Disclaimer: Any views or advice in this weblog should not be taken as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, especially if you know you have a specific health complaint. Prescribed medication should not be stopped or varied without conventional medical advice. Please remember that homeopathic remedies and other health measures should be individually-selected to match the whole person, not just the unwelcome symptom. Seek professional advice rather than self-prescribing if your complaint is chronic, severe or long-standing, or if you are pregnant, elderly or on orthodox medications

One of my patients had a party last week, to celebrate her recovery from cancer, thank those who helped her on her healing journey, and to launch a wonderful new self-healing tool she’s devised, called Lifting Your Spirits. It was great to meet and mingle with so many interesting folk (including other past patients), and to hear what my patient has been up to since her homeopathic treatment ended. I’m also really keen to order a copy of Lifting Your Spirits for the clinic: it’s a pack containing a practical guide to coping with illness, and two CDs, designed to help people coping with illness or disability, and it’s been endorsed by the British Holistic Medical Association, Help the Hospices, New Approaches to Cancer, and the Chronic Fatigue Society, most of whom were represented at the party.
Drawing on the insights of those who’ve experienced the challenges of serious illness, the low-cost pack and CDs introduce seven simple tools (including meditation and visualisation) to develop inner strength, and enhance wellbeing on all levels. Some of the tools focus on preparing for surgery and conventional treatment, others on coping with pain, anxiety or depression. The guide can be used by individuals on their own (perhaps while having chemotherapy), introduced into patient support groups, hospices, day centres and other healthcare services, or used to benefit carers and healthcare practitioners to look after themselves while they care, and it’s a really worthwhile project. My plan is to be able to lend it out to patients who need it, if they don’t want to buy their own copy.
I’ve always considered that we need all and every tool to help us on our healing journey: regular readers of this blog will know that I’m by no means a fundamentalist, and that I understand that there’s a place for conventional drugs and certainly for surgery: it’s just that these can often be used as a measure of last, rather than first, resort (after proper diagnosis and consideration of the options and context, of course).
As a therapist, it’s very easy to start to think that one’s own type of therapy is the only worthwhile one: I recently launched Brighton & Hove Therapies (www.brightonandhovetherapies.com), because I know that sometimes my patients need something other than homeopathy. The new venture means that I can now refer patients for hypnotherapy, massage, nutritional therapy, kinesiology, psychotherapy or counselling, as well as for more fun and relaxing treats like organic facials and holistic face lift massage. It’s great to have these other therapists on site, and patients appreciate being able to get their different therapists to discuss their case and work together.
I’ve benefited from a similar approach myself: during my own on-going recovery from multiple sclerosis and another neurological condition, I’ve been helped by homeopathy, Western herbal medicine, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, cranial osteopathy, meditation, massage, reflexology, nutritional medicine and kinesiology (which does rather make me sound like Edina, Jennifer Saunders’s character from Absolutely Fabulous), and it would have been great if my different therapists had been able to work in an integrated way!

For more information about homeopathy and natural approaches to healthcare, visit www.phoenixhomeopathy.com and for information about nasal douching, visit www.holistic2go.com