Acute or Constitutional?
Understanding the difference between the Acute Consultation and the Chronic Constitutional Consultation.
In homeopathy, two key approaches to patient treatment are acute and constitutional consultations. While both aim to restore balance to the body and mind, they differ significantly in terms of scope, duration, and treatment focus. Understanding these differences is essential for both practitioners and patients seeking homeopathic care.
The key differences between acute and constitutional consultations in homeopathy can be summarised as follows:
Scope: An acute consultation targets a specific, temporary health problem, while a constitutional consultation focuses on the individual's overall health and long-term well-being.
Duration: Acute consultations are typically looking at a short-term change, aiming for immediate relief. Constitutional consultations, on the other hand, are long-term looking at issues that may have been with a patient for many years, and may involve ongoing treatment.
Treatment Focus: Acute remedies are aimed at addressing the immediate symptoms, such as accidents or affects for a sudden shock, while constitutional remedies address deeper, underlying health patterns and predispositions.
Method of Evaluation: In an acute consultation, the focus is on the current condition, what is going on right now. While in a constitutional consultation, the homeopath looks at the persons entire physical, mental, and emotional state over time, possible reoccurring symptoms or inherited issues.
Acute Consultation
An acute consultation in homeopathy is centred around treating a sudden or temporary health condition. These are typically short-term illnesses, injuries, or episodes that manifest quickly, such as colds, fevers, headaches, or digestive disturbances. In an acute consultation, the homeopath assesses the current symptoms, their severity, and how the individual is experiencing the condition at that moment.
The treatment focuses on providing immediate relief from the acute symptoms by selecting a remedy that corresponds to the totality of the symptoms physical, emotional, and mental experienced at the time. Acute remedies are often fast-acting and are intended to help the body recover quickly from the specific health challenge, restoring balance in a short period. Once the condition resolves, the patient may not need further treatment unless a new acute issue arises.
An acute consultation will likely take a short while to assess, 15 minutes. The homeopath will take all the symptoms of the patient they are presenting, along with things that may make it better or worse, which part of the body is indicating the issue, anything that brought the issue on, and if the patient can describe the issue or pain. These are the most useful points to diagnose a remedy in pressing time of an acute issue. Something to note when, or if needing to relay information to a homeopath, or when self home prescribing oneself or family.
A little easy way to remember is this;
C – Concomitant – A symptom that accompanies the main complaint
L – Location – Where the pain/symptom is located within the body
A – Aetiology – The possible cause behind the complaint
M – Modalities – What makes the complaint better or worse
S – Sensation – What is the pain like? e.g. sore, shooting, throbbing, sharp
Chronic Constitutional Consultation
A chronic constitutional consultation, in contrast, addresses long-standing or recurring health issues and focuses on the individual's overall constitution, their physical, emotional, and mental state over time. Chronic conditions can include conditions like chronic fatigue, autoimmune disorders, frequent infections, skin issues, or emotional imbalances that have persisted for months or years.
In a chronic constitutional consultation, the homeopath takes a holistic approach, gathering an in-depth history of the individuals health, personality traits, emotional patterns, lifestyle, and family medical history. This comprehensive assessment helps to identify underlying constitutional weaknesses or predispositions that may be contributing to chronic illness.
The primary goal of chronic constitutional treatment is to stimulate the bodys vital force (its inherent healing energy) to address deep-rooted imbalances. Constitutional remedies aim to strengthen the persons overall health and resilience, improving vitality and preventing future illness. Unlike acute remedies, which provide rapid symptom relief, chronic constitutional remedies often work gradually over time to bring lasting improvements. The process may require several follow-up visits to track progress and adjust treatment as needed.
For a homeopathy to take a constitutional consultation time is needed to go over all the sypmtoms both present, past and reoccurring, a history of the patients lifestyle and incidents that will all be needed if the complete picture is to be seen and to reveal the remedy needed. We homeopaths are asking so many questions, much is remembered and recounted in the consultation and all is helpful, without necessarily seeming to make sense.
A constitutional remedy will be given by a classical homepathy as a single dose, and given at least 4 weeks to work through the patient in a gentle, graceful, steady way.
Acute or constitutional,
a homeopathic remedy works on many levels helping you and all your parts fit together and work beautifully well, so you can live freely and happily as you wish.