A handful of homeopathic remedies may come to mind (any one of which could spare you a long-term course of suppressive, often creativity-killing medication)…
Though not a major depressive disorder dysthymia is a serious state of chronic depression. It can persist for as long as two years. A bad mood that simply does not lift, a serious, prolonged and joyless funk, dysthymia can start to feel like it is part of your personality.
It’s not.
As I have said again and again, your classical homeopath will never prescribe solely on the basis of a western diagnosis. No, it is always the client in all her blazing uniqueness that the homeopath’s prescription must match. That said, a client complaining of being in a chronically bad mood, a continuous funk or of being joyless might prompt the homeopath to consider a short list of remedies. If all of these are ruled out, no big problem. Your homeopath will shift gears and find an accurate alternative. There are approximately 35,000 remedies in the homeopathic armamentarium. Your practitioner is adept in narrowing the field of candidate remedies!
In alphabetical order the remedies are:
Adamas, Cactus Grandiflora, Natrum Mur, Psorinum and Sepia
From the standpoint of the mental and emotional features only (every remedy-state displays characteristic physical symptoms and behaviors as well) differentiation is as follows:
Adamas—Made from diamond, this remedy is given when the client’s joyless features above all else a profound sense of discouragement.
Cactus Grandiflora—Made from a desert cactus this remedy probably most closely matches the spirit of the dysthymia definition. It is joyless, with a sense of isolation. The person seems prickly, offputting to others.
Natrum Muriaticum—Made from sea salt this is one of the more common manifestations of dysthymia. The client’s joylessness is rooted in entrenched grief. Her subconscious strategy involves keeping her loss under wraps. She is sad, cannot cry and joylessly goes about fulfilling her duties, especially as a caretaker.
Psorinum—Made from the exudate of a scabies infestation the dysthymia of a client needing this remedy reflects poverty consciousness, a feeling of never having enough for his future needs. Though his joylessness concerns the futility of his ongoing endeavors he perseveres in being (though dysfunctionally so) entrepreneurial . His appetite is often ravenous since he feels he must eat like there is no tomorrow.
Sepia—Derived from the ink of the cuttlefish the dysthymia of an individual needing this remedy is flavored by confusion (just as the fish’s ink muddies the waters). Due to entrenched resentment and bitterness that has come to undermine her native optimism she now finds hope to be toxic. Exhaustion and half-heartedness now contaminate her love relationships.
As they almost but never quite say in the television drug commercials:
Got dysthymia? Talk to your homeopath about…