what qualifications (if any) are necessary before anyone can claim to be a homeopathic practitioner?

Answer 1

They must have undertaken a training at one of the accredited colleges (I'm talking in UK) and ideally, be registered with one of the professional bodies representing homoeopathy. There is a move towards tighter regulation and to have one body that regulates & registers homoeopaths in this country. At the moment, anyone can claim to be a homoeopathic practitioner. In my experience, the main culprit that does this are GPs! They attend a half day workshop & think they know what they're doing. I trained for 4 years and although I've been a Homoeopath for many years, it's a continual learning process as each case brings new challenges. Sadly, many people think that it's a matter of looking up an illness & choosing the remedy that looks like it might work. Many hours of work go into prescribing THE remedy for THE individual. It's the charlatans that give any profession a bad name & unfortunately, there's a few amongst homoeopaths. If you are interested in seeing a practitioner, then choose to see someone who is registered with a professional body so that you can check their credentials. The Society of Homeopaths is the main one in the UK. http://www.homeopathy-soh.org

Answer 2

In the UK, medically qualified homeopathic practitioners (ie doctors, dentists, nurses etc who are also trained in homeopathy) should be registered with the Faculty of Homeopathy and non-medically qualified homeopaths should be registered with the Society of Homeopaths. As far as I know,these are the ONLY two bodies in the UK that provide recognised training.

Answer 3

There are many training programs and courses in homeopathy in both the US and abroad; however, no diploma or certificate from any school or program is recognized as a license to practice homeopathy in the US.

Laws about the practice of homeopathy vary from state to state. Usually it can be practiced legally by those whose license entitles them to practice medicine in their state. Health freedom laws in a growing number of states allow the practice of homeopathy by non-licensed professionals as well. Since homeopathic remedies are sold over the counter, people in all states are free to use them for self-care at home.

The above paragraphs were taken from the Homeopathic web site - link below.

http://www.homeopathic.org/introduction.htm

There's some clown by the name of Soul Doctor on this forum who runs around using words like thrice, guarenteeing to cure cancer, and saying all of his remedies are free of any side effects and are 100% effective. It sounds great, but any thinking person knows that those statements are too good to be true. Unfortunately people believe guys like this who may or may not have training. It is like the snake oil of the 21st century.

The difference is trust. Medical professionals often are not very good at communicating with people and making them FEEL good so people feel distrust - even though there is an immense amount of thought, understanding, and research that has gone into their treatment plan. If patients can't appreciate that fact, then it is not helpful.

I hope this helps.