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Book Details
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Method
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by
Mr. Alastair C. Gray
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ISBN:
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Subject Code:
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ISBN-13:
9782874910210
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Category:
BJain Archibel Books
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Format:
PB
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Readership:
Medical
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Volume:1
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Series:
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Dimension:
5.5”×8.5”
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Color:
Single
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Language:
English
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Illustrations:
No
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Publishing Date:
2011
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Rights:
W
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Edition:
First
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Pages:
450
pp
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Imprint:
BJain Archibel
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Original Price:
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USD 44
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0
% Off
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Price:USD
44.00
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About the Book 
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What are the the different methods of prescribing in homeopathy? Why is homeopathic medicine practiced so differently world wide, from one country to another, from one city, one village, one street, one consultation room to the next? It is not through any lack of tradition, research, evidence or rigour, all of which homeopathic medicine has in abundance. Rather, it is about interpretation of the key and fundamental principles of homeopathy and ultimately the immediate needs of the client and patient sitting in the consultation room in front of that practitioner. In order to take in and integrate this broad landscape, this book explores the historical, theoretical and practical application of the major methods employed by homeopaths across the globe.
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About the Author
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Alastair C. Gray heads up the homeopathy department at
Endeavour College of Natural Health in Australia. He presents
regular seminars at Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Boulder, San
Francisco, Galway in Ireland, Preston and Nottingham in England
and Bangkok. He continues to teach the residential Fusion sessions,
a post-graduate program in natural medicine, offered in New
Zealand, Australia and online. In addition, Alastair runs a general
natural medicine practice in the inner west and east of Sydney,
Australia. Clinical practice remains a significant feature of his work
with a focus in the treatment of anxiety, depression, addiction and
men’s health. He has published four books and numerous articles
on provings including Kauri, Moreton bay fig, Tea tree, Waratah,
Tar tree, Liquorice, Cactus, Kowhai, Tuberculinum, Bacilinum,
Mosquito, Cockroach, Toad, Seahorse, Pearl, Irukandjii, Medusa,
Box jellyfish and White tailed spider.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Alastair Gray makes a rare figure in homeopathy today, a practitioner and teacher with the objectivity to analyze the disparate methods of homeopathy without favoring one approach. Alastair has mapped here the entire terrain of homeopathic prescribing, from Kentian to polypharmacy. He surveys this landscape with an honest and critical eye, giving both the new and the seasoned practitioner an opportunity to reflect on what it is we do. - Kim Elia, USA
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Response to Volume One of the Landscape Series | Case TakingReading this book made me aware of what a huge task it is to become a homeopath ... of just how many pieces are involved in this one case-taking part of our process as healers. Alastair has provided a beautiful tableau for homeopathic educators and students - painting the broad strokes of a varied landscape and a plethora of fine lines as well. This is conversation about case-taking for the contemporary homeopath. And it is good. Very good. - Miranda Castro, USA
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When an author begins a thoughtful and thorough work on a complex topic with the statement that the book is the first of seven, the reader knows that they are dealing with someone who is tenacious, with vision, and with a genuine passion for their subject. Alastair Gray has all of these qualities, and more. He is an outstanding practitioner, a teacher with international credentials, and an accomplished author. This book offers the reader both a thorough description of the history of homeopathy, and a glimpse into its future. The author faces contentious issues directly, and questions existing standards with rigour.- Dr Isaac Golden, Australia
George Engel, the father of biopsychosocial medicine, once stated ‘How physicians approach patients and the problems they present is very much infl uenced by the conceptual models which organize their knowledge and experience. Commonly however physicians are largely unaware of the power such models exert on their thinking and behavior.’ Clearly this statement applies to homeopaths and homeopathic practice as well. Alistair Gray’s excellent “Method” greatly expands our awareness of the conceptual models by which we interact with clients, how we explore and comprehend “totality” in homeopathy, and in turn, how we match that totality with a remedy. This user-friendly book explores the breath, context and application of different clinical approaches in the practice of homeopathy. “Method” is the second in a series of seven books intended to summarize the landscape of homeopathic medicine. Building upon Mathur’s “Principles of Prescribing”, Tyler’s “Diff erent Ways of Finding the Remedy”, and Watson’s “A Guide to the Methodologies of Homeopathy”, one of Gray’s primary motivations for writing this book was to reconcile apparent inconsistencies within the profession. Through many examples he demonstrates how various approaches are a benefit to the profession. Rather than carrying a bias for or against certain methods, depending on the situation we may need to employ diff erent strategies beyond our usual “modus operandi”.
Gray begins by describing Hahnemann’s and Boenninghausen’s practices in relation to the totality of characteristic symptoms of disease. Then he considers Kent’s signifi cant infl uence on homeopathic practice through the emphasis on the totality of the characteristics of the person. This is followed by an in-depth exploration of the defi nitions of constitution and constitutional prescribing. All of this provides background for authors of other chapters to articulate the concepts of vital sensation, miasmatic prescribing, Scholten’s analysis and Eizayaga’s method. The fi nal chapters by Gray outline the respective rationale, justification for, and limitations of keynote prescribing, isopathy, tautopathy, organopathy, and even polypharmacy.
Gray states: ‘There is no one right way to practice homeopathy that can be applied to every clinical situation . . .One dimensional homeopathic practice, even when practiced well or even brilliantly, will only be successful in a certain number of cases. Evidence suggests that a thriving practice and successful prescriptions require fl exibility of method, and equal fl exibility in good measure as a part of one’s psychological make-up. This fl exibility allows homeopaths to know when to stop one line of thinking and treatment, and move to another strategy.’
