centres of widespread homeopathic practice. The royal family in England has used and supported homeopathy extensively since 1830. More than 20 homeopathic schools or part time courses flourish in England including a course for medical doctors at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. India has more than a 100,000 homeopathic practitioners and more than 120 homeopathic medical colleges.  A 1991 review of over 100 homeopathic research studies published between 1966 and 1990 showed that homeopathy showed positive results in 76 % of the studies in many conditions including psychological problems.

4.1 Basic principles:

There are three basic principles of Homeopathy. The similar principle, potentisation, and individualisation. Similia similibus curentur, or “Let likes be cured by likes” is what the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, proclaimed as the universal law of healing with medicinal substances. Homeopathy uses medicine or physical agencies to reproduce or imitate the symptom-picture of an illness. In 1790 Hahnemann was experimenting with Peruvian Chinchona, the source of Quinine used to treat malaria. He decided to take a dose of the bark and soon felt cold, numb, and drowsy, with thirst prostration and aching bones. He immediately recognised that these were the symptoms of malaria and thus assumed that was the reason it was successful in the treatment of that condition. After the dose wore off he tried it two or three times just to be sure he experienced the same results.  He began to investigate other medicines on himself, his colleagues and his students in the same way he experimented with the Chinchona. After recording the results he found that.

1. each medicinal substance produces a distinctive combination of signs and symptoms in healthy volunteers and
2. that medicines whose symptom pictures most likely match the illness to be treated are the ones most likely to initiate a curative response, by a virtue of that correspondence.

4.2 similar principle:

The outward signs of illness represent the automatic self-healing mechanism at work, in which case the similar remedy would need only to assist and strengthen such efforts to lead them to their proper conclusion. The challenge in homeopathy is to pick one substance from nature that truly matches the patient’s symptoms. Rather than giving many different drugs to a patient, a homeopath gives one single remedy that is individualised according to the patient’s pattern of disease. “Homeopaths treat the patients not the disease”. The similar principle is also known to modern medicine.  Some examples are: Nitroglycerine is used allopathically to treat angina pectoris but it’s provings on a healthy person show cardiac symptoms. Colchicum provings show numerous gout symptoms. It is used both homeopathically and allopathically to treat gout. Digitalis provings showed heart symptoms and it is used both homeopathically and allopathically to treat heart conditions. This, of course, is a crude form of homeopathy but this proves that modern medicine is using the same basic principle as homeopathy.

4.3 Potentisation:

The next homeopathic principle is potentisation. As Hahnemann treated his patients homeopathically, he found that they were only getting better after a definite period of aggravation. He felt obliged to dilute the remedies and he discovered that the remedies continue to be effective even at concentrations to minute to be detected and that brief, vigorous shaking or “succussion” of the remedy before each dilution actually enhances its healing in a subtle way. In recent scientific investigations in South Korea, German scientist, Kurt Geckeler discovered that the dilution of a solution of buckminster fullerine “typically made the molecules cluster into aggregates 5 to 10 times as big as those in the original solutions.” and this finding may provide a mechanism for how homeopathic remedies worked, that “diluting a remedy may increase the size of the particles to the point when they become biologically active”17.

There has been increasing use of homeopathy even in the National Health Service in Britain to treat various common psychological problems such as anxiety, stress, depression and insomnia, to name just a few. In a recent NHS study, the treatment of these diseases and results of the treatments were recorded and published to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of homeopathy. Some of the results include; a patient with chronic insomnia improved 100% and was not taking any medication to begin with. Another patient had mood swings, work stress, and an eating disorder. They had visited the general practitioner twice and after trying homeopathy and improving 100%, they didn’t visit the GP again. Another case: The conditions were anxiety and depression. After visiting the GP 8 times with no improvement homeopathy was given. There was a 90% improvement and 100% in drug reduction. They did not visit the GP again. Although these are all cases of successful treatments there are some which weren’t so successful. According to this NHS study, 19% of the patients were less than 50% better after treatment. However, this still shows that homeopathy has a high success rate in treating patients and actually curing the diseases in the long run without side effects.

