One of the most common misconceptions I hear about naturopathic medicine is that it’s homeopathic medicine. Sure, naturopathic medicine is widely unknown and widely misunderstood, and those who have actually heard of it tend to have widely varying interpretations of what it actually is. The error which seems to come up most often, though, is interchangeably using the terms “naturopathic medicine” and “homeopathy.”
These two healing schools are separate. True, homeopathic medicine is one modality (of many) taught in naturopathic medical school. Alongside other therapies and healing approaches as nutrition, botanical medicine, chiropractic adjustments, etc, we have multiple years of training in homeopathy and homeopathic remedies. Just like I could choose to dispense or recommend a certain herb to a patient, so could I also or instead choose to dispense or recommend a certain homeopathic remedy to a patient. These two are not the same.
A homeopathic remedy is a very-many-times diluted substance which is then administered orally or topically to treat a certain condition or set of symptoms. Essentially, back at its discovery/inception, the “father of homeopathy,” Samuel Hahnemann, discovered that giving minute doses of substances which cause a particular set of symptoms could also work to eradicate that same set of symptoms. He would administer a small amount of a crude substance which caused symptoms X, Y, and Z to appear, for example. On subsequent administration of an extremely diluted dose of that same crude substance, he observed complete symptom resolution. Thus, homeopathy was born!
Today, we can buy hundreds (at least) of different homeopathic remedies, and even many homeopathic blends. They can be used in oral or topical applications, and are one of the safest forms of medicine out there (with little to no of the original “crude substance” remaining, risk of adverse reactions and negative effects is essentially non-existent)*. The potency of a homeopathic remedy actually increases the more diluted it gets, and the potency system uses Roman numerals to denote how many times a remedy has been diluted and succussed i.e. shaken. (It’s a whole process to create a homeopathic remedy!). A 6X remedy, for example, has been diluted (1 part in 100) and succussed 6 x 10 or 60 times. A 6C remedy has been diluted and succussed 6 x 100 or 600 times. And so on. A 12X dilution is the cutoff point for whether any molecules of the original substance remain, so any potencies which are more dilute than 12X (which is most potencies used by professionals) are pure energetic remedies which no longer contain any of the original substance, but rather an energetic imprint of that substance.
Kinda crazy, right?!
*of course, always check with your doc! Homeopathic dilutions themselves are extremely safe, but they’re always carried in something – usually a liquid or a lactose pellet, and in the super rare case that someone “reacts” to a homeopathic remedy, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’re not reacting to the medicine itself but the carrier.
But let’s take a quick step back and look at the terms “homeopathic” and “allopathic.” Simply put, homeo means same and allo means different, so at the core, using homeopathic medicine is using the paradigm and practice “like cures like,” while using allopathic medicine means using something else ~ or other ~ to treat a condition. Allopathic is not all western biomedicine either; if we look at eastern healing traditions such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, we see quite obvious applications of allopathic medicine being employed: adding heat to a cool condition or vice versa, for example. Bringing it back around to naturopathic medicine, we see instances of both allopathic and homeopathic medicine being used; there’s no cut and dry way to tease apart holistic versus conventional/biomedical healing strategies and allopathic versus homeopathic methods, but suffice it to say here that homeopathic medicine is not equal to naturopathic medicine. It’s like comparing organic apples to oranges.
Homeopathic remedy selection is extremely specific, and does not work effectively if the improper remedy is chosen. It takes much familiarity with the remedies, and much information about a case, to be able to successfully match a remedy with a case, and thus see marked improvement or resolution. Homeopathic medicine is root cause medicine which can effect cures, but again, this calls for a well selected remedy as well as a “simple” case. (Nowadays, we have so many competing energies and conditions that it can be difficult to see patients in which one catch all remedy will be all they need to heal. It’s not impossible! But it does again highlight the importance of making sure the right remedy is selected.)
Naturopathic medicine is broad, all-encompassing, a complete medical system. You could compare a naturopathic doctor to an osteopathic doctor or medical doctor; we look at all systems and learn the body and pathologies in the same way. Homeopathic medicine is one small part of what some naturopathic doctors choose to implement in their practices and healing toolkits.
(If you’re interested in learning more about what naturopathic medicine is, I’ve got lots of content surrounding it floating around on my blog and social media platforms, but here’s an overview post:
This is clearly a complex topic with much more to it than a simple blog post could lay out; these healing methods are filled with history, details, and nuances. Hopefully, though, you come away today with a much more accurate understanding of homeopathy than what most people (or even you!) have/had! What questions do you still have?
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