12-2 summer jun finalacosta+-+home… · 16 homeopathy today • nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org...

16 Homeopathy TODAY • NationalCenterForHomeopathy.orgSummer 2012

While YA

While YA

Homeopathy forHomesicknessby JUDITH ACOSTA, LISW, LCSW-R

We had an early spring in most parts of the

country this year. With the sun out and warming our

faces, it has been especially easy to feel the approaching

summer. Many of us are already thinking about pack-

ing—trunks for children at sleep-away camp, backpacks

for kids on adventure or going to college, valises for

grown-ups on vacations away from home.

17NationalCenterForHomeopathy.org • Homeopathy TODAYSummer 2012

Getting away from home can be a truerelief for some people, a break from bothroutine and wearisome demands—andthey never look back! Other people-on-the-move feel their separation from homeand family—but merely as a warm tug, abit of longing, or an occasion for a sighwhen a fond memory surfaces. For somefolks, however, extended trips away fromhome are horrifying experiences.

Homesickness can lurk behind a multi-tude of disguises. A boy may show up atthe nurse’s station at camp with an inexpli-cable stomachache. A young woman whois new on campus may be unable to sleepor suddenly begin to have panic attacks. Atoddler staying with Grandma while herparents are off on vacation may cry with

every change in scenery or need to be heldand stroked constantly. A parent on anextended journey away from home andfamily may find himself agitated more eas-ily than usual, unable to enjoy himselfwhere he is.

Homesickness—what some of thehomeopathic masters of old called “nostal-gia”—is more an amalgam of feelings thana single emotion. It is complex and multi-faceted, a combination of yearning or long-ing with sentimentalism, grief, discontent,restlessness, anxiety, confusion, disorienta-tion, and sadness. Homesickness can alsomake people angry, petulant, and abusive.

Just identifying homesickness in a per-son does not give us enough informationto choose a homeopathic remedy for themthough. The repertory [index of symp-toms and corresponding homeopathicremedies] lists dozens of remedies asbeing capable of addressing homesick-ness. To narrow our choices, we have topay attention to how each person reacts tofeeling homesick and examine their wholestory for individualizing symptoms.Homesickness can look and feel very dif-ferent in different people. There are asmany kinds of homesickness as there arepeople to feel this way.

Patty: Free-spirited freshmancaught off guardEighteen-year-old Patty* had always con-sidered herself a free spirit. When she wasvery young, her father had been particu-larly violent with her and her siblings, aswell as with her mother. He had left beforePatty got to elementary school, and thefamily had recovered well thanks to hermother’s hard work and skilled familymanagement. Despite the early upheavalsin her life, Patty was naturally a socialchild, had many friends, maintained excel-lent grades, and did her chores with aminimum of prodding. She was a talentedand prolific artist. On a number of occa-sions, she had traveled happily to othercountries with a supervised church group.“I loved being out there and doing newthings,” she told me.

In her senior year of high school, Pattyhad applied to about ten different univer-sities and got into nearly all of them. Shechose one that was about five hours fromhome, figuring it was neither too close nortoo far away. With music blaring, shepacked her duffle bags and boxes, andafter a few tearful farewells to friends andsome quick hugs to family members, shewas off to college, driving herself in the carshe’d bought with money she’d saved. She remembers singing the whole waythere. Who would have expected whathappened next?

Panic!Within a month, Patty’s mother received acall from the campus psychologist. Pattyhad been seen on an emergency basistwice within the prior week and onceagain that day. She had been overwhelmedwith anxiety. She reported difficultybreathing along with panic, a feeling of“not really being there,” nightmares, and afear of exams and performances. The psy-chologist was concerned and felt Pattywould benefit from regular counseling.

The mother agreed to the counselingand also brought Patty to me for homeopathic treatment. Having usedhomeopathy for years, Patty’s mom wasmore than comfortable offering herdaughter first-aid remedies, such as Arnicaor Ledum for physical injuries, but sheknew better than to resort to superficialprescribing for Patty at this point. Patty’ssymptoms may have looked on the surfacelike the indications for Ignatia, a remedywell known for helping in acute cases ofshock, grief, homesickness, and hysteria,but on further investigation, we foundthat this was not just a “simple” case offreshman homesickness.

Digging deeperWe sat down together and I began to askPatty about her anxiety and what hadstarted it. “Have you ever had anything likeit before?” I asked. Tilting her head to theside and surprised by her own memories,she replied: “When my father went on rages.I never knew what was going to happen.”

