Homoeopathy in mental illnesses

Mental illness is a disturbance in feelings, thought or behavior of such magnitude that it impairs the ability to function in everyday life and get along with others.

In some cases it may involve a sense of inner pain or turmoil and an inappropriate perception of reality, while in others it may include unrealistic feelings of grandeur and self-assurance. Like physical illness, many mental illnesses, as defined by psychiatrists and other experts in the field, are identified by a number of characteristic symptoms, ages of onset and patterns of recurrence. For instance, schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness and panic disorder do not generally strike until late adolescence or early adulthood. Each then pursues a distinctive course during a person’s life span, if not cured through homoeopathy.

While treating the mentally ill, a homoeopath has to fight on two fronts: i) against the disease itself and ii) against the effects of previous medications. The treatment can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, the patient is put on the indicated homoeopathic remedy and gradually taken off the tranquillizers and sedatives. This is not usually easy and demands extraordinary patience both from the patient (and his/her relatives) and the homoeopath. In the second phase, a deep acting medicine covering the general, characteristic as well as topmost miasmatic symptoms of the patient is prescribed in a moderate dose together with the indicated medicine in a low potency. The treatment may last from six months to a year or even longer depending upon the nature and chronicity of the problem, extent of the adverse effects of previous medications, response of the patient to homoeopathic treatment, etc.

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