Manfred Mueller: The Making of a Homeopath (a biography)
A Biography of Manfred Mueller, MA, DHM, RSHom(NA), CCH
Manfred is currently working on a Homeopathic Clinical Materia Medica. The first volume – Oncology, is expected to be published sometime next year [UPDATE: Homeopathic Cancer Drugs: Oncology Materia Medica is available for sale!!] . It pulls together all that is currently known of our homeopathic cancer drugs with special consideration of indications, pathology, symptomatology, differential diagnosis, interactions, etiology, constitutional characteristics, clinical notations, posology, pathogenetic trials, scientific evidence of efficacy and case documentation. He is planning a second volume on homeopathic neurology and a third on homeopathic cardiology.
Over the past 25 years, through his clinical observations and research, his special method of practice, called “The Mueller Method™” was developed. The Mueller Method™ is a fast, efficient yet extremely powerful method of homeopathic practice that is particularly effective in curing complex cases such as cancer, iatrogenically induced disorders and chronic health problems of modern industrial society. Manfred’s training program, The Homeopathic College, offers distance-learning modules in his innovative perspective.
Manfred’s Early Years and Schooling
At the age of 15, when he resolved to study medicine, Manfred bought his first medical diagnostic book, Kleines Diagostikon, for pennies on a trip to East Germany. He had been suffering from panic attacks since age 13 and was already looking for answers to his own health problems and those of his family and friends. His journey to learn about healing was, in part, his search for a solution.
In his teens, Manfred studied his Kleines Diagostikon every day and was fascinated by the process of physical diagnosis. This particular book did not rely much on laboratory techniques, but instead focused on physical characteristics – just right for a future homeopath!
Manfred received training in Philosophy and Classical languages (Latin/Greek/Hebrew) at the Evangelisch-Theologisches Seminar in Maulbronn and Blaubeuren, Germany, a 400 year old boarding school whose alumni include Johannes Keppler and Hermann Hesse. He spent many hours in their library studying the works of Sigmund Freud. He later enrolled in an introductory psychoanalysis workshop at the Evangelische Akademie at Bad Boll, Germany. The following summer he attended a workshop in Adlerian psychotherapy with Eva Dreikus-Ferguson, PHD and Bill Pew,MD in Holland.
Manfred also applied to medical school while enrolling in premed courses and signed up for a dual major in Practical Theology and Psychology at the University of Tübingen. In the 1970’s in West Germany, a lottery, in part, decided applicants’ acceptance into medical school. Manfred’s “number” didn’t come up, so he was left to pursue yet another area where he excelled -psychotherapy.
He received a merit scholarship at the EvangelischesStift, Tübingen, Germany just down the road from the Eberhard-Karls-Universitat, where notables such as Hegel and Holderlin once dwelled. He immersed himself in a two-year- long Didactical Gestalt Therapy Training seminar while preparing for his Diploma in Practical Theology (Evangelical Lutheran, 1974), with focus on Pastoral Counseling, Biblical Text Translation (Hebrew, Latin, Old German and Classical Greek) and Biblical Exegesis.
He visited a friend at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, where he participated in campus life for an entire semester “learning English and just hanging out on campus with psych students.” It is perhaps ironic that he came to this “Freudian strong-hold” to be introduced to the work of Abraham Maslow! While still waiting to “win” the German medical school lottery, he was accepted into a Master’s degree program in humanistic psychology program at West Georgia College in the U.S. This unique program had recently been founded by some of Maslow’s most talented colleagues from Brandeis University – Mike Aarons and James B. Klee.
In 1974, he obtained his student visa and immigrated to the U.S. as a student. His focus was on innovative methods of psychotherapy. Manfred had earned credentials from several universities and studied with many world leaders in humanistic psychology by the time he graduated magna cum laude with a Master’s degree in psychology in 1976. He master’s thesis was entitled IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD: A study of Gemeinschaftsgefühl in Humanistic Psychology.
By the time he graduated, he had “grown out” of his panic attacks. However he eventually came to the conclusion that his panic attacks were not the result of an inner conflict or an expression of an “intrinsic existential malaise,” as some professionals he’d consulted had suggested, but merely one symptom of chronic mercury poisoning from his mouth-full of silver mercury amalgam fillings!
Manfred’s Introduction to Homeopathy
With a Masters degree in psychology and still living in the States, Manfred practiced briefly as a psychologist at a local mental health center. He was fascinated with psychotherapy as a sort of medical treatment for many common psychosomatic disorders. He then taught psychology and human relations courses at the local community college while maintaining a part time private counseling practice. In 1978 he met George Guess, MD, who had just finished an apprenticeship in homeopathy with a physician in California, USA.
It was through many long discussions with George that jogged Manfred’s curiosity in homeopathy. He felt immediately at home with homeopathy, which he saw as a truly phenomenological approach to medicine. This was especially true since he had become become disillusioned with psychiatry’s increasing reliance on suppressive drugs, something he saw as a crude violation of both scientific principles and of the patient’s experience. However, the infinitesimal doses used in homeopathy severely challenged his rational mindset!
After playing the devil’s advocate during endless discussions on homeopathy, his miraculous recovery when George gave him a dose of Aconite during a severe sore throat over ruled his skepticism! If it worked, then there had to be an explanation. He finally decided homeopathy was something he himself should pursue further. As a gift for his 26th birthday, George gave Manfred a copy of Maesimund Panos’s book Homeopathic Medicine At Home. The rest was history.
The Making of a Homeopath
Because there were no official homeopathic training programs in the U.S. at that time, Manfred found himself ordering every homeopathic book he could get his hands on and attending every lecture or seminar taught by the homeopathic leaders of the time, many of them students of the eminent Greek homeopath George Vithoulkas. Manfred was totally self-taught and learned the prevalent neo-Kentian approach still currently being taught in most schools today – the one dose, watch and wait method utilizing mostly dry doses of high centesimal potency remedies.He made many treatment successes of his early studies, including curing his then 18 month old son from seizures caused by a severe brain injury incurred during a traumatic hospital birth (you can read about this cure as Case #1 in his article “Seizure Disorders in Children”).
Manfred was fortunate to study with renowned homeopaths such as Francisco Eizayaga (the elder) of Argentina who taught seminars in the US. Through Eizayaga’s seminars, Manfred earned specialty certifications in homeopathic oncology, neurology and cardiology, areas where he still holds strong interests and clinical focus.
Manfred practiced part time for the first few years, then after seven years of study, in 1986, he officially “hung out his shingle” and opened his full time homeopathic practice on 1004 Broad Street in Durham, North Carolina (U.S.) In 1988, he started a study group which even attracted the attention of a local reporter who photographed with interest Manfred’s Dolisos remedy kit and his materia medicas. In 1989, he opened the first incarnation of The Homeopathic College.
In 1992, Manfred decided to pursue a formal degree and took a post-graduate course from the British Institute of Homeopathy (BIH), UK, training program earning a “Doctor of Homeopathic Medicine” (DHM). He also gained the valuable perspective on how homeopathy is practiced in a hospital setting while attending a Preceptorship at the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, London, UK in 1994. He received national certification from the Council for Homeopathic Certification in 1995 and became a member of the North American Society of Homeopaths (NASH).
For more on how Manfred’s method of practice began and evolved, please read “The Mueller Method™ – Digging Deeper Into Your Homeopathic Toolbox”
Editor’s note: For a deeper understanding of the Mueller Method, see the interview Hpathy did with Manfred Mueller in April 2012.
Reprinted with permission from Hpathy.com
Header Photo Credit: UNC Charlotte Pages