You’reAway… You’reAway…


We discussed the fear she’d had backthen, especially how it was similar to thefear she had now at college. As she put it,“I have to be good or something terrible isgoing to happen.”

What physical symptoms did Pattyhave? There weren’t many besides someeczema on her hands, nail biting (whichshe had done as a child and had startedagain recently), and nightmares. She wasgenerally warm, though not overwhelm-ingly so, she tended to have moles andcysts, and her food cravings were non-spe-cific except that she loved chocolate.

I decided to analyze the following symp-toms of Patty’s with RADAR repertory soft-ware: ailments from homesickness,ailments from anticipation, sudden fear,longing for the good opinion of others,moles on the skin, eczema on the hands,nail biting, and sleeplessness from anxiety.

As you can see in the repertorizationchart, Ignatia wasn’t even in the first tenremedies listed. In fact, the symptomsPatty was experiencing seemed to have little to do with being away at collegeexcept as a trigger for letting out somevery old feelings. What Patty needed to getthrough her terror—which was, in fact, an

old terror from her father’s violence andthe uncertainty of a childhood in whichshe felt the need to be perfect in order toavoid frightening consequences—was theremedy Carcinosin. Carcinosin fit Patty’sacute symptoms, such as her panic attacks,but more importantly, it fit her as a wholeperson. She was talented, diligent, com-passionate, and adventurous. She worriedabout others. She was fastidious. Therewas a history of violence in her childhood,and she felt that if she could control her-self and her surroundings, the worldwould somehow be made safe. She hadmoles and cysts, and she craved chocolate.These are all characteristics of people whoneed Carcinosin.

Old trauma, new well-beingI gave Patty Carcinosin 1M, choosing ahigher potency because of her strongemotional/mental symptoms and because

of her youth and overall vitality. If she hadbeen older or frailer, or had exhibitedstronger physical symptoms, I would haveused a lower potency with more frequent,careful repetitions.

Within the week, Patty had a mostunpleasant but brief episode of vomitingas if she had a gastrointestinal virus, butwithout fever and chills. As a child, shehad been prone to these GI disturbances,especially when her parents were havingdifficulty. “This is an old one,” sheremarked. “Strange that it would comeback now…” This was a perfect exampleof one of our dependable homeopathiclaws of healing—that a cure can manifestby drawing out disease in the reverse orderthat it originally appeared. This is why,when a remedy works well, we sometimessee a return of old symptoms.

After the tumult subsided, Patty wasable to continue with school, sort out

I t’s important to take as full a homeopathic case as possiblewhen you are helping someone suffering with serious home-sickness and its effects. Even so, there may be times when

you simply can’t be so thorough (no access, no time, no phones…)but you feel the situation requires a speedy remediation. For suchoccasions, smart campers and vacationers pack an emergency kit thatincludes homeopathic remedies frequently indicated for homesicknessand shock (as well as other common first-aid complaints). There arequite a few important remedies for homesickness, but the followingare good starters.

Rescue Remedy®—Although not technically a homeopathic remedy,this beautiful combination of flower essences is a reliable, often veryhelpful adjunct. Developed by homeopath Edward Bach, it is gentleand wonderfully effective in a wide range of frights, falls, anxiety, andfretting. It may be repeated as often as needed and used alongsidehomeopathic remedies. It comes in both alcohol and non-alcoholbased preparations. No travel bag should be without it.

Arnica—Though not usually thought of as a homesickness remedy,Arnica addresses shock of many kinds, and every emergency kit should keep this on top. If the separation is shocking, hugely upsetting,repeated in the mind (“I can’t stop seeing them come to take meaway…”), or an emotional “blow” to the heart and soul, considerArnica.

Aurum metallicum—Literally the gold standard of remedies for sad-ness, longing, and melancholy, this remedy appears in the repertoryrubric, “Mind, Sadness, pining in boys.” The child who needs Aurum feels profoundly forsaken and responds with despondency and self-reproach, believing he has done something horrible todeserve the abandonment. Like the person who needs Pulsatilla, the Aurum person desires open air. Unlike Pulsatilla, the Aurum person can be irascible, unyielding, and taciturn.

Belladonna—This remedy can be useful for the person whose homesickness symptoms are vigorous and volatile. The person needing Belladonna will be acutely sensitive, have nightmares, and

Happy Campers!Happy Campers! Remedies to headoff homesicknessRemedies to headoff homesickness

other memories, and work out her fearswith a counselor. She reported no furtherpanic attacks. Her nightmares and nailbiting ceased. A few months into her firstsemester, she was doing very well, feelingmore relaxed, and behaving much morelike the confident young woman who hadfirst set out for college.

