Guide XII-059

Banerji protocols

Prasanta Banerji, Pratip BanerjiKolkata, India
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Banerji protocols as described by Prasanta Banerji, Donald R. Campbell and Pratip Banerji (Oncology Reports, 2008) and by the US National Cancer Institute's Best Case Series page, supplemented by practitioner accounts. Sections 1–3 describe the method as its proponents publish it; section 4 is the psychotherapist's own work with a client who uses or is considering it. The psychotherapist never performs, sells, prescribes or recommends Banerji protocols or any homeopathic remedy.

  • What it is: a diagnosis-based form of homeopathy developed in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, by a medically trained father-and-son team, Prasanta and Pratip Banerji, through the PBH Research Foundation (also styled the P. Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation). [source: Banerji, Campbell & Banerji 2008; NCI Best Case Series page] Practitioner sources report that both founders have died and that a family-run clinic in Kolkata continues the method with doctors trained in it. [source: Homeopathy Rising, secondary] [uncertain: not verified against an official source]
  • Core idea of change, as proponents hold it: instead of the classical homeopathic search for one individually matched remedy (the "simillimum" under the Law of Similars), a fixed remedy or remedy combination is assigned to a named diagnosis, drawn from the clinic's own case records of what was used for which condition. Practitioner writers call it "more diagnostic than individualistic". [source: Homeopathy Rising; Ruminating on Remedies, both secondary] Healing is attributed by proponents to the remedies themselves; this is the method's own account, and homeopathy's mechanism is not established in conventional science.
  • Health claims (attributed): the founders' publications and events have presented the protocols for serious diseases including cancer and renal failure. [source: Banerji et al. 2008; Quackometer 2016, secondary] These are the proponents' claims. Nothing in this guide presents the protocols as a treatment for cancer or any other physical disease.
  • Evidence status (one line): NHS guidance states there is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective for any health condition and NICE does not recommend it; NCI's Best Case Series review judged the Banerji approach worth prospective study, but that study was never carried out. [source: NHS 111 Wales; NCI Best Case Series]

2. Framework

2a. The method as its proponents describe it

  • Diagnosis first: the client arrives with, or is sent for, a conventional diagnosis; pathology, imaging and laboratory reports are used to name the condition and, in the founders' own case reports, to document change. [source: Banerji et al. 2008]
  • Protocol assignment: each named condition has a set protocol. Practitioner sources describe about 200 conditions covered in the published book, each with a first, second and third "line"; if a line does not produce the response the practitioner expects within what they regard as a reasonable time, the next line is used, and if none works the practitioner falls back on classical individualised homeopathy. [source: Ruminating on Remedies, secondary] Remedy names, potencies and schedules are deliberately not given here.
  • Short consultations, high volume: proponents describe brief, condition-focused consultations replacing long classical case-taking; reported clinic volumes run to hundreds of patients a day. [source: Homeopathy Rising; Ruminating on Remedies; Quackometer 2016, all secondary]
  • Remote care: practitioner accounts describe international clients consulting the Kolkata clinic at a distance and obtaining remedies in their own country. [source: Homeopathy Rising, secondary] [uncertain: current arrangements not verified]
  • Who practises it: the Kolkata clinic and its trained doctors; outside India, lay and professional homeopaths who have taken commercial courses in the protocols, including a US "practical homeopathy" training business. [source: Homeopathy Rising; Ruminating on Remedies, secondary] A book, The Banerji Protocols: A New Method of Treatment with Homeopathic Medicines (Prasanta Banerji, 2013), is listed by booksellers. [uncertain: not verified]
  • NCI review: between 1999 and 2010 practitioners submitted case series to NCI's Best Case Series programme. NCI identified "the treatment approach of the P. Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation" as one of three practices warranting research and funded a prospective outcomes-monitoring study, approved by the NCI IRB; NCI states "The study was not done because of regulatory issues in India." [source: NCI Best Case Series] The founders' 2008 paper reports that of 14 lung and oesophageal cancer case records submitted, four had independently confirmed diagnosis and radiographic response, and presents these four in detail. That paper is the authors' account; NCI made no finding that the protocols are effective and no completed prospective study exists. [source: Banerji et al. 2008; NCI Best Case Series]

