When you visit the doctor, he will ask you what is wrong. "My foot hurts," you might say, and the doctor will lift the foot and look at it from all angles.
He has seen this before. Within 15 minutes, he will learn all of the details he needs to make a diagnosis. He will write on a pad, hand you a slip of paper, and you will hobble out the door. This is how medicine is done, right?
Why is it then, that for the same complaint, a homeopath will require that you sit in her office for at least an hour? Why will she ask you about your childhood, your dreams, your preferences for food, and so on?
What are these tiny white pills she has recommended you, and why do they have a name that sounds so strange?

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, a term you have probably heard before.  These days, "alternative" is fashionable, but most alternative systems becoming popular today have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years; and homeopathy is no different.

Alternative methods of medicine do not just prescribe different medicine. They are entire systems of thought, offering new ways to understand yourself, your body, and your condition. In homeopathy, the symptom you are experiencing (your sore foot, for example), is not a problem to be solved. It is a clue that some part of your being (your psychological state, your emotional condition, and your environment, as well as your body) is out of balance.  To fix the foot, the homeopath must treat the whole person. In her system of thought, the symptom is one part of a much larger, much more complex you.

The medicine itself can come from just about anything in nature. Homeopathic remedies are made of plant, animal, or mineral matter, but they are diluted many many times so that they do not produce unwanted side effects or cause a risk to the patient.

When someone comes in with a foot pain, the homeopath must look in to his entire history as well as his symptoms.  For ten patients with the same problem, there could be ten different remedies prescribed by a homeopath. The cures are highly individualized because everyone experiences the discomfort in a different way, and is feeling it for a different reason.
Though it was invented over 150 years ago, homeopathy is gaining prominence throughout the world, and is currently practiced in Europe, the United States, India, South America, and the Gulf States.  The British Royal family famously has had a homeopathic physician on their staff for the past four generations.

The best advice for someone interested in learning more about Homeopathy is to maintain an open mind, not only about medicine, but about one's self.  The changes brought about by a remedy can be noticed not only for acute symptoms, but for one's overall state, and to be effective, homeopathy requires the persistent work not only of the doctor, but of the patient as well.