What if we had given Patty Ignatiainstead? While on the surface, Patty’ssymptoms may have seemed to point toIgnatia (the panic could have been called“hysteria,” for instance), which is an often-used first-aid remedy for emotionalshocks and upheavals, I don’t think Igna-tia would have addressed the chronicfoundation of Patty’s problem: the fearthat something terrible would happen ifshe was not perfect and she lost control. Ibelieve that Carcinosin was the better

choice because it resonated with thetrauma of her childhood, thereby helpingher to overcome it.

Jason: Angry & homesickfor the farmA more straightforward example of some-one suffering from homesickness was six-year-old Jason, whose behavior hadbecome utterly unruly after his familymoved from the rural Midwest to a largecity. For most of Jason’s life, the family hadlived with his mother’s parents on a farm,where he had become very attached to thefarm animals, particularly to the dog andone of the goats. When Jason realized thathe was not just on vacation in the city andthat his family was not returning to thefarm, he “became a different child.” It was

a couple months after that when his par-ents brought him to my office.

I offered Jason a choice of chairs to siton, but he chose to sit cross-legged on thefloor, sullen and silent. He picked up onemagazine after another, looking at themand throwing them down. Most notably,he had some of the reddest cheeks I’d everseen. I was so impressed by them that Iasked his mother if he’d been running afever or if he’d been in the sun for anylength of time. She denied both, but shenoted that she didn’t remember his cheekshaving been like that until recently. Shealso said that he had taken to eating spicyfoods, such as peppers, which he hadnever liked before.

I asked Jason’s mother to tell me exactlywhat had been happening. At the sametime, I observed her son. She said that


be surprisingly agitated, even violent without clear cause. Symptomscome and go suddenly (similar to Aconite). The person may experi-ence and demonstrate an urgent need to escape (a child at camp maytry to run away, for example). People who need Belladonna maycrave lemons or lemonade and cold food. They tend to be averse towater, to be aggravated by light, noise, and touch, and to have right-sided symptoms, spiking fevers, and redness of the face. This remedymay need to be differentiated from Capsicum.

Capsicum annuum—This is one of the most important remedies toconsider when a person’s homesickness is accompanied by sleepless-ness and red cheeks. The person may want to be alone. They may be cross and unable to concentrate. Often, children who need thisremedy cannot study or work and will unceasingly complain that they want to go home. The person may look a bit like they need Belladonna, but they are more obstinate and sullen, and they show adiminishing of reaction. The redness of Capsicum is cold to the touch(“false plethora” as it’s called in the old books), whereas the flush ofBelladonna is burning hot.

Gelsemium—This is a wonderful gift for a person who is terrified ofhaving to perform, an issue that may surface strongly when a child isaway from home for the first time or an adult is traveling on businessfor an important engagement. Gelsemium addresses performanceanxiety when the person feels overwhelmed with weakness—especiallywhen accompanied by trembling.

Ignatia—The premiere homesickness remedy, it is indicated in peoplewho are agitated, overwhelmed, and upset, sometimes to the point of “hysteria” (e.g., fainting or dramatic mood swings). People whoneed Ignatia are worse from stress, coffee, and cold air and may havefevers, headaches that feel like nails driven into the skull, or otherphysical symptoms that can be traced back to a disappointment, separation, grief, shock, or trauma. They sigh a great deal and feel disconnected from what is going on. For that reason, they may beheard saying, “I just can’t believe…” Like people needing Natrummuriaticum, they do not like consolation, but unlike Natrum muri-aticum, they are not made angry by consolation.

Phosphoricum acidum—The homesick person is prostrate with griefand hopelessness. On the surface they may seem apathetic and mentally unfocused, although the longing is right under the surface.The person may speak and respond quite slowly. Their pain results ina sad kind of resignation, and they appear to be what people com-monly call “depressed.” Low spirited and anxious about the future,they may lose their appetite.

Pulsatilla—This is an effective remedy for those who feel lonely, forsaken, and weepy. They are as sad as sad can be and give home-sickness a truly poignant cast. They cry easily, and they feel betterfrom consolation, touch, company, and sympathy. They may developa cold with a thick or yellow nasal discharge. They feel all alone in theworld and may elicit in others a need to nurture and protect them.They may be indecisive and reach out for help and reassurance.

