On Becoming A Professional Homeopath

A long and arduous jorney.

Photo by Daniel Fazio on Unsplash

Following on the completion of my studies last year with the International Academy of Classical Homeopathy (IACH) under Professor George Vithoulkas, I have now been accepted as a Professional Homeopath by the Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA). It has taken over 20 years for me to achieve this designation. This post is autobiographical as it maps my journey through the ever changing climate of the Australian education system in relation to Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Australia.

So what was I before? A self proclaimed homeopath I suppose.

I started studying back in the 1990’s. I had started a Diploma of Naturopathy and completed one unit in Naturopathic Philosophy and then I switched from Naturopathy to study Homeopathy. This was mainly because of the $100’s of prescription I would receive from visiting a naturopath against a few dollars for a homeopathic remedy. I thought “why am I studying a profession where I am reluctant to pay for those prescriptions?”

I aquired my first Diploma of Homeopathy in 2004 through The British Institute of Homeopathy (BIH) based in London, which at the time was the premier school of distance education in the world. Many homeopaths from Pakistan and Iran studied with this school before going on to create their own schools. It took me 4 or 5 years studying part-time, most of that time I was living overseas as well. This was in the early days of the internet when education materials were sent physically through the post and I posted written assignments back to the school. I saw the change to be able to submit assignments via email which saved a lot on going postage costs.

During this time I joined an on-line community called minutus@yahoogroups.com Yahoo groups were before Facebook and it was a great coming together of many homeopaths from all around the world. Here I was exposed to many well known names in the homeopathic world. People like Julian Winston, David Little, Kate Birch, and many, many others often contributed to the conversations. This is where I learnt about vaccinations, the cholesterol myth, Dr Paul Dresden and the HIV saga. It was through the times of SARS-1, Ebola, the anthrax mail scare, with the usual run of homeopaths trying to preempt the homeoprophylaxis remedy for each of these world medical emergencies. So you can see that by the time SARS-2 came along, I had well and truly been there and done that!

The group was moderated by Dr Ardavan Shahadar, an Iranian homeopath who, at the time was the head of the Faculty of Homeopathy within the Ministry of Health of Iran. I had the pleasure of meeting with him for coffee in Dubai. Fun fact - due to economic sanctions against Iran, they have not been able to obtain many conventional pharmaceutical drugs, so homeopathy is a big part of their medical system out of necessity, a bit like the situation in Cuba. Dr Shahadar was ahead of his time producing on-line courses via email, of which I did a few. This was all stopped when the Iranian regime closed the internet to outside influence.

On my return to Australia in 2004, I was invited to join the AHA and become registered with the Australian Register of Homeopaths (ARoH). But they didn’t recognise my Diploma because I had studied via distance education and not in a bricks and mortar school. How times have changed! I would have to sit an exam to satisfy entrance requirements. My personal life wasn’t really supportive of me setting up in practice at that time so I didn’t go ahead with this.

Jump ahead another 6 years, I’m now a single parent and thought about getting back into homeopathy. I was using remedies on my son and animals and knew how useful this modality was. I completed the “Homeopathy in Practice, Advanced Case Taking and Repertorization” certificate in 2011. This was a short course conducted by BIH. I did it to get my brain back into the concept of studying, with view to study their Post Graduate Diploma.

I embarked on this latter Diploma in conjunction with the New South Wales School of Natural Therapies, in Coffs Harbour. This was called Advanced Diploma of Homeopathy with the BIH covering the homeopathic subject matter and the school providing all the biosciences modules. A win/win for me as it created the eligibility with Centrelink (Australia’s welfare system) for me to meet their return to work criteria and maintain my welfare payment while still being able to stay at home with my son.

But this entered the era of significant changes in the CAM education space. There was a movement in Australia to move CAM from Advanced Diploma to Bachelor Degree. This caused a great upheaval in the industry with many schools closing down.

