Autism Love Homeopathy
Observations on Treating Autistic Children with Classical Homeopathy
I have been treating quite a few autistic children, teens, and young adults in recent months following the publication of Vivek Pathela’s book Healing Her Light, and the podcasts and Facebook group discussions surrounding it.
What I find so remarkable is how often these children are helped—sometimes quite easily—when approached through the principles of classical homeopathy. From my observation, I see autistic children presenting in three broad categories. These are not rigid classifications, but practical groupings that help guide remedy selection.
1. Constitutional Remedies with Deep Mental-Plane Involvement
In the first category are children who remain within their constitutional remedy picture, but where the disease has gone deeper into the mental plane, meaning that the primary expression of imbalance is now cognitive, emotional, and relational rather than physical. In earlier centuries, such states were described using terms like imbecility or idiocy—terms now obsolete, but historically used to describe profound disturbances of mental functioning.
In 1911, the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler coined the term autism to describe “a withdrawal into one’s inner world, with a loss of contact with external reality.” He understood this as a core symptom of schizophrenia, characterized by self-absorption, detachment, and diminished emotional engagement with others.
Thirty-two years later, Leo Kanner published “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” describing children with early-onset social withdrawal, language differences, and an insistence on sameness. He borrowed Bleuler’s term autism, but redefined it to describe a childhood condition rather than schizophrenia.
You may ask why I emphasize these terms. The reason is that language is very important, especially when it comes to homeopathy. We have to know how symptoms were classified in the older materia medicas, as well as in modern materia medicas, so that we can match the symptoms of our beloved children to a remedy in the homeopathic materia medica that will resonate with them and initiate a healing response that will restore them to health.
Some people believe that autism did not exist in the past. From my studies, I can see that it very much did exist in the history of mankind, that it is a natural expression of human disease, and that it has always been with us. Disease can manifest on the mental, emotional, and physical planes. In autism, the disease is on a deep mental plane. It is not a man-made disease, and traditional remedies such as Baryta carbonica, Calcarea carbonica, Calcarea phosphorica, Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Silica, Thuja,and many others are perfectly able to resonate with these children and bring about healing.
2. Active Miasmatic Expression Following Shock or Stress
In the second category of children, whatever shock or cumulative stress to the system it was that precipitated the autistic state pushes them into an active miasmatic expression. By “shock,” I mean an event or series of events that overwhelms the child’s adaptive capacity—whether physical, emotional, or mental—pushing the vital force into a pronounced miasmatic state. Here we see remedies such as Medorrhinum and Tuberculinum. These are nosodes, remedies made from disease substances, but they are also constitutional remedies, and they work in the same way as other constitutional remedies to restore health.
At this point, it is important to pause and define two central homeopathic concepts: miasm and vital force. In homeopathy, a miasm refers to a deep pattern of adaptation of the vital force—whether inherited or acquired—that shapes a person’s attitudes, ways of being, coping strategies, proclivities, and patterns of illness.
The concept of the vital force is absolutely central to Samuel Hahnemann’s teachings in the Organon of Medicine. Hahnemann teaches that the homeopathic remedy works upon the vital force, which he defined as the immaterial, dynamic principle that animates and governs the living organism, coordinating sensation, perception, and function in health, and whose disturbance gives rise to disease as expressed through symptoms on the mental, emotional, and physical planes.
Mother and Child Love Homeopathy
I believe it is very important for parents and homeopaths to understand the role of the vital force, as this concept lies at the heart of classical homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies—by virtue of their method of preparation, which renders them highly immaterial—are intended to act upon the vital force, the dynamic principle that animates and governs the organism.
Other systems of medicine approach illness through different conceptual frameworks. Western medicine, or allopathy, as well as functional and biomedical approaches, tend to focus on material processes—such as biochemical imbalances, deficiencies, or excesses. These approaches are primarily oriented toward the management of symptoms.
From the homeopathic perspective articulated by Samuel Hahnemann, disease originates as a disturbance of the vital force, and true healing requires addressing that disturbance directly. When treatment does not reach this level, symptoms may change or shift without resolving the underlying imbalance. The clinical application of this principle over more than two centuries forms the foundation of classical homeopathic practice.
3. Active Insanity States Following Shock
In the third category, the shock to the system pushes children into active insanity states—not as labels of identity, but as descriptions of intense disturbances of perception, fear, and behavior. Here we see remedies such as Arsenicum album, Cuprum metallicum, Hyoscyamus, Lyssin, Mercurius and its various preparations, and Stramonium. Some of these remedies would not be classed as “insanity remedies” per se, but if one reads the delusions and fears associated with these remedies, it becomes clear that they can rightly be understood in this way.
What I have found is that whichever of these categories a child fits into, treatment usually progresses beautifully, because we are treating young people—children, teens, and young adults—with strong vitality and a robust vital force. The symptom picture is usually clear and calls for a single constitutional remedy, prescribed according to the principles of classical homeopathy: one remedy at a time, selected on the basis of symptom similarity.
It is mind-blowing how beautifully children respond to the simple elegance of classical homeopathy. There have been a number of books written on autism that make the treatment of these children seem impossibly difficult. The truth is that in most cases it is not that difficult. What needs to be done is to find the similimum. The symptoms and behaviors of the child point to it clearly.
Meet the Homeopath
The job of the homeopath is to read the signposts and to possess a deep knowledge of the traditional homeopathic materia medica. That knowledge is gained first and foremost by studying Hahnemann’s writings. He spelled out the rules for using homeopathic remedies safely, intelligently, elegantly, and wisely.
It is also important to study T.F. Allen’s The Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica, where the original provings are recorded; Hering’s The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica; and the synthesis of this knowledge and vast clinical experience in the brilliant mind of James Tyler Kent in Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica. When these tools are comprehended and utilized, treating autistic children becomes relatively easy, because a solid foundation in the classics has been laid.
I am privileged to write this article in my late sixties. I have raised three children, changed thousands of diapers, cooked a million meals, taken the dog on hundreds of walks, and had very little free time to study. Now my children are grown. I have figured out how to cook as little as possible, and I live alone. I now have the time to engage in the deep study I did not have as a young mother juggling work and family. I am in an unusual position to apply myself wholeheartedly to study and to my passion, which is homeopathy and healing people.
It took me many years to reach a place where I can say that treating autistic children is relatively easy. For a long time, I struggled with confusion because my education was not yet at the level it is now. I regret the people I was unable to help in the past. In the present and the future, I hope to make up for that, and I hope the work I do moving forward will be of the highest quality.
If your children have been helped by my work, I invite you to share your experience in the Facebook group where you found me, and to support the book Healing Her Light by Vivek Pathela. In this way, the knowledge and goodness you have experienced can be passed forward to others who are still searching.
Wishing you health and happiness,
Deborah Olenev, CCH, RSHom (NA)
