Generally homoeopathy is believed to work thoroughly but slowly.

Indeed I know many examples of constitutional treatment (meaning whole-person-healing) with homoeopathy that take months or even some years to complete. During these treatments people go through various stages of healing on the physical, emotional and/or mental plane. They lay off psychological coat after coat, defenses once necessary to facilitate the best possible option to live under a certain circumstance. These defense mechanisms, ways to behave, beliefs or habits, have served you during a period of your life. But life is growth and change, and after some time these known patterns become outgrown, outdated, and start to form a block for further progress. Then it is time to clutter out your life, like you would do with your wardrobe. You won't wear a pair of shoes of thirty years old any longer, do you?

Cluttering out old clothes is easier than cluttering out old beliefs and ideas about yourself. Fear of the unknown, feelings of guilt or unworthiness, lack of courage or self-confidence all try to keep you moving on on the old wellknown track of life. Still at a certain point your soul desires a new robe in a bigger size, for she wishes to expand. Psychological clothes that are too tight result in feelings of un-easiness, unhappiness, fatigue or disease. Therefore when people consult a homoeopath there is often much more going on than the physical complaints they come for.

A homoeopatic remedy strengthens and balances one's own life force. This medicine not only restores physical health, but it also acts like a bridge towards new possibilities or a fresh outlook in life. I have seen people lose paralyzing fears, like the fear of doctors, hospitals and dead people. I have seen persons undertake things with much fun, they before thought they could never do. I have encountered someone breaking free from a very strict church that deeply depressed her. I have met people who found the courage to take their lives in their own hands, while prior to homoeopatic treatment they relied on others.

On the other hand I have also experienced that if people wish to hold on to their present life, no well chosen remedy will work. Illness for instance can be a way of drawing constant attention, or it may enable one to avoid taking responsibility for one's own life.

Several years ago I treated two befriended old ladies. They were happy with my consultations at their home. The women talked a lot about their children not paying enough attention to them, or visiting them on the wrong days (they were supposed to come on Sunday morning and not somewhere Saturday afternoon). And they emphasized every pain they felt. No matter what homoeopatic or flower remedy I prescribed: it didn't work. Meanwhile they kept on complaining about their life, and I almost got desperate about these cases. Then I found out that the ladies visited each other twice every day to discuss each other's ill health over a cup of coffee. No wonder healing didn't take place; it would have disrupted their way of living. And being both widows with children leading a busy life, they did not want to put much energy anymore in their own life, and they certainly did not want to change.

Of course it makes no sense to state that in all cases in which a remedy does not work, the person refuses to change. It can also be the wrong remedy, the wrong potency, an incompetent healer, a lack of necessary information to find the right remedy, a blocking chemical drug or food substance, an earlier disease or vaccination acting as energetical block (miasm), etc. When the homoeopath and client allow each other time and willingness to understand what is going on however, great results may be achieved.