How are homoeopathic remdies chosen?

There are thousands of homeopathic remedies, and unlike prescribing Western medications, like antibiotics for infections, homeopathic remedies are chosen with both the patient and the condition to be treated in mind. Huh? Well, not for an acute situation, such as a fall resulting in bruises — almost every homeopathic prescriber would tell you to take some arnica. Other conditions, however, differ from person to person. Even if the symptoms are the same, for instance, a cold with a cough, congestion, and lethargy, how we as individuals respond is quite different. Some of us might go to work as usual and try to ignore it. Another person might stay home in bed. A third might go to the gym, steam in the sauna, and buy out the over-the-counter cold treatment aisle at Whole Foods. The homeopath, as I have said before, tries to match the remedy with the person and his or her coping strategies. The practitioner will asses the acuteness of the situation, whether it is a chronic, a recurring, or a deteriorating condition; how rapid is its onset and its response to treatment, etc. The practitioner will also be assessing the patient — how is the mood? Anxious, depressed, cheerful — this is all data. Two major ways that homeopaths classify remedies are through kingdom and miasm. Kingdoms are mainly mineral, plant, and animal (although there are weird ones like fungi and inponderables, and then there are nosodes, which I’m not going to even try to explain here) and are the source material for the remedy. Miasms are classification of remedies by disease names. These are not necessarily the remedies for those diseases, although often they are used to treat them, but they are also remedies describing the disease state and the issues involved, even of the symptoms being treated have nothing to do with that disease. Are you sufficiently confused? Let’s start with the kingdoms, because that is a more familiar classification system for us. We’ve all heard someone described as “a rock”, or “the salt of the earth”, or “iron-willed”. These people are not going to share the characteristics of someone we would call, “a shrinking violet”, a “hot-house flower”, or “a clinging vine”. And when we are speaking of a “fox”, a “tiger”, or a “mouse”, an entirely different picture of the person emerges. The first descriptions would be used to describe people needing a mineral-based remedy. They are often concerned with structure and order (although this is not so apparent in gassy mineral types, who tend to have loose boundaries). Relationships are important, and are often described in terms of the role relationship – “my wife”, “my best friend”. Contrast this with an animal remedy. Here the issues, for the most part, have to do with survival, hierarchy (who’s dominating whom?), jealousy, passion – the kinds of things we associate with animals. While a mineral remedy may deal with anger by putting up a wall, an animal may fight for something “tooth and claw”. And the plants — they are sensitive, adaptive, concerned with having roots or flying all over the place like a thistle. They are sensitive to physical conditions such as heat and rain and often have seasonal allergies, but they are emotionally sensitive as well. They may be prickly or easily bruised. These are oversimplifications, but you get the idea. Most people identify with one kingdom or the other. Which one do you think you are?