What is Bach Flower Therapy?
Bach flower therapy is a natural, holistic healing approach that supports mental and emotional wellbeing.
It relies on remedies called "flower remedies" or "flower essences" to help transform mental and emotional suffering into positive states of wellbeing. Bach flower therapy aims to relieve stress and restore equanimity.
The goal is to help us experience greater health, freedom, and joy.
Bach flower remedies address emotional states such as fear, anger, and sadness. They also address mental states such as low self-esteem, indecision, and overwhelm. For example, a remedy for fear would support releasing fear and bring fearlessness and courage.
The remedies reconnect us with a higher Truth. They reconnect us with our spiritual nature. For their creator Edward Bach, their purpose was twofold: to relieve suffering and to re-align the personality with the Soul. When the personality and the Soul are aligned, we can live to our fullest potential.
For this reason, the remedies can be used as tools for healing, but also for conscious personal growth and spiritual transformation.
The 38 remedies
There are 38 Bach remedies, each with its own indications. There is also a combination remedy that is typically used for acute stress and referred to as Rescue™Remedy, Five Flower Formula, crisis or emergency mix, and other names.
Bach remedies are made from the flowers of non-toxic plants and spring water. They are prepared via infusion (the sun method) and decoction (the boiling method).
The remedies are considered to be vibrational or energetic. Like homeopathic remedies, they act on the subtle plane. They are gentle but powerful because they heal at the deepest level.
Bach flower remedies are non-toxic, non-addictive, and safe. They can be used for all ages and conditions. They do not cause side effects. They can be taken alongside conventional medications, as well as homeopathic and other natural treatments. Furthermore, they are easy to use and do not cause the kinds of aggravations that are commonly reported in other modalities.
Some people notice immediate effects, whereas others begin to see changes within days or weeks. If taken consistently over time, Bach flower remedies can help to release lifelong negative patterns and develop greater awareness, intuition, and resilience.
Many report an experience of lasting, life-changing transformation.
Dr. Edward Bach (1886–1936)
Bach flower remedies were discovered in the early part of the 20th century by the English physician Dr. Edward Bach. Dr. Bach had received conventional medical training but soon became disillusioned with the medicine of his day.
Like Hahnemann before him, Bach noticed that many treatments produced more suffering than what they were meant to cure. He also noticed that the same medicines for the same illness cured some people and had no effect on others. With time, he came to see a connection between personality, health, and disease. He made it his mission to better understand this.
After becoming a bacteriologist, he made some important discoveries about the relationship of chronic disease, gut bacteria, and states of mind. He developed therapeutic injectable "vaccines" from those gut bacteria and for a time used them, by all reports successfully, with his patients.
But a deep transformation was starting to occur. In 1919, he began to work as a bacteriologist and pathologist at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. His encounter with the Organon seems to have been love at first sight. In Hahnemann he found confirmation for many of his intuitions. He also discovered vibrational medicine and found a better way to make his vaccines: potentization. Homeopaths today know him for the discovery of the bowel nosodes.
Bach turned increasingly to questions about the mind and the Soul. More than anything, he yearned to find a cure for human suffering at the deepest level.
A parallel change was Bach's shift in orientation from the products of disease (the bowel nosodes) to the remedies of the plant world, hoping to discover a more pure form of remedies. After some promising early finds, in 1930, he left the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and embarked on an extraordinary journey of discovery.
Over the next five years, Bach wandered through the English and Welsh countrysides and discovered the 38 remedies that we know and love today.
Bach flower therapy in clinical practice
There are very few healing tools that combine the simplicity, the ease of use, the versatility, the safety record, and the power of Bach flower remedies.
For this reason, Bach flower remedies can be an invaluable tool in clinical practice. They can be used either alone or in combination with other modalities such as homeopathy.
Even more importantly, Bach flower therapy can resolve many of the challenges of homeopathic practice. It gives fast results, is easy to manage, and can greatly improve your client experience.
If you are a homeopath, I encourage you to explore how Bach flower therapy can support you and your practice!
"The conflict between the Soul and the personality is the primary basic cause of disease."
– Dr. Edward Bach