Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Questions:
Will flower essences work with my other therapies, including my conventional medication?- Will my doctor be concerned that I am taking flower essences?
- What ailments can you treat with flower and vibrational essences?
- I am sceptical about something that sounds unscientific to me. Is there any science to back your claims?
- If flower essences are such a great therapy, why haven’t I heard about them before?
- I’m an atheist, and all this talk of “spirit” doesn’t sit well with me.
- But where’s the evidence for all this?
- So who regulates flower essence therapists?
- Since Dr Bach produced his set of 38 remedies in the 1930s many people have developed thousands of essences. Whose essences do you use?
- Flower essence therapy has been described as holistic medicine or energy medicine or vibrational medicine. How does it differ from conventional medicine?
Answers:
1. Will flower essences work with my other therapies, including my conventional medication?
Yes. Flower and vibrational essences are perhaps the ultimate complementary therapy, working without conflict with all known forms of conventional and alternative medicine. Nonetheless, do let me know what else you're taking - medication, homeopathy, herbs, supplements - so that I can select essences with this in mind.
2. Will my doctor be concerned that I am taking flower essences?
Probably not but, if she is, explain that they won't conflict with any treatment that she may be giving.
3. What ailments can you treat with flower and vibrational essences?
Flower essences do not set out to cure medical conditions. They work holistically, to improve the individual in mind emotions and spirit. As energy and health improves physical conditions are frequently alleviated.
4. I am sceptical about something that sounds unscientific to me. Is there any science to back your claims?
Yes. A lot of the science revolves around the capacity of water to be imprinted with data at the sub-molecular level. The Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto has written about this in several books of his, such as “Messages from Water”. The American James L Oschman published his “Energy Medicine” in 2000, and Dr Richard Gerber’s book “Vibrational Medicine” (1996) also deals with the science. Although there is a lot of information available on the web, not a lot of it seems to deal with the science behind vibrational medicine. However, the American magazine “Subtle Energies” publishes interesting and relevant scientific articles on the subject, and the writings of such respected researchers as Professor William Tiller are valuable.
5. If flower essences are such a great therapy, why haven’t I heard about them before?
The world-wide pharmaceutical industry has a $150 billion per annum marketing budget to tell you and the medical profession about their latest advances. Not so with essence makers. They form a global, but fragmented and small-scale industry, with even the largest producers no bigger than a small business - and they have small marketing budgets to match. Besides this, of course, flower essence therapy runs completely against the current medical way of thinking and people take a while to understand it, so the news spreads slowly.
6. I’m an atheist, and all this talk of “spirit” doesn’t sit well with me.
Vibrational essences don’t require believers or non-believers, merely an open-mindedness, a willingness to try what is, admittedly, a different approach to achieving health.
7. But where’s the evidence for all this?
The traditional method of testing the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs is through the use of randomised, placebo controlled, double blind trials. This may not be a perfect evaluation technique, but it does have the virtue of being generally accepted in the medical community as a consistent drug testing procedure, particularly among supervisory authorities. This type of trial does not work so well with vibrational medicine which looks at each person as unique. This means, for example, that two clients presenting with, say, hayfever would have their histories taken in the same way by the same practitioner, but the outcome might be a course of treatment - hopefully a successful one in each case - where, probably, a completely different set of essences were prescribed. Remember, we treat the person, not the disease. Which is why there is so much empirical evidence - such as case studies and data from MYMOP (Measure Yourself Medical Outcomes Profile) - about flower essences working, but precious little evidence from clinical trials. Besides, clinical trials are designed to reveal unacceptable side effects of drugs as well as their efficacy, whereas flower and vibrational essneces are genuinely harmless - in the United States the Food and Drug Administration permits them to be marketed as 'dietary supplements', whilst in this country they are designated as foods.
8. So who regulates flower essence therapists?
In the UK the British Flower and Vibrational Essence Association (BFVEA) has joined with the Bach Centre to form the Confederation of Registered Essence Practitioners (COREP) which maintains a recognised code of ethics and conduct and applies disciplinary procedures for anyone breaking the code. COREP co-operates with national regulators on behalf of essence practitioners to confirm and maintain standards of safe, professional conduct within the therapy.
9. Since Dr Bach produced his set of 38 remedies in the 1930s many people have developed thousands of essences. Whose essences do you use?
I use around 1000 essences from about 50 different suppliers, but my most prominent makers include: Australian Bush Flower Essences, the Flower Essence Society of California, Healing Herbs Ltd (my main Bach remedies supplier), Pacific Essences, Wild Earth Animal Essences and Wildflower Essences.
10. Flower essence therapy has been described as holistic medicine or energy medicine or vibrational medicine. How does it differ from conventional medicine?
Holistic medicine looks at the person as a whole before prescribing a remedy. It accepts that the person may have a particular disease but, rather than treating that ailment directly, it asks where that condition comes from, what emotional or mental trauma or imbalance might have given rise to that condition in the first place. And then the therapist seeks an essence or essences that redresses the imbalance in the patient. Not so with conventional medicine, which tends to attack the complaint head on (“the war against disease”), bombarding the disease chemically or cutting it out surgically wherever in the body it might be. These pharmaceutical drugs are strong medicine and often the disease withdraws, but frequently only to flare up again, or pop up elsewhere in the body, possibly in an altered form, because the original and underlying causes have not been addressed.