In light of the extremely sad and heartbreaking news of the recent school shooting in Connecticut, I would like to write a brief note about how homeopathy may be of help in preventing such unbelievable atrocities in the world.
In homeopathy, there are people with a healthy constitution (with a descent level of mental/emotional/physical health), and then there are people with a rather unhealthy constitution. Fortunately, most people in society tend to have what we homeopaths would consider a healthy constitution (such as Calc carb, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Sulphur, etc.) Unfortunately, on the other hand, there are some of us who are not very healthy, and are in fact, either fully or borderline insane. People with these unhealthier constitutions live in every society on the planet, and picking them out among the general population tends to require great medical knowledge and skill. They can go under the radar of most people except for perhaps highly qualified mental health practitioners (therapists and doctors) and/or homeopaths. In homeopathic medicine, we are trained to look for extremely subtle clues to find out about the level of mental health in an individual. The more unhealthy constitutions include Mercurius, Syphilinum, Hyoscyamus, Veratrum album, etc. Some such constitutions indeed have homicidal tendencies. They may in fact be very nice people, but the tendency to hurt others is present deep in their mind (despite their own possible dislike of the presence of such tendencies in themselves). In fact, they may at times readily admit to such tendencies in order to receive help. I have at times had the fortune of helping such individuals, and have witnessed how homeopathy can alleviate these unhealthy tendencies very effectively.
Treating individuals with psycho-emotional complaints/disorders who have a healthy constitution is often doable without homeopathy. Unfortunately, however, effectively treating individuals with the unhealthy constitutions with psycho-emotional disturbances is, to my knowledge, significantly more difficult, if not impossible in some cases, without homeopathic treatment. In other words, conventional approaches to treating psycho-emotional disorders which often involve psychotherapy and/or pharmaceutical medications may not be effective in treating individuals who have these unhealthy constitutions.
I heard on the news that scientists are now looking more in-depth into genetic markers for mental disorders. Although genes do play a role in our mental/physical health, homeopaths believe that there is another entity which we inherit from our parents and bring into the world with us at birth called miasm, predisposing us to various physical and/or mental-emotional imbalances or disorders. There are three main miasms: psora, sycosis (not to be confused with psychosis which is a term used in psychology to refer to mental illness), and syphilis. There are various homeopathic remedies that are predominantly used for the treatment of each miasm. For example, the remedies Calc carb and Sulphur are both psoric remedies (meaning they can be used to treat the psoric miasm in us). Medorrhinum and Thuja are sycotic remedies (meaning they can be used to treat the sycotic miasm in us). And, Mercurius and Syphilinum are syphilitic remedies (meaning they can be used to treat the syphilitic miasm in us). There are many other remedies in each category, but the aforementioned remedies are the classical ones that are often associated with their perspective miasms listed above. We all have all the three miasms in us. The question is which miasm has a grip on us, and how much? If we have inherited more of the syphilitic miasm from our parents, we are much more likely to have a destructive nature. In other words, homeopathically speaking, the criminally minded people tend to be much more syphilitic in nature. Health is a state where the three miasms are in balance in a person. To bring the miasms in balance, homeopathic treatment is absolutely necessary. Therefore, to treat a person with homicidal and destructive tendencies, he would most likely need to be treated with a syphilitic remedy. Although drugs can suppress such tendencies, I am not certain if they are indeed curative. Homeopathic remedies, on the other hand, are designed to be curative, and I have personally seen them be highly effective in improving very deep-seated mental/emotional imbalances (including destructive tendencies) in my patients.
Therefore, as a doctor who specializes in homeopathy, I wish our society could be aware enough so that everyone would have an annual visit to their homeopath to make certain their mental/emotional health is satisfactory. If the homeopath finds any imbalances or unhealthy tendencies (such as the tendency to hurt others) in the patient, then the patient could be treated homeopathically before he actually acts upon such tendencies.
May God help us all develop the awareness necessary to make this shift as well as other positive shifts possible on our planet.
Dr. Sharif