With music blaring, she packed her duffle bags and boxes … she was off to college, driving herself in the car she’d bought withmoney she’d saved.


before they’d moved, Jason had been ahappy little boy, running around, helpingwith chores, affectionate, and social. Heexpressed himself easily for a child his age,a talent both his parents encouraged.

After the move, he became surly andobstinate, refusing to do anything asked ofhim. He no longer sought affection, and hefound fault with everything around him.He had become almost rude to adults, “asif,” his mother added, “every grown-up isresponsible for his misery.” He refused togo out to play. His mother was even con-cerned he was becoming a little phobic. Shenoted that he seemed afraid to get out ofbed in the morning. When she would comein to check on him, he would cover himself,whining and holding onto his blanket. “It’sas if he wakes up still in a dream, and hedoesn’t know where he is,” his motherexplained. She would try to bribe Jasonwith some favorite meal (pancakes), and hewould refuse it. When he finally did get outof bed, all he did was fuss with things, mov-ing toys from one place to another, andmoving with his blanket from one room tothe next as if to reorient himself.

All of this was interspersed with occa-sional episodes of good cheer and momentsof such happiness that Jason’s mother wassure the storm had passed. But, like theweather in some parts of the country, all shehad to do was wait 15 minutes for theclouds to gather again. She was stymied.

Paradise lostI watched Jason as his mother spoke, andalthough he was relatively still, he wouldrepeatedly pick up a book from a nearbyshelf, look at it, and put it down. Finally,having exhausted the shelf ’s supply, he satwith his face and hands clenched. It washard not to feel the anger he was repress-ing. I could imagine him wandering fromroom to room, his anxiety driving him toseek something familiar, something com-forting. He was the most discontented,unhappy child I had seen in a while.

I repertorized the following symptoms:homesickness, discontented, complaining,red cheeks, sudden anger alternating withcheerfulness, anxiety driving him fromplace to place, fear on waking, averse togoing out, quarrelsome, obstinate, audac-ity, and desiring spicy foods.

My initial thought on looking atJason—his dream state in the morning,his suppressed anger, and the homesick-ness—was that he might need the remedyStramonium. Stramonium can be quite auseful remedy for homesickness, particu-larly in children, especially when they havenightmares and disorientation on wakingor a sensation of dreaming while awake.However, initial impressions can bewrong, which is why I pay only the small-est bit of attention to them. As the inter-

view progressed, I could see that Jasonwas not so much fearful as he was

discontented and obstinate.The repertorization strongly

suggested Capsicum. The overalltenor of people who need Cap-sicum is discontented, petulant,and quarrelsome. The remedyaddresses a particular brand of

homesickness: the person loathesdeparture from routine and feels as if he

has lost a hold on paradise. The person

feels that what he had is forever gone, buthe holds onto it in the present momentwith a grudge. Jason’s morning disorienta-tion also fit the indications for Capsicum;Hahnemann writes that this remedyaddresses “dreams of a sad character ofthings long passed; on awaking he did notknow if it was reality or not.” Even the red-ness I had noted on Jason’s cheeks is aCapsicum symptom.

I gave Jason one dose of Capsicum 200cand waited. Within 24 hours, things beganto change. He got up the next morning onhis own, sat down in the kitchen, andasked his mother for breakfast. Shenoticed immediately that his cheeks werenot nearly as florid, though still ruddy.Within a couple of weeks, most of thesymptoms of homesickness had subsided,and although Jason still had to face some

adjustments, he had been through theworst of it. His disorientation and roam-ing from room to room had stopped. Hebegan to play outside again, make friendswith a few neighborhood kids, and showaffection to his parents. The tumultuousemotional storms had finally been clearedaway. Jason’s naturally happy, inquisitive,sociable self had re-emerged, thanks tohomeopathy. “We are overjoyed to haveour son back!” his mother exclaimed.

Annie: Turning away from lifeA more poignant and difficult case ofhomesickness came to me in the form ofAnnie, a woman in her late 70s, who hadjust moved to an assisted living facility. Herson, a patient of mine who did not live nearher, had become very worried about hismom. Annie had wanted to move after herhusband died a couple of years earlier; shehad helped choose the facility and had beenlooking forward to its group activities. Butsome time after she began living there,

A toddler staying withGrandma while her parents

are off on vacation may need to be

held and stroked constantly.


Annie went into a mental and emotionaltailspin. According to staff, the change wasgradual over the course of a year.

