Acknowledgments
While writing this word of thanks I realise that many people have contributed to my development. In the first instance of course my parents, brothers, sisters and other family members. And later the numerous friends with whom I had many talks and discussions.
As far as my development in the field of homoeopathy is concerned, I would like to say a special word of thanks to George Vithoulkas. He has been a tremendous influence in the development of homoeopathy as a whole. In his seminars he has shown me his ideas about the essences of the remedies. Alphons Geukens has in his courses enlivened the images with video cases. Rajan Sankaran has further contributed with his ideas about essences and root situations.
I would also like to thank all those homoeopaths with whom I have exchanged thoughts about homoeopathy. The influence of all these discussions, although hard to describe, is definitely there.
Also many thanks to my colleagues at the 'Homeopatisch Artsencentrum Utrecht': Maria Davits, Anton Kramer, Alex Leupen, Rienk Stuut and Willem Woutman. The ideas in this book have been created in our mutual discussions, while they also gave their critical appraisal of the manuscript. Anton Kramer, Rienk Stuut and Willem Woutman also offered a few cases for this book and the foreword has been written by Rienk Stuut.
Furthermore I would like to thank those who initially read this book and kindly gave their comments: Kees Dam, Fernand Debats, Henry Hilhorst, Henk Hommer-som, Frans Kusse, Yvonne Lassauw and Rob Peters. Special thanks go to Henry Hilhorst: his comments enriched this book, his encouragement made me persevere.
I thank Ton Davits for his advice on giving this book its format.
I want to thank my patients. Without them this book would never have been written. They kept on trying to answer my (sometimes 'impossible') questions. Their feelings, thoughts and expressions have formed the real content of this book.
Finally I would like to thank the homoeopathic pharmacies - Dolisos, Homeoden and VSM - for preparing the sometimes unknown remedies.
For the translation into the English I want to thank Mariette Honig
and Deborah Collins for checking it; and Roger Savage for the corrections to the second and third editions.