This book review is reprinted from Volume 18, Spring 2005 edition of Homeopathic Links with permission from Homeopathic Links.

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Vital Practice - Stories from the healing arts: the homeopathic and the supervisory way
By Sheila Ryan

Sea Change 2004; 212 pages
ISBN 0.95478.670.X.
Website: www.seachangeuk.com
E-mail: info@seachange.co.uk

Sheila Ryan has taken a new step in homeopathy: a whole book dedicated to homeopathy and supervision. Brian Kaplan's book, "The Homeopathic Conversation" in 2001, was a wake-up call for many homeopaths, and touched a sore and neglected subject in homeopathy. Even though Hahnemann underscored the role of the unprejudiced observer, not much has been done or written about the role of the homeopath, what affects this role, how to use oneself as the most important tool in the process of healing.

Supervision has just the last years become a focused topic in the homeopathic community. We have realised that the experts can't solve all our problems. The main task for the homeopath is to get on a level with the patient, to understand the patient's story, to see "what is".

Sheila has brought together in this book the homeopathic perspective and the supervisory, in a way that brings light to both. She shows how a homeopathic attitude to supervision (looking for the individuality, using a similar and minimum intervention) creates meaning. On the other hand, to have a supervisory way of practising homeopathy (what is happening, what is me and what is the other, how to accept unconditionally) will make homeopathy more focused on what needs to be cured.

What are we bringing to supervision? Traditionally we have brought cases to discuss with colleagues or with an expert. But really what we are bringing is our self and our perception of a case or a patient. When a case is stuck, the stuckness is in our mind. We all (our patient and ourselves) have our "comfort story"; to make sense of who we are, what we are doing, where we have been and where we are going. The "elemental story" is concerned with what really is motivating us, whether we like it or not. The purpose of both supervision and the homeopathic conversation is to see beyond the comfort story and get a glimpse of the elemental story.

"Vital Practice" has a solid theoretical base (homeopathy, supervision and psychology), but the main focus is stories from practice. So when dealing with a theoretical concept, Sheila is always offering questions or exercises that make it possible to understand and get practical experience with the concept as you read the book. "Vital practice" presents a variety of ways to enter this field, ways that may fit different persons and how we like to work and to learn. Not all methods will be the ones you like to use, but I am sure you will find many questions and exercises that will be very useful to you.

Who is the book for? It is not a textbook for supervision, though I would regard it as mandatory for everybody engaged in supervision (supervisor and the supervisee). It is as much a book for every homeopath who wants to work more homeopathically, who wants to use more of him/herself in practising homeopathy, who wants to bring out the (elemental) stories out more easy. The advice I will give (besides to get hold of this book! ) is: take your time, don't try to read it at night in bed (as I first did), but read it slowly, stop and do the exercises along the way. I guarantee that it will be a valuable experience and help in getting a more "Vital Practice".