Rodger Douglas, DMH
www.rodgerdouglas.com
Areas of expertise: Fibromyalgia
Qualifications: DMH, DHHP, B.A. Psychology
Location: Osaka, Japan (international practice via WhatsApp)
Email: rodgerosaka@gmail.com
I came to Heilkunst along a winding path. In my early 20s I decided to study psychology. It was fascinating and I especially loved the work of Jung and Adler, but something felt missing. Psychology is mostly about the mind, and rarely addresses what’s happening in the body.
A few years after graduation, I took a course in Chinese massage - and it quickly became my world. That led me to China to study Traditional Chinese Medicine. On a stopover in Hong Kong, I wandered into a small bookstore, and picked up an old book first published in the year my grandfather was born.
Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy by James Tyler Kent changed everything.
I had read many books on health, medicine, and psychology both Eastern and Western, but this one blew me away. We tend to think of illness as something static that happens to us from the outside, but in fact, it is dynamic and changing. And it is intimately connected to who we are as a person.
On my connecting flight somewhere over China I realized: Chinese medicine is fascinating, but it’s not for me. I want to spend the rest of my life doing homeopathy.
My journey was a bit like that of Santiago in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Santiago, dissatisfied with his life as a shepherd, has a recurring dream of finding a hidden treasure in Egypt. He travels to Egypt and, after many adventures, returns home only to find the treasure he was seeking buried in the exact room where his dreams began.
In my case, I traveled all the way to China only to discover a true treasure of the West, and that is heilkunst. I did however find one special treasure of the East - my lovely wife. That’s why I live in Japan.
These days, I focus on fibromyalgia and related chronic conditions like lupus, Lyme disease, and hypothyroidism. People with these conditions are often told their symptoms don’t make sense - or worse, that they’re not real. On one level, that’s true: fibromyalgia is often what people are diagnosed with when nothing else fits, and that’s why I chose it. It’s the illness that doesn’t follow a clear pattern. On a deeper level, fibromyalgia and diseases similar to it, are often the end result of too much modern life - processed food, disconnection, city living, and well-meaning but overwhelming medical intervention.
Heilkunst is built on three pillars: regimen, medicine, and therapeutic education.
I am particularly drawn to regimen. Making lifestyle changes can be especially hard, but if you do it right you can move mountains. It’s always a pleasure helping clients discover foods that resonate with them and taste good, or finding a type of exercise that actually brings joy.
Then there’s therapeutic education, which I see as the heart of the process. Hahnemann spoke of “diseases spun by the soul,” and I believe that’s often where chronic illness begins - in the mind, in old emotional wounds, in unconscious beliefs that shape how we move through life.
Therapeutic education draws from psychology, mindfulness, and deep inner listening to uncover what the illness might be trying to say. Often, it’s a belief that we can’t rest, or shouldn’t feel anger, or that we have to carry everything ourselves. When we begin to shift those patterns, healing starts to unfold.
I’ve written a few illustrated books for children. Adults who like pictures can read them too.
Emma Discovers Bach Flower Essences
Emma Discovers Forest Bathing
Emma Discovers Dr. Sarno
I live in Osaka, Japan, but most of my clients are in the U.S. and Canada. We work together through WhatsApp and regular email.
If you’ve been living with pain or fatigue that no one seems to understand, and you’re ready to explore what’s underneath it, I’d be glad to talk.