Although she had seemed quite chip-per when she arrived, she soon began tomiss appointments or outings withgroups. She curtailed activities to stay inher room and watch TV or read a book.Staff had to work very hard to keep hermoving. After a while, she began acting asif she’d forgotten why she was there, ask-ing for things she had left behind—hercouch, her baby grand piano, and herlibrary of books numbering in the thou-sands. When she realized these things—and everything they represented in herlife—were gone, she lay down in bed,turned her face to the wall, and refusedany interaction with people. With suffi-cient prodding and cajoling, she was will-ing to go to the dining room, but shewould eat only fruit. Although she toler-ated moving around indoors, she wasquite averse to being taken outside and tobeing in bright daylight; she insisted onthe quiet and dark of her own room.

When Annie developed a small sore onher hip that would not heal and her hairstarted falling out, the social worker calledher son and the other siblings and sug-gested a visit to discuss the possibility oftransferring his mother to a more care-intensive unit. Watching his mother, hetook assiduous notes, which he thenbrought back to me. He was heartbrokenand in tears at what he’d seen and didn’tknow what to do to help her. “This is notmy mother. She was such a social, livelyperson. And she wanted to live there, in agroup atmosphere where she could stayengaged. Even after Dad died, she keptgoing. She kept us going,” he said. “Shewouldn’t sleep late on vacation! And shewas always well-groomed. For her to belying around with her hair falling out…”He choked on the words.

In analyzing Annie’s case, I repertor-ized her mental/emotional symptoms ofhomesickness, indifference, aversion toanswering, sentimentality, and grief, aswell as her physical symptoms of hair loss,a slow-healing wound, sensitivity to light,and a desire for fruit and juicy things.

Phosphoric acid was the clear remedychoice for Annie because she was not onlyhomesick. The earlier grief she had experi-enced from losing her husband was com-pounded in a unique way by beingtransferred to an assisted living facility. Shewas not only mourning for him, she wasgrief-stricken for the loss of a whole way oflife—her life. Her husband was a part ofthat, but so was her independence and heryouth. Grief can be insidious, especially instrong, upbeat people who take pride intheir ability to take the battering life cangive without bruising. It may not come outimmediately or in the way we expect orwish. But come out, it will.

Her emotional pain had finally led to adebilitated mental/emotional state thathad eventually affected her physical healthas well. Annie’s indifference to everyoneand everything, her resistance to beingoutside and in the light, and her desire for fruit (“refreshing things”) clinched thechoice of Phosphoric acid. This remedy is known to be an enormous help for apathetic, debilitated, mild, and yieldingpeople, who suffer greatly from emotionalevents, particularly grief. It can alsoaddress poor memory, difficult compre-hension, and a general weakness thatstarts on the mental/emotional level andlater affects the physical level. For thesereasons (and others), Phosphoric acid isoften used in people who have had veryserious acute disease and can’t quite seem to grapple their way out of it and forelderly people whose vitality has beensapped by either a physical or an emo-tional shock.

Back into circulationI suggested that Annie take Phosphoric acid30c repeated daily until she started show-ing improvement. I chose a relatively lowpotency because of her frail condition andsuggested repeated doses because of thehost of medications she was on, presumingit would take repetition and a bit of time to“punch through” the allopathic fog. Theremedy would be administered by one ofAnnie’s children who lived nearby.

After a couple of weeks, Annie beganshowing a clear response to the remedy. Atthat point, we stopped giving her the rem-edy and waited. The first sign of improve-ment was that she began to sit up in bedand turn to face people who were talkingto her. With a bit more time, she tooksmall walks around her room, then out inthe common areas. She would sit withother people and engage in brief conversa-tion. She took to grooming herself withcare again. She began to take an interest inactivities at the facility and in her relation-ships with the staff as well as with her fam-ily. Within a few months, Annie’s sonreported that his mother was makingenormous progress. Her hair had stoppedfalling out. The sore had healed. And moreimportantly, she was interested in living.

Over the course of the next six monthsto a year, there were times when Anniewould start to experience a creepinglethargy, when she would not take phonecalls or take any interest in going outside.

The first sign of improvement was that

she began to sit up in bedand turn to face people

who were talking to her.

W hen my husband and I decided last year to moveacross country, we did it with the best of inten-tions—to be with family. The pull was quite strong.