2b. Regulation and licensing (one line each)

  • India: homoeopathy is a recognised system; under the National Commission for Homoeopathy Act 2020 only practitioners enrolled on a State or National Register may practise as qualified homoeopathic practitioners, and a Board of Ethics and Registration handles professional conduct. [source: NCH Act 2020, ss. 27, 31–34]
  • United Kingdom: there is no statutory regulation of homeopaths; anyone may practise, and voluntary registration does not show that a treatment works. [source: NHS 111 Wales] Section 4 of the Cancer Act 1939 makes it an offence (England, Wales, Scotland) to take part in publishing an advertisement offering to treat any person for cancer, with defences for material reaching only doctors, nurses, pharmacists and similar audiences; local authorities (Trading Standards) bring proceedings. [source: Cancer Act 1939 s. 4] A planned 2016 London presentation of the protocols covering cancer and renal failure was withdrawn from its listed university venue after public complaints. [source: The Wire 2016; Quackometer 2016]
  • United States: FDA treats homeopathic drug products as unapproved new drugs; its December 2022 final guidance sets out risk-based enforcement priorities, after the 1988 compliance policy was withdrawn. [source: FDA Law Blog 2022, secondary] State licensing of homeopaths and FTC advertising-claims policy: [uncertain: not verified].

2c. The psychotherapist's work alongside it

There are no phases set by the method for psychotherapists. A workable sequence [synthesis]:

  1. Discover and record (first session or whenever disclosed): routine, non-judgemental inquiry (4.1).
  2. Understand (1–3 sessions, interleaved with the presenting work): meaning, hopes, explanatory model, what the client has been told (4.2, 4.3).
  3. Decide and coordinate (as needed, often in serious illness): values-based decision support and, with consent, contact with the doctor, pharmacist or oncology team (4.4, 4.5).
  4. Monitor (every session while the client is ill or using the protocols): risk screen, children, money, group pressure, health anxiety (4.6–4.11).
  5. Accompany outcomes: palliative referral, family conflict, grief and regret (4.12); reporting where needed (4.13).

Move from step 1 to 3 immediately if there is any sign that diagnosed serious illness is going untreated, that a child is involved, or that conventional medicines have been stopped. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

  • Stay in role: the psychotherapist addresses the person's decisions, meaning and safety, not the remedy. Practical meaning: never recommend, endorse, dissuade on technical grounds, sell or source remedies or protocols. [source: APA Ethics Code 2.01] [synthesis]
  • Ask routinely and without judgement. Practical meaning: put complementary use in the standard intake so disclosure is ordinary, not a confession. [synthesis]
  • Respect self-determination. Practical meaning: an adult with capacity may choose this approach; the therapist's task is that the choice is informed, voluntary and revisitable. [source: APA Ethics Code, Principle E]
  • Attribute, do not adjudicate, the system's concepts. Practical meaning: describe protocols as "what the clinic teaches" and evidence status in one plain line; neither ridicule nor affirm. [synthesis]
  • Medicines and remedies go to the prescriber. Practical meaning: never advise starting, stopping or changing any medicine or remedy; route questions to the doctor or pharmacist. [source: NHS 111 Wales; NHS]
  • Coordinate with consent. Practical meaning: offer to speak with the GP, oncologist or pharmacist; share only what is needed. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.09, 4.05]
  • Safety outranks rapport. Practical meaning: delay or abandonment of treatment for diagnosed serious disease, harm to a child, or exploitation is raised directly, even at the cost of discomfort. [synthesis]
  • No conflicts of interest. Practical meaning: a therapist who is also a homeopath or protocol course graduate does not offer it to psychotherapy clients and refers any such interest elsewhere. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05, 3.06]
  • Informed consent to therapy covers this work. Practical meaning: tell the client early that you will ask about all treatments, may suggest coordination, and when confidentiality may be broken. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.10, 10.01]

4. Intervention inventory

All interventions below are the psychotherapist's own work. None involves giving, choosing or commenting technically on a remedy. Unless a source is tagged, the procedure is [synthesis] built on general psychotherapy practice and the regulatory facts in section 2.