Homeopathy doesn’t consider depression a disease but rather a part of a general symptom picture of the patient.  In the following case of a woman treated for depression and Crohn’s disease I will mention some of the main symptoms she was experiencing.  Due to the lack of space for this paper, I cannot mention all of the symptoms but I have chosen the main points to illustrate how this patient was treated with homeopathy and improved in her overall health. (Case study taken from Ibis 99)

This woman was a dancer but due to her Crohn’s disease, she could no longer dance or do any sports. She became depressed and eventually went to see a homeopath. She was treated in 1992. She came to the homeopath diagnosed with “aggressive Crohn’s disease in anus and colitis”. She said that “Last year [she] was depressed, from [her] pain and poor health. [She] had to drag [her] self to work, [and] resisted taking antidepressants.” She felt that her life was “a series of losses”. She’s always liked people but for a time she couldn’t be around them. On moving to Portland she had an aversion to people, and almost had a panic attack in the market. She also had many dreams of her dead father and “Active dreams of dead people”. She had dreams of dying. She said that she had lost 12 pounds in one month, and had a decrease in sexual energy. She felt she needed to “protect her body”. She got very irritable and felt “wiped out” all the time because of “severe gas pain” and diarrhea. She also experienced really bad burning pain in her abdominal cavity.

As you can see, her symptoms fit the depression criteria exactly but her other symptoms were also observed and used to determine the appropriate remedies.  After seeing the homeopath, she was eventually given Thuja and improved dramatically. By 1995 she was still improving and doing well, her sexual energy was much better, she gained weight, was more social, and even went on a one month bike ride in Europe. Her fissures in her anus closed up and she had normal bowel movements with no pain. She was also able to eat many foods which she would have never been able to previously. She also mentions that she’s “grateful to be alive”.

If this had been a case treated with conventional medicine, drugs would have been used to try and treat the fissures in her anus and another for the colitis. In addition to this, antidepressants would have been prescribed and would thus have been taking a number of drugs for very different conditions. The side effects of the drugs would have probably made her Crohn’s disease worse and she would have probably relapsed. To get an idea of how homeopathy uses the language of psychology in a totally different way, the symptom picture of Thuja as described in the homeopathic literature is as follows.

     Although most of the 3000 remedies comprising the materia medica of Hahnemann were known before his time, Thuja is one of Hahnemann's discoveries.

Thuja individuals sustain wounds early in life that penetrate deeply into their psyches because of their tremendous fragility and vulnerability.   J.  T. Kent a renowned homeopath illuminates the psychic state of Thuja when he describes a woman with the fixed idea that she is very delicate, that she is made of glass and that she might break.  Thuja children have a predisposition to psychic fragility and their stability is further fractured by various forms of serious neglect and physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.  A common thread in the history of Thuja patients is the experience of rejection and unprovoked and undeserved punishment.  As one patient said about his relationship with his mother, "I was not what she wanted, and she let me know it."20 

     Thuja individuals then produce a particular type of wall, whose purpose is to deflect criticism and rejection by obscuring the person's true nature.  Thuja individuals become reserved and suspicious, instead of expressing their emotions.  They attempt to gain control and security by carefully assessing the emotional climate and showing little of themselves.  They shelter themselves by becoming introverted, moody, and self-absorbed.  Always guarded, Thuja individuals might also be overtly deceptive, manipulating other people and generating misinformation. Their goal is to protect themselves by refusing to allow other people to penetrate their veneer.  They will go to great lengths to avoid being seen by others.  

     Many Thuja individuals are creative and dramatic.  They seek to release their tightly guarded emotions through artistic expression.  Though Thuja individuals can appear to be comfortable in social settings, most admit to feeling alienated — dwelling forever outside the warm circle of friends and intimates.  They tend to appease themselves by indulging to excess in alcohol or drugs because of the lack of experience of fraternity.  Gradually, their systems become eroded by self-reproach, guilt, and depression.  Eventually, they can reach a state of intense apathy and a suicidal loathing of life.  