Well, BIH closed down and was sold. It moved to New York state and is now called BIH International headed by Maria Bohle. Then the NSW School of Natural Therapies closed down, the student base was transferred to Heath Schools Australia - which didn’t have homeopathy on their curriculum. That was ok, I was able to keep studying with BIH International. I converted my Australian studies to Advance Diploma of Nutritional Medicine to meet my welfare requirements. Then this school closed down! To mitigate transfering to yet another school, I managed to complete this diploma by making a Herculean effort to complete the remaining 12 months worth of work in 2 months! I had originally intended to continue on with studies with HSA by doing the modules in Western Herbal Medicine. I had thought that I could combine the Advanced Diplomas in Nutrition and Herbalism with Homeopathy as my elective and come out with a naturopath title, simply because it seems to be more recognisable to the public than Homeopath. Alas, with the changes in the education sphere, it was no longer possible to do exams with an external exam supervisor, they all had to be conducted on campus combined with attending student clinic on campus as well instead of sitting in with a local practitioner. On campus means the school in a major metropolitan area, the closest one being 1400km away from where I live. This was not possible for me with a small child and a herd of dairy goats! So I gave up on the idea.

A year later I completed my studies with BIH International and was awarded Diploma of Homeopathic Medicine in 2015. I then approached ARoH again for inclusion on their register. But they still didn’t like that I’d studied on-line. I had started accruing clinic hours with some local homeopaths, one of which told me not to worry about ARoH for the time being. Unfortunately she died an untimely death and I let things go again.

My time spent studying did allow me to remain a stay at home Mum until my son was 9 years old, for which I am very grateful for.

I returned to work as a radiographer to pay my bills and this absorbed me for the time.

And then came the era of SARS-2. I lost my job as a radiograper for a period of 9 months. I fell back on homeopathy. I had heard in circles that the IACH course was deemed acceptable by the registering boards. I had been reading the books of Vithoulkas for the entire time I had been exposed to homeopathy. I deeply wanted to study the course but could never quite validate to myself to spend the money to essentially re-do what I’d already studied, especially being a single Mum. But this era taught me that if there is something you want to do in life, you ought to just do it. So I parted with the money and signed up.

This course did reinforce what I had learnt before and deepened it quite considerably. It brought me back to the roots of homeopathy which is Similia Similia Curentur. I have looked at some of the “new” homeopathy ideas that abound today, tried a few, had miserable results with them and it was a blessing to be immersed in what I know to be true - one remedy at a time will heal.

Despite all this formal education, I probably learnt the most practical knowledge in my two weeks at Homeopathy For Health in Africa under Jeremy and Camilla Sherr. I blogged a bit about this experience here

So here I am, a Professional Homeopath at long last.

But here’s the rub, due to other events in the Australian political climate, homeopathy is still not recognised as a functioning modality and is not covered by health insurance companies for insurance rebates. This is due to two factors. 1. The NHMRC information paper: evidence on the effectiveness of homeopathy for treating health conditions of 2015 which was particularly damming for homeopathy and despite energetic opposition from within the homeopathic community the resolve has not been reversed. 2. The Review of the Australian Government Rebate on Natural Therapies for Private Health Insurance in 2015 which removed 17 modalities from insurance rebates, although 7 are in process of being claimable again, the process towards this is fraught with difficulty.

Homeopathy has ruffled the feathers of the established medical community since it’s inception. Homeopaths are very familiar with attacks to their healing art. However we soldier on because it works. I’ve tried to let the idea of being a homeopath go but it is part of my blood now, I simply can’t ignore it. I’ve come to recognise that being part of the community of homeopaths helps to strengthen the cause. I’m looking forward to becoming involved with the homeopathic network as to date I have pretty much kept to myself.

I continue working on the business side of being a homeopath too. I’ve recently extended my clinic hours to be more flexible for people working and can now take on-line payments, which is a bit of buzz for me. Check my website for details here