Although my parents were generally healthy, they were agingand it seemed that even bimonthly visits were too short.Nieces, nephews, and friends had all wished we’d “just comehome already.” They missed us, and we loved them. But assoon as we left the rugged beauty of New Mexico, where

we had lived for seven years and had built fulllives with good friends and good work, I beganto feel an uneasiness I had not expected. Bythe time we were in New Jersey, I could notstop sighing with regret and longing.

It was honestly the last thing I hadexpected. Homesick? Me? At this age? It wasn’t as if I had been sent off to camp orpushed into something I wasn’t ready for.

The move had been a thoroughly self-directed decision.

But the effects were indisputable. Isunk myself into work in our new area,but could not find the creative and emo-tional juice I had enjoyed for years before.

I found myself weeping. I longed for homedespite the beauty of my surroundings and

the nearness of family. I could not get com-fortable. I did not want company besidesmy husband. And, worst of all for me, Iwas wishy-washy, unclear, vague, and self-

reproaching. I believed I haddone a horrible thing by

uprooting us. Yet I couldn’t rally the resources to do anythingabout it or even fully see what I was going through.

A friend and colleague finally said to me after a long conversation on the phone, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, wouldyou please take the Ignatia already?!”

“Ignatia?” I asked with surprise. “You won’t stop beatingyourself up!” she said.

Listed strongly in the repertory rubric, “Reproaching self,”Ignatia is a remedy that’s appropriate when someone is notonly disappointed in others or circumstances but in herself.The person sighs a great deal and is terribly sensitive, highlyidealistic, and easily disappointed. All were true of me at that moment.

I saw the proverbial light and took a dose of Ignatia 10M.Within minutes my homesickness flared—I was even moreweepy than before, but this time my tears were a full dis-charge of remorse, recognition, and disappointment. Finally,when the flare-up was all finished about 24 hours later, wehad a resolution.

I was not away at camp. I could go home. And that iswhat we are doing—packing up (again!) and hauling our-selves and the dogs back to New Mexico.

A well-indicated homeopathic remedy for homesicknessdoesn’t “make” you stay where you are if that is not whereyou’re supposed to be. It gives you clarity. If Hahnemann wasright (and I believe he was), then the height of good health isadaptability and purposefulness. Rather than beat myself upfor a mistake, I could simply correct it and move on. Ignatia—like any properly chosen homeopathic remedy—freed me upto do what was right in the highest sense of the word. And forme, that was simply to go home. —Judith Acosta, LISW, CHt


At these times, I instructed her son torepeat the remedy. After taking Phosphoricacid 30c twice a day for a couple of days,Annie would be standing in front of themirror putting on lipstick again. “It’s a giftto see her like that, to have my motherback,” her son said with palpable relief.

The longing for homeHomesickness is a complex of feelings thatcan look very different in different people.For college freshman Patty, being home-sick was not the same experience as it wasfor petulant, six-year-old Jason, nor forAnnie, the senior who literally turned herface away from a world she no longer rec-ognized. Homesickness looks different ineach of us because each of us is unique. Itcan appear as anger, anxiety, sadness,

despair, indifference, or a host of otheremotions, as well as problems in the mindand body, since we are all whole beings.

Furthermore, susceptibility to home-sickness varies: someone with a great sentimentality toward people, places, andthings may be far more affected by a changein routine than a person with a moreadventurous constitution. Neither is neces-sarily pathological; it’s just the way the person is. When homesickness becomespathological—when a person becomesapathetic, destructive, immobilized, orpanic-stricken, to name a few unhealthyresponses—the situation will warrant goodtreatment, but not of the homesickness perse, just of the person and the pathology thathas developed in him or her. This is thebeauty of homeopathy: it doesn’t treat the

“disease,” it treats the person, and in sodoing, it helps them become stronger andmore resilient to all the stressors of life.*All names and identifying details have beenchanged in this article.

Judith Acosta, LISW, CHt, is alicensed psychotherapist, hyp-notherapist, crisis counselor,and classically trained home-opath specializing in anxietyand trauma. She is author ofThe Next Osama, a fictional

account of the unpredictable effects of viral fear onone American family. She co-authored The Worst isOver: What to Say When Every Moment Counts,and Verbal First Aid. She has written numerousarticles on Verbal First Aid, culture and the media,religion and mental health, trauma, and alternativemedicine. www.wordsaremedicine.com

A B O U T T H EA U T H O R

The Remedy for Moving, Then Moving OnA personal story

12-2 summer jun finalacosta+-+home… · 16 homeopathy today • nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org...

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