This book review is reprinted from the British Homoeopathic Journal Volume 72, Number 4, October 1983, with permission from Peter Fisher, Editor.
For Editorial communications, Advertising and Subscriptions contact:
British Homoeopathic Journal,
2 Powis Place, London
WC1N 3HT, U.K.
Tel: 0171-837 9469. Fax: 0171-278 7900.

Psyche and Substance.
Essays on Homoeopathy in the Light of Jungian Philosophy.
By Edward Whitmont.
North Atlantic Books, 1980.
Pp. 190.

When people speak of "psychosomatic medicine", they usually mean attempts to treat physical disorders by psychological methods, or, less often, the treatment of psychological disturbances by physical means. Homoeopathy is the only form of therapy known in the West which considers and treats the two simultaneously, and with the same medicine.

No one is better qualified to speak of this than Dr Edward Whitmont, whose name must be familiar to those who have been readers of the British Homoeopathic Journal during the last thirty years. He qualified in medicine in Vienna in 1936, and studied the work of Alfred Adler and of Rudolf Steiner, together with several other aspects of holistic medicine, before he came to learn homoeopathy from Elizabeth Wright Hubbard in New York. He subsequently practised and taught homoeopathy at the Postgraduate School of the American Foundation for Homeopathy. At the same time he became increasingly interested in the work of C. G. Jung, and underwent the long training in Analytical Psychology, which he now practises in New York. During this time he has presented numerous talks and articles on the relations between homoeopathy and analytical psychology, and these were collected to form the present book.

It is presented in three sections:

Part I discusses the principles of homoeopathy from an analytical psychologist's point of view. There are chapters on the Law of Similars, and Constitution and Disposition, and Unitary Field Theory is considered as a possible model for the remedy/symptom/symbol complex.

Part II is about Homoeopathic Remedies and their Archetypal Forms. There are eleven chapters devoted to drug pictures from an unusual point of view, supported by case-histories. Whilst most of the remedies described are well-known polycrests-Sulphur, Phosphorus, Sepia, Lachesis, Nat. mur.-there are also some very sensitive studies of less frequently used remedies, such as Mandragora, Carbo animalis, Aristolochia clematitis and Latrodectus mactans.

Part III is concerned with homoeopathic practice and the Soul-Body relationship in prescribing, an approach to chronic disease and a differential diagnosis of impatience (25 remedies). It is evident that as far as homoeopathy is concerned, Dr Whitmont follows a strictly Hahnemannian approach. The book ends rather unexpectedly with a comment on the present-day attitude to surgery.

It is difficult to do justice to this book in a review, because one cannot really write "about" it. Every chapter needs to be read slowly, digested, absorbed ... Dr Whitmont's erudition is immense, but his style is deceptively simple and easy to read. It is not so easy to retain what one has read because of the depth and complexity of the ideas presented, and the further perspectives which they indicate. The case for a parallel relationship between homoeopathy and analytical psychology is made but not stressed. It is characteristic of this author that he states the case and leaves the reader to make up his own mind.

I can strongly recommend this book to any homoeopath who wishes to extend his psychological insights, and to any psychologist who wishes to learn something valuable about homoeopathy.

M. HARLING

British Homoeopathic Journal
Volume 72, Number 4, October 1983