There is so much information condensed into this single book, one can’t help but to learn something new each and every time it’s read. As with the fi rst book “Case-Taking”, even the introduction and conclusion are enough to spark the reader into refl ecting on one’s own practice and the profession as a whole. Method is a thorough and unbiased critique of all the better known methods in homeopathy, and Gray also reminds the reader how technical skills and methods, while essential, are not enough. He states ‘Our work should force us to look into ourselves, to question our own processes and to use homeopathy to help us in our own evolution. We cannot separate this personal evolution from that of our patients. We are implicated by our actions and our relationship with our patients and fellow practitioners . . . the future of homeopathy as a viable profession is dependent on how we conduct ourselves as practitioners . . . it is by our humanity that we will ultimately be measured’.
In summary, “Method” is a timely and well-researched journey through homeopathic approaches to “totality”, as well as what is required of us personally as homeopathic practitioners. I believe it will enrich the practice of each and every homeopath who reads it! Bravo, Alastair!
Reviewed by: David Johnson, CCH, RSHom (NA)
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Alastair Gray finds the multiplicity of ways in which we work a difficulty for himself and particularly for students. He has written this book to help homeopaths and students to better understand the various ways in which homeopathy is practised. Like the first volume in the series it also hopes to define best practice in response to the attacks of sceptics and the uncertainties of students and practitioners.
The first difficulty with his approach is that he starts with the methods themselves and not with the principles that lie behind them. The most important, the most characteristic thing about 2 dollar of the Organon is the last phrase- on easily comprehensible principles. There are many different forms of energy medicine but homeopathy differs from them in that it can be summed up in three simple principles- like cures like, the single remedy and the minimum dose. These apply as they stand but also have deeper meanings and further implications. The single remedy leads directly to the concept of the totality of symptoms and this is the question that Gray believes lies behind the different approaches and so is the one he looks at in the book. In the article by Richard Pitt appended to the concluding chapter, Pitt says: In homeopathy it may be necessary to ask whether too much weight is given to the influence of certain individual practitioners as opposed to the collective wisdom of homeopathic science. Gray has ignored this question and decided to define the different methodologies he describes by their most notable practitioners. This is unhelpful in that it personalizes and fragments the different approaches and makes them seem much more different and oppositional than they really were. Kent could be a keynote prescriber or a therapeutic practitioner when it was appropriate. Clarke was a classical homeopath, a keynote prescriber, a pioneer of group analysis and used many other techniques. Hering is only mentioned in the chapter on isopathy, yet he was as classical as Kent and proved the remedies, using them in a homeopathic way not isopathically. One should always hold absolutely true to ones own beliefs but be completely respectful of ones fellow practitioners and their methods. This is a principle that homeopaths need to be aware of. To a large degree it is something that Gray has been true to in this book. A number of chapters are written by practitioners who have a special understanding and experience of the method that is being described. They can therefore describe the method in a positive way and, on the whole, the book is positive about each of the methods. There are two exceptions. The chapter on polypharmacy consists mostly of the arguments against it and the chapter on Kent is extremely antagonistic. While every other area is described by someone who is an advocate of the method or philosophy, to describe the influence of Swedenborg Gray chose Francis Treuherz who is known for his antipathy to Swedenborg and who is often misleading in his description of what Swedenborg taught and how it influenced homeopathy. Swedenborg was probably the most significant scientist in Sweden at a time when Sweden was at the very centre of European science. His mysticism may have been entirely at one with his science but it is his science that explains and clarifies homeopathy and which was attractive to so many homeopaths.
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Ian Watson in his book on methodologies, which Gray justly praises, starts with “anyone who has an interest in homeopathy and familiarity with its basic principles.” Tyler is also quoted and the very title of her work Different Ways to Find the Remedy defines what should have been the focus of this book and sadly is not. She says: “in homeopathy the Remedy is the thing.” This is what all great homeopaths have acknowledged and worked towards and the best of them have always used as many techniques as they could learn, in order to find the remedy. If a fair-haired child with earache is weeping and clinging to her mother, a prescription of Pulsatilla may be fully justified with minimal confirmatory information and, given the principle of the minimum dose, this would be more homeopathic than a much more penetrating case taking and analysis. This is not to say that every homeopath must come up with the same remedy. Each patient is individual as is each homeopath and each healing path is a unique combination of patient, disease, and practitioner.
One of the important concepts that is not addressed in this work is that of “what is to be cured?” It is the question of “what is the totality” that Gray considers to be the thing that is distinct between all the different methods. However, it is the question of what is to be cured that leads directly to the defining of what constitutes the totality.
Looking at the totality without referring back to what is to be cured leads to an appearance that the choice of totality is at the whim of the practitioner rather than guided by principle. Our predecessors recognized what needed to be addressed and prescribed accordingly. A person with an acute cold would be treated for that; a person with a deep personal, emotional crisis would be treated for that. Further modifying this is the question of what is curable and what is not. It is a question that was of enormous importance to Hahnemann as well as to Kent and his associates. It is one that has very much been ignored or avoided in contemporary homeopathy. Kent would never have dreamed of offering a deep acting remedy in a case that he saw as incurable. Vithoulkas has done us a great service in reminding us of this, particularly in Levels of Health, and it would have been helpful to have had some discussion of this issue included in the book.
This work has interesting discussions of many of the ways that homeopathy is and has been practised. For the experienced practitioner or teacher it does not include much that they did not already know; for the uncertain and bewildered student it is probably too complicated to clarify the range of methods in use in homeopathy. The real problem with it though is that it turns priorities upside down. The famous practitioners appear to be more important than the methods and the methods appear to be more important than the simple question of finding the remedy. This approach in turn makes the various methods seem to be more different than they really are. As a homeopath I use all of the methods described here. They form a continuum and are all part of the work I do, which is simply to find the remedy.
Reviewed by : Peter Fraser, Canada
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