   The mask of Thuja is often well-composed.  Thuja individuals can appear to be fully in control of their lives.  They are often very fastidious in the construction of their persona. They can present as timid and shy, or they can create a facade of sensual excitement and intrigue.  Overall, Thuja individuals will, during the homeopathic interview, reveal only what they want and nothing more.  Many physical symptoms are associated with Thuja, including warts, growths, catarrhal discharges, left-sided headaches, and many conditions of the female and male genitalia.

5. Homeopathy vs. Psychology:

Although there are superficial similarities between psychology and homeopathy, their approach is fundamentally different. In order to prescribe a remedy or medicine when analysing a patient both in homeopathy and psychology or psychiatry, doctors must sit with a patient and try to figure out what is wrong in order to help them. This time consuming process may be therapeutic in itself.  In other psychological problems such as anxiety, depression and various others, talking out the problem with a psychologist can help the patient a great deal. Homeopathy is similar in this way in that the actual case taking can last up to 90 minutes. One girl that was sexually molested continually wet her bed and had severe cases of cystitis was treated by a homeopath. Her father didn’t believe that she was molested and as a result had become very hypersensitive. She had been given a remedy and was improving. Her mother also said that the daughter “talked a lot about [their] visit and the way [the homeopath] listened, and seemed relieved to share the sexual stuff with [him]”. “Psychotherapists notice that their clients who visit homeopaths get through their life dramas much more quickly than clients who do not”. Talking helps a great deal to be able to deal with a problem better but naturally it is not the only thing that will cure the patient. It merely helps to discuss the problems in order to be able to start the curing process.

However, in determining the criteria which will decide the method of treatment, the two approaches are different. In modern medicine, drugs are prescribed for the disease that a patient has. It doesn’t take into consideration the patients past, or the patient as a unique individual. One example of a psychological disease where this happens is Attention Deficit Disorder. Ten patients with ADD may need ten different homeopathic medicines. Their individual differences are what lead the homeopath to choose a particular medicine to help them lead an adjusted, happier and more productive life.

5.1 Individualisation:

In the view of homeopathy, all these patients have very different symptoms and are given the individualized remedy, yet in modern medicine they are all given the same medicine. A simpler example of this is the flu; one person might have bones aching, the other may have a headache, and the third may have a high fever but they are all given the same allopathic medicine whereas in homeopathy, they might be given different medicines. The single remedy is selected to cover the whole picture of the person since it is the whole person who is sick, not just one part.

The homeopath sincerely seeks to understand the uniqueness of the patient. Homeopathic case-taking involves taking all aspects of the psychosomatic into consideration. Homeopathy is very different from psychology because it takes into consideration physical symptoms as well as the emotional symptoms of a patient.

        “Homeopathy perceives that there is one soul [psyche] in one body and from this it naturally follows that there is only one core problem at any one time and therefore only one healing intervention, one remedy, is needed, to create a curative action”. In the same way that provings define each remedy as the unique ensemble of signs and symptoms that it can produce in healthy people, homeopaths define illness as the totality of observable responses that is equally characteristic of the patient. As the true reflection of the inner state, the overall symptom-picture becomes the chief goal of the clinical examination of the patient, and of the search for the remedy that best matches it. Every person has a remedy that suits them. When the symptoms are all put together, one remedy is chosen that fits the symptom picture very closely.

13. Conclusion:

Homeopathy seems to be more widespread now than ever because of its clinical success with patients. It seems to offer safer option than conventional drug therapy and is more cost effective because if the right remedy is chosen, the patient will not have to take it again. Patients and doctors need to be informed that there may be an alternative to conventional drug therapy especially in cases where such interventions either do not work or do not harm by creating severe physical side effects or drug or therapist dependency. Based upon the above, it does seem that there is a case for including homeopathy in the range of treatments available for depression and perhaps even as the major form of treatment.

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