4.1 Routine, non-judgemental inquiry and recording

  • Purpose: learn whether the client (or a child or relative in their care) uses Banerji protocols or other homeopathy, for what, from whom, and alongside which conventional care. Use at intake and whenever a new diagnosis, symptom or treatment decision appears.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask about all treatments in one normalising list (prescribed, over the counter, supplements, homeopathy, other practitioners).
    2. If yes: what condition it is for, who prescribed it (clinic, local homeopath, online course, self-selected from a book), whether the condition has a conventional diagnosis, and whether their doctor knows.
    3. Ask whether any prescribed medicine, appointment, test or treatment has been stopped, delayed or declined because of it.
    4. Record factually in the notes: what is used, for what, prescriber, doctor aware yes/no, any change to conventional care. Do not record remedy schedules as advice.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I ask everyone about all the things they use for their health, including homeopathy or anything bought online, so I get the full picture. Is there anything like that for you?" / "Does your GP know you're following this protocol?"
  • Watch for: guarded or apologetic answers (suggesting prior judgement from clinicians); a serious diagnosis paired with "I'm doing it the natural way"; it is working when the client mentions changes spontaneously in later sessions.

4.2 Exploring meaning, hopes and the explanatory model

  • Purpose: understand what draws the client to a diagnosis-based protocol: hope, control, distrust of medicine, cost or access, family or cultural identity, community, or a previous bad experience. Use after disclosure, before any decision talk.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask how they came to it (recommendation, family tradition, a book, an online group, a clinic testimonial).
    2. Elicit their model: what they think is wrong in the body and how the protocol is meant to help.
    3. Ask what they hope for in concrete terms (cure, symptom relief, fewer side effects, feeling active, avoiding a feared treatment).
    4. Ask what conventional care has meant to them; name any fear, shame, grief or mistrust underneath.
    5. Reflect the values you hear (autonomy, family, naturalness, hope) back in their words.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What was it about this approach that made sense to you?" / "If it went the way you hope, what would be different?" / "It sounds like being in charge of your own treatment matters a great deal after how the hospital felt."
  • Watch for: hope that functions to avoid a feared reality (poor prognosis, side effects, surgery); certainty that cannot tolerate any question; working when the client can hold both their hope and their fear in the same conversation.

4.3 Clarifying claims and sources of information

  • Purpose: help the client separate what has been documented from what has been promised, especially where NCI involvement is cited as endorsement. Use when the client quotes cure rates, testimonials or "NCI approval".
  • Steps:
    1. Ask what exactly they have been told and by whom (website, clinic, course, group).
    2. Offer, with permission, the plain published facts as their source states them: NCI's Best Case Series judged the approach worth a prospective study; NCI funded one; NCI states it was never carried out. The founders' 2008 paper describes four selected case records. NHS guidance states there is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy works for any condition. [source: NCI Best Case Series; Banerji et al. 2008; NHS 111 Wales]
    3. Invite the client to check with their own doctor; do not debate remedy pharmacology.
    4. Return to values: "Given that, what matters most to you now?"
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if I told you what the NCI itself says about that review? You can check it yourself on their page." / "Selected case reports and a trial that tests the approach are different things. Your oncologist can explain what that means for you."
  • Watch for: the client hearing this as an attack (move back to 4.2); relief at being given permission to doubt; working when the client can describe the evidence status accurately in their own words.

4.4 Supporting informed, values-based decisions

  • Purpose: help the client make and revisit a decision that reflects their values, with full information from the treating team, free of pressure from the therapist, family or practitioner. No published decision-support tool specific to this method was verified; the steps are [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Name the decision precisely (for example: whether to continue, start, delay or decline a recommended conventional treatment; whether to use the protocol alongside it).
    2. List the options, including "both" and "decide later with a fixed review date".
    3. For each option, have the client list what they would need to know from their doctor (likely course, risks of delay, what can and cannot be reversed) and what matters to them.
    4. Encourage a written question list for the medical appointment; offer to rehearse it.
    5. Agree a review point linked to medical events (next scan, next appointment), not to the protocol's "lines".
    6. Respect the decision of an adult with capacity; keep the door open.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not here to tell you which to choose. I want to make sure whatever you choose, you chose it knowing what your doctors expect and what matters to you." / "What would you need to hear from your oncologist to feel this was your decision?"
  • Watch for: decisions made under pressure from a practitioner, group or relative; time-limited "windows" for conventional treatment; working when the client brings informed questions to the medical team and can state their reasons.

4.5 Coordinating with the doctor, pharmacist or treating team

  • Purpose: keep the client's medical care safe and joined-up. Use when the client has a diagnosed condition, takes prescribed medicines, is pregnant, or is ill. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.09, 4.05; NHS 111 Wales]
  • Steps:
    1. Explain why coordination helps (remedies may contain unsafe substances or interfere with other medicines; prescribed treatment should not be stopped without the doctor). [source: NHS 111 Wales]
    2. Obtain specific written consent: whom, what, purpose.
    3. Share the minimum: that the client is using a homeopathic protocol, for which condition, any change to conventional care, and the psychological context.
    4. Route every question about medicines or remedies to the prescriber or pharmacist; do not interpret.
    5. Encourage the client to bring the remedy packaging to their pharmacist. [synthesis]
    6. Document consent, contact and outcome.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would you be OK with me letting Dr X know you're using this, so your care fits together? I'd only share what's needed." / "That's a question for your pharmacist. Shall we write it down for your next visit?"
  • Watch for: refusal of consent driven by fear of disapproval (explore, do not force, unless a safeguarding duty applies); doctor reactions that shame the client (debrief); working when the client reports a respectful conversation with the doctor.

4.6 Recognising and responding to risk to the client

  • Purpose: detect harm from delay or substitution of effective care, particularly where the protocols are presented for cancer, renal failure or other serious disease. Use every session while the client is ill.
  • Steps:
    1. Screen: any stopped or skipped medicines, cancelled appointments, declined surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, dialysis, vaccination; new or worsening symptoms not reported to a doctor.
    2. If present, name the concern directly and specifically, linked to the client's own values.
    3. Encourage an urgent conversation with the treating doctor; offer to help set it up (4.5).
    4. Assess capacity informally where illness, fear or cognitive change may impair it; seek medical input if capacity is in doubt.
    5. For acute red flags (severe pain, breathlessness, bleeding, confusion, rapid decline), direct to urgent or emergency medical care.
    6. Assess suicide risk using standard practice where hopelessness, a frightening diagnosis or regret is present.
    7. Document the concern, what was said and the client's response.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm worried, and I'd rather say it than not. You told me family time is what matters most. Skipping the scan means nobody knows how things are moving. Can we call the clinic together today?"
  • Watch for: "lines" of protocol being extended while symptoms progress; remote prescribers with no physical examination; working when the medical team is informed and the client has an agreed plan.

4.7 Children: consent, assent and safeguarding

  • Purpose: protect children whose illness is managed by protocol, especially where diagnosed disease goes untreated or vaccination is replaced. Use whenever a parent describes using protocols for a child. [synthesis; NHS 111 Wales advises seeing a GP before avoiding vaccination in favour of homeopathy]
  • Steps:
    1. Ask what the child's condition is, whether a doctor has seen the child, and whether prescribed treatment or vaccination has been stopped or replaced.
    2. Explore the parent's fears and values as in 4.2; most parents act from love and worry.
    3. Encourage medical review for the child; with consent, contact the GP or paediatrician.
    4. Where a child is being deprived of necessary medical care, follow local safeguarding procedures and consult your safeguarding lead; this duty overrides confidentiality.
    5. Where the child is old enough, consider their own views and assent in line with local law and policy.
    6. Record decisions and reasons. Never name the child outside the required safeguarding channels.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I can hear how much you want to protect her from harsh treatment. I also have a duty to make sure she's seen by a doctor for this. Can we arrange that together?"
  • Watch for: serious or worsening symptoms in the child; missed appointments; parental conflict over treatment; working when the child is under medical review.

4.8 Pregnancy

  • Purpose: keep antenatal care intact. Use when a pregnant client or partner describes protocol use (practitioner sources list protocols for fertility and other reproductive conditions). [source: Ruminating on Remedies, secondary]
  • Steps: confirm the client is under antenatal care; encourage disclosure to the midwife or obstetrician and pharmacist; route all questions about remedies to them; screen for declined antenatal tests or treatments driven by the protocol; respond as in 4.6 where care is being refused. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your midwife needs to know everything you're taking, even things that seem gentle. Would you like to bring it up at your next appointment?"
  • Watch for: anxiety about conventional interventions underpinning the choice (address the anxiety, not the remedy); infertility grief; working when the antenatal team is aware.

4.9 Money, remote consultations and training businesses

  • Purpose: identify financial strain or exploitation. Practitioner sources describe paid international remote consultations, remedies bought separately, and tiered commercial courses training lay "practical homeopaths". [source: Homeopathy Rising, secondary]
  • Steps:
    1. Ask neutrally about costs: consultations, remedies, courses, certification, travel, conferences.
    2. Explore pressure: upselling, "the next line" or "the advanced course", recruitment of others, income promises.
    3. Help the client compare spending with their own budget and priorities.
    4. Where advertising promises cancer cures, or a practitioner presents themself as qualified when they are not, consider reporting (4.13).
    5. Manage your own conflicts: never sell, recommend or refer to remedies, protocols or courses. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.06]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Can we look at what this has cost so far, and whether that fits with what you can afford?" / "Is anyone suggesting you train in this and sell it on?"
  • Watch for: debt; diverted money meant for medical care, rent or food; shame about spending; working when the client sets spending limits that they keep.

4.10 Group and community dynamics

  • Purpose: recognise when an online group, course cohort or family network pressures the client toward or away from treatment. Use when the client describes a community around the method.
  • Steps: map the client's sources of support and information; ask what happens in the group when someone chooses conventional treatment or a protocol "fails"; look for features of high control (us-versus-them framing of doctors, discouraging questions, shame, isolation from dissenting relatives); support the client's independent judgement and outside relationships; keep your stance respectful of the community's positive functions (belonging, hope). [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would the group say if you decided to have the surgery as well?" / "Who could you talk to who doesn't have a stake in either choice?"
  • Watch for: fear of exclusion shaping medical choices; a client who stops telling you about the group; working when the client can disagree with the group and stay connected.

4.11 Health anxiety and somatic symptom presentations

  • Purpose: where protocol use is driven by health anxiety, persistent physical symptoms without a clear medical cause, or a search for certainty, treat the anxiety with established psychological approaches. Cross-reference Domain II (health anxiety and somatic symptom disorders). [synthesis]
  • Steps: assess whether repeated remedy changes, checking and reassurance-seeking maintain anxiety; formulate the cycle with the client (symptom, threat appraisal, seeking a fix, short-term relief, renewed doubt); apply the Domain II CBT approaches for health anxiety or persistent physical symptoms; coordinate with the GP so medical review is appropriate rather than repeated; do not frame remedies as safety behaviours to be banned, but explore their function.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Each time a symptom appears, a new protocol line seems to bring relief for a while, then the worry returns. Shall we look at that cycle together?"
  • Watch for: switching between many practitioners; distress when uncertainty is discussed; working when the client tolerates uncertainty with less checking.

4.12 Psycho-oncology: serious illness, palliative care, family conflict, grief and regret

  • Purpose: support clients and families where the protocols are used in cancer or other life-limiting illness. Integrative oncology is complementary to standard treatment, never instead of it (see entry 172). [synthesis]
  • Steps:
    1. Hold respectful conversations about alternative treatment using 4.2–4.4; keep the medical team informed with consent (4.5).
    2. Where disease advances, raise palliative care as a support for quality of life that is compatible with the client's values; offer help to ask for a referral.
    3. Family conflict: meet relatives with consent; help each person voice fear and love behind positions ("you're giving up" / "you're poisoning yourself"); focus on what the ill person wants.
    4. Grief and regret after choosing alternatives: allow regret without blame; separate hindsight from what was known at the time; address self-blame and guilt in the bereaved; screen for complicated grief and suicide risk.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Palliative care isn't about stopping hope. It's a team whose whole job is to help you feel as well as possible. Would you like to know more from your doctor?" / "You made that choice with the hope and information you had then."
  • Watch for: a client cut off from family over treatment choices; bereaved relatives blaming each other or the client; working when communication reopens and care needs are met.

4.13 Reporting routes

  • Purpose: use the right channel when advertising, products or practitioner conduct may break the law or endanger people. Use after 4.6–4.9 identify a concern; discuss with the client and seek consent except where a duty overrides it. [source: APA Ethics Code 4.05]
  • Routes:
    • UK: advertisements offering to treat cancer: local authority Trading Standards (Cancer Act 1939 s. 4). [source: Cancer Act 1939 s. 4] Misleading health advertising: Advertising Standards Authority [uncertain: not verified]. Unsafe medicinal products: MHRA Yellow Card [uncertain: not verified]. Homeopaths are not statutorily regulated, so voluntary registers only. [source: NHS 111 Wales]
    • India: misconduct by a registered homoeopathic practitioner: the State Medical Council for Homoeopathy or, where none exists, the Board of Ethics and Registration for Homoeopathy; practising without registration is an offence under s. 34. [source: NCH Act 2020, ss. 31, 34]
    • US: product safety and illegal homeopathic drug marketing: FDA (MedWatch) [uncertain: not verified]; deceptive advertising: FTC and state attorneys general [uncertain: not verified]; licensed practitioners: their state licensing board.
    • All jurisdictions: safeguarding concerns about children or adults at risk through local safeguarding procedures; a medically licensed prescriber of homeopathy to the medical regulator.
  • Example language (illustrative): "This advert says it can cure cancer. In the UK that may be illegal. Would you be willing for me to report it, or would you like to do it yourself?"
  • Watch for: the client fearing retaliation from the clinic or group; working when concerns reach the body able to act.

4.14 Managing the therapist's own role and boundaries

  • Purpose: prevent dual roles and conflicts of interest, especially for therapists who are also homeopaths, have trained in the protocols, or hold strong views for or against them. [source: APA Ethics Code 2.01, 3.05, 3.06]
  • Steps: do not provide homeopathy or protocol advice to psychotherapy clients; refer any such request elsewhere without recommending a specific practitioner; disclose relevant conflicts; take strong personal reactions (contempt, enthusiasm, rescue) to supervision; keep within competence and seek medical consultation when needed.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I keep my work here to the psychological side, so I won't advise on remedies either way. That's for your doctor and whoever prescribes them."
  • Watch for: being drawn into choosing remedies or debating evidence session after session; working when the client experiences you as neutral on the remedy and engaged with them.

5. Handling problems

The method's own sources do not address psychotherapy; all guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless tagged.

  • Client stuck in certainty ("the protocol will cure me"): do not argue the remedy. Return to values and concrete plans: "If the next scan shows growth, what would you want to happen then?" Agree a medically anchored review point (4.4).
  • Client stuck in ambivalence, switching between protocol lines and conventional plans: externalise the dilemma on paper (options, values, what the doctor needs to clarify); set one decision for one date; normalise ambivalence in serious illness.
  • Resistance or defensiveness after the subject is raised: acknowledge any past judgement from clinicians; apologise if your wording felt dismissive; restate role ("I'm not here to take this away from you"); go back to 4.2.
  • Overwhelm (new diagnosis, conflicting advice from doctors, homeopaths and relatives): narrow the frame to the next single step; grounding and pacing; limit information intake; offer to help prepare one question list for the medical team.
  • Non-adherence to conventional care: explore reasons (side effects, fear, cost, distrust, the protocol's instructions) without blame; encourage the client to tell the prescriber honestly; never advise on medicines yourself; escalate per 4.6 if risk is serious.
  • Rupture when the therapist raