Happy New Year!

Well before I move into the Homeopathic New Year, I thought I would mention a homeopathic conference I went to last June in my home country Ireland. It was part of the “Big Walkabout” trip that my partner and I made in 2007 (which included India, Nepal, England, Scotland and Israel).

I didn’t bring a camera to the event but luckily Miranda Castro wrote about the event in her blog with some fantastic photos. Miranda also wrote a commentary on my homeland with pictures of the landscape I know so well.

The 3 day seminar was the 14^th Irish Society of Homeopath’s Conference held in the campus of the University of Galway in early June. It was originally created by Nuala Eising (who established The Burren School of Homeopathy and where I started my homeopathic training) to allow homeopaths from around the world to share information and of course to have the “craic” in the evenings. When Nuala closed her school to move on to other things, the newly established Galway School of Homeopathy kept the tradition going.

My Australian friend Therese Shannon arrived to experience the Irish homeopathic scene on a round trip which included France. If you squint very carefully at Miranda’s photos of the conference you can see two red heads in the audience - that’s us!

Speakers included Jayesh Shah with a very interesting case of Agaricus muscarius. Misha Norland talked about a new proving of the hair taken from ‘The Mother” which opens up a whole new area of possible proving’s in the future.

Angela Bracken, an Irish Drama therapist indicated how the therpay could help in homeopathic consultations with children. She had us up at one stage singing and dancing.

Dr. Brian Kaplan talked about his method in case taking including techniques from Provocative Therapy. He was hilarious and had us all bent over in laughter. His book “Homeopathic Conversation” is a must for any serious homeopath on case taking.

Dr.Jurgen Becker talked about potency and the different energies revealed by 6c, 30c, 200c etc. He used Guinness in various potencies as an example (as all Irish have an intimate knowledge of this substance).  Dr. Elizabeth Thompson looked at The Bombay method and its use in treatment of complex disease. Roger van Zandvoort talked about the Bonninghausen versus the Kentian method and their benefits and drawbacks.

Dana Ullman closed the conference by promoting his new book, “Homeopathic Revolution: Why famous People and Cultural Heros Choose Homeopathy” and explaining how Darwin, Mother Teresa and Beethoven used homeopathy as well as current people such as the British Royal Family, Tina Turner, Cher, Axl Rose, Moby and Dizzy Gillespie.

For myself, one of the highlights was Dr.Amy Rothenberg who gave us examples of case taking and successful treatment with a method developed by her husband, Dr.Paul Herscu - ‘Cycles and Segments’. She claimed that in her experience, 20 homeopathic medicines would help 85 - 90% of children. The list was…

• Baryta Carb
• Belladonna
• Bufo rana
• Calc carb
• Carcinosin
• Hyoscyamus
• Ignatia
• Lachesis
• Lycopodium
• Medorrhinum
• Mercurius
• Natrum mur
• Nux vomica
• Phosphorus
• Pulsatilla
• Silica
• Sulphur
• Thuja
• Tuberculinum
• Veratrum album

The other highlight was Miranda Castro’s talk. She talked about her last 20 years experience in her homeopathic practice. She gave humorous stories of mistakes and achievements and broke a lot of homeopathic myths such as coffee being a good antidote! She has found this is not the case and finds  the same remedy in a lower potency works best or looking at the antidotes in Boericke and trying those in material substance (only if safe of course!). The other myth is that patients have to suffer (aggravation) before getting better. This does not have to be the case if potency is carefully evaluated.

Overall I had a great time and it was so good to catch up with old friends.

The conference takes place each year in June in Galway, Ireland for those of y0u who may be interested in the future.