Some of the major causes of developmental and behaviour disorders such as obsessive –compulsive gambling are:

1. Diet – the wrong kind of food such as a refined carbohydrate, tea, coffee, or other stimulant, excessive amounts of additives in foods, junk food like fizzy drinks, chocolate, sweets, any form of sugar, other stimulant like hard cheeses, fats causes the body to produce the adrenal hormone Cortisol. It also requires the body to use vital nutrients in order to break down and eliminate the toxic residue leaving the person mal nourished. All of this will have an impact on the mind in some way, varying from depression to behavioural problems.
2. Drugs/alcohol – Recreational & prescribed drugs can have an impact on a person’s development and behaviour especially if these have been consumed before, or during gestation. Vaccinations are also a major consideration when dealing with developmental and behavioural problems.
3. Shocks - are a major cause of mental illness, especially physical or emotional shock of grief or fear. Prolonged mental/emotional and physical abuse, especially sexual abuse) can be the precursor to behavioural disorders.
4. Behavioural Problems of Children due to Parenting Problems - Poor relationships may slow the child’s development of mental and social skills and cause failure to thrive. A vicious circle pattern is a cycle of negative (naughty) behaviour by the child that causes a negative (angry) response from the parent or caregiver, followed by more negative behaviour by the child, leading to a further negative response from the parent.

So are there alternatives?

There are a variety of complementary and alternative approaches that can help – this article addresses whether homeopathy can make a difference.

Homoeopathy addresses the person as a whole, as a totality (including all aspects of their life); and affects the mind, body, emotions and spirit. From this we can infer that homoeopathy has an important role to play in dealing with psychological “dis-ease” as well as today’s behavioural and psychosocial problems (of which there has been a huge increase in the West).

From a homeopathic perspective it is difficult to separate the psychological from the physical aspect of the person. The homeopath needs to understand underlying causes of developmental and behaviour disorders and put symptoms in the right context to make maximum use of the individuals own self healing mechanisms.

The homeopathic point of view is that 80% of dis-eases come from the mind. The other 20% comes from the food we eat, environmental toxicity, physical injuries, drug toxicity and hereditary factors. When dealing with behavioural problems we must establish the context of the symptoms.

Homeopaths have always treated the mental emotional symptoms of the client as part of the whole body approach, strengthening it to support the mind and visa versa. Homeopaths understand that to be healthy, we need to not only take care of physical health by proper diet and life style, but also take responsibility for mental and emotional well being as well.

Homeopathy has a concept called ‘Miasms’ that can help explain this type of obsessive –compulsive behaviour and an individual’s predisposition for such behaviour.

The main miasm to govern the mind tends to be the syphilitic miasm. The energy is destructive and there is a pre disposition to mental illness, insanity depression, eating disorders, phobias; drug and alcohol abuse. There are four main Miasmatic remedy to consider when looking at psychological disorders but it is very important to establish the root causes of behaviour disorders.

Unfortunately allopathic medicine has, in general, reduced developmental and behaviour disorders to biochemical imbalances and assumes that an appropriate chemical therapy will fix the problem. In fact, there are many underlying causes that need to be taken into consideration when treating people with gambling and other behavioural disorders.

The concept of an ‘addictive personality’ has been added to our vocabulary where people are predisposed to taking habit forming substances or behaving in ways that are obsessive - compulsive. The rewards for the behaviour can be physical, mental or emotional. With this sort of personality one healing approach is to swap a bad habit for another hopefully less damaging one, e.g. changing an alcoholic into a compulsive exerciser. However the real challenge is to remove the emotional need that produces the compulsive behaviour!

Louise Hay says that addictions are about running from the self, fear and not knowing how to love the self.

A well trained practical homeopath will investigate the underlying causes of the problem and using the time line will help a client explore this – it may establish what emotional, physical abuses or substances the client has been exposed to and prescribe remedies that will support the body to heal itself.

In the West, behavioural disorders are extremely common and it is an important part of case management to take into consideration the cause of the symptoms – whether mental/emotional or physical. A homeopathic case taking should be a thorough investigation into the cause of the problem in order to remove the symptoms. You will never get a cure to any thing if you do not address the cause of the problem and this true not only for homeopathy but all other systems of medicine. These disorders require help and support from a range of complementary and alternative treatments. Counselling and psychotherapy can be of great benefit in helping people resolve psychological issues and will act as an important adjunct to homeopathic treatment or vice versa.

Homeopathy, especially if applied in a practical way, can provide treatment strategies that are tailored to the individual needs of the person and which are non toxic, non addictive and cost effective system. This can relieve the untold misery of obsessive compulsive behaviour and prevent individual spiralling downwards in to a world of chemical coshes, ill health and fear based medical interventions.

For more information:

Visit the College of Practical Homeopathy’s ”Homeopathic Directory” to find a Cph Qualified Homeopaths, Practitioners, and Clinics in your area.

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It is now generally recognised that people who have psychological disorders are suffering from physical imbalances of the brain; as well as disturbances in thinking, emotion, and behaviour. These disorders are often caused by the complex interactions between physical, psychological, social, cultural, and hereditary influences. An ‘addiction’ to gambling could be seen as one of these disorders and therefore would fall under the remit of the NHS as it stands today. The current treatment of mental health disorders are categorized as either:

• drug therapy and electroconvulsive therapy
• psychotherapeutic treatments include individual, group, or family and marital psychotherapy; behaviour therapy techniques (such as relaxation training or exposure therapy); and hypnotherapy

If you are lucky, live in the right area and are persistent you may get a combined treatment approach involving drugs, psychotherapy and counselling but the resources are extremely limited particularly in the more costly approaches which involve trained counsellors rather than cheap medical coshes or happy pills.

Bear in mind that responses to the side effects of allopathic drugs are also unpredictable and affect a person mentally and emotionally. Many patients who are treated with drugs experience chronic illness including depression which further aggravates their condition and may lead to further pathological behaviour.

Children acquire many skills as they grow. Some skills, such as controlling urine and stool, depend mainly on the level of maturity of the child’s nerves and brain. Others, such as behaving appropriately at home and in school, are the result of a complicated interaction between the child’s cognitive development, health, temperament, and relationship with parents, teachers, and caregivers.

Behavioural and developmental problems can interfere with and threaten normal relationships between the child and others. Gambling can be a mild behavioural problem – a time of experimentation and rebellion that is grown out of as we mature into adulthood. For an increasing number however this growth process is arrested and they continue to create problems. So what are the alternative or complementary approaches that could be used – either within the NHS – or privately?

Benefit from affordable homeopathic treatment for both you and your family at the College of Practical Homeopathy’s Teaching Clinic.

Tags: addiction, allopathic drugs, alternative medicine, cognitive development, counselling, electroconvulsive therapy, gambling, health, homeopathic college, homeopathy, medicine, NHS, physical imbalances, psychological disorders, psychotherapyaddiction allopathic drugs alternative medicine cognitive development counselling electroconvulsive therapy gambling health homeopathic college homeopathy medicine NHS physical imbalances psychological disorders psychotherapy

The NHS has become a tool of the pharmaceuticals - creating a market is what modern drug research is all about. What better way to increase profits than to corner a market where no individual has to pay but The Government (i.e the taxpayer) has to keep digging deeper to support a National Sickness Service.

Many people still believe that medicine (and hence the NHS) is a noble pursuit, dedicated to curing humankind’s ills. But the reality is that ‘cure’ is passé. According to expert ‘We sometimes joke that when you’re doing a clinical trial, there are two possible disasters. The first disaster is if you kill people. The second disaster is if you cure them. The truly good drugs are the ones you can use chronically for a long, long time.’

Over the past decade we’ve seen the pharmacologizing of everyday life sometimes slyly, sometimes overtly, reshaping the normal ups and downs of everyday life and turning them into market opportunities.

The safer, less costly and more healthy ways of treating ordinary ailments are ignored or marginalized when pharmaceutical manufacturers start to colonize an area of human health. In order to build demand for their products and services they will sponsor awareness-raising campaigns to make common conditions look as severe and widespread as possible.

No longer do we seek to understand whole persons in their social contexts – rather we are there to realign our patients’ neurotransmitters.’

When the World Health Organization hold meetings Big Pharma makes sure their interests are well represented. The results are recommendations not based on the best evidence, but based on the best support for pharmaceutical treatments.

Patient groups or medical foundations – so-called ‘third-party’ organizations – are funded to participate in these campaigns, silently orchestrated by drug company marketing departments and their PR houses e.g the Herceptin pressure groups (see The Guardian articles) or the dodgy ‘Sense about Science’ run by Taverne and co.

Are we now seeing the pre-launch marketing strategy for the disease of ‘gambling’ which will include company-funded education of doctors and consumers long before a drug is launched? The job of the PR company, is to ‘beat the drum’, to use newspapers, conferences and journals to get doctors and consumers buzzing about a new ‘problem’ e.g gambling coming down the pipe and the need for more funding (sic ‘profits’) to be pumped into the social purse to meet this demand. (As Big Pharma also probably controls the assets of most of the gambling industry they can create profits from both ends!

For more information:

Visit the College of Practical Homeopathy’s ”Homeopathic Directory” to find a Cph Qualified Homeopaths, Practitioners, and Clinics in your area.

Tags: academics, addiction, alternative medicine, drug companies, gambling, health, homeopathy, homeopathy college, medical care, medicine, NHS, pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacologizing, treatment, world health organizationacademics addiction alternative medicine drug companies gambling health homeopathy homeopathy college medical care medicine NHS pharmaceutical manufacturers pharmacologizing treatment world health organization