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Christa Gebhardt & Dr Jürgen Hansel
Chief editors
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EDITORIAL
SPECTRUM OF HOMEOPATHY
EDITORIAL
ADDICTION
Dear readers,
Since the first issue of SPECTRUM in 2009, we have gathered a
large circle of authors from all over the world, who are generally
eager to contribute to successive issues of the journal. This time,
however, it was different. The treatment of addiction seems to
be a really tough nut and there are relatively few homeopaths
who have sufficient experience in this field. One of the few is
without doubt Declan Hammond, who has treated heroin ad-
dicts in the poor quarters of Dublin, as well as cocaine addicts
and workaholics among the yuppies.
The basic insight of his work can be summarized in a remark
made by the Canadian addiction therapist Gabor Maté: “Many
of us remember drug addicts fruitlessly trying to fill the black
hole inside, the spiritual emptiness in their innermost being,
where contact has been lost to the soul or spirit. Our culture
– obsessed with consumption, winning, adventure-action, and
image – only deepens this hole, leaving us feeling even emptier
than before.” Hammond interprets this to mean: “All of us are
potential addicts,” and then, “Since all the causes of addiction
are within, so also are the solutions.”
Every addiction develops its own dynamic, which finally leads
to stereotypical behavior patterns, regardless of the type of
addiction. The psychologist Johanna Tränkner demonstrates
this by comparing the symptoms of substance-based drug ad-
diction versus substance-free addiction such as shopaholism,
workaholism, compulsive gambling or sex addiction. The
transformation in the personality caused by addiction is often
so prominent that it becomes very difficult to recognize the
underlying individuality. To trace this and to seek the solution
in the soul is the decisive challenge for the homeopath grap-
pling with this illness.
The contributions of this issue look at the inner causes and the
personal history underlying the addiction. In the case described
by Deborah Collins, it is the lifelong resentment towards a strict
father, in Andreas Richter it is the longing for body contact in
a six-year-old boy, which he missed as a very young child, in
Frans Kusse’s cases there are frequently traumatic experiences
in the patients’ histories. To treat patients in his Dutch addic-
tion clinic, he developed a three-stage homeopathic approach:
detoxification including isopathy, etiological treatment with
trauma remedies and finally constitutional treatment. A similar
approach is described by Jean Pierre Jansen to wean smokers
off their habit.
At the constitutional level, there are certain groups of remedies
that are more frequently indicated than others. The feeling so
typical for addiction of inner emptiness that must somehow
be filled corresponds to the Milk remedies’ need for close-
ness and warmth, the desire to be suckled. Jonathan Hardy
uses the cases of Lac humanum and Lac lupinum to demon
strate how the typical dynamic of this remedy group can
lead to eating disorders and drug addiction. Sigrid Lindemann
found the addiction pattern of withdrawal, isolation, and
fleeing from reality in a case of Oncorhynchus tshawytscha,
Chinook salmon.
The drug remedies play a special role in the homeopathic
treatment of addiction. They can be used as nosodes to ease
withdrawal, as shown by Frans Kusse for cannabis addic-
tion. Yet the remedies from this group are often similes at a
deep constitutional level – for example, the alcohol and drug-
addicted superwoman from Anne Schadde’s case, who is
healed by Ephedra sinica. She can control her impulses as
poorly as Anne Koller-Wilmking’s sex-addicted alcoholic patient
or Ulrich Welte’s young patient who is hooked on a computer
game. The violent fantasies associated with the virtual World
of Warcraft lead Welte to choose Franciscea, a nightshade
from the syphilitic miasm. We should be alert to this miasm
in connection with the destructive potential of addiction.
The contributions of our authors in this issue indicate that
homeopathy can play an important part in the treatment of
addiction. Yet, without high-quality help and counseling at a
social and psychological level, it is scarcely possible to find a
way out of the vicious circle of addiction; “People need contact,
community, family – addiction thrives in isolation,” writes Declan
Hammond. The unequivocal conclusion of Declan Hammond
and Frans Kusse is that homeopathy can be successfully incor-
porated into an interdisciplinary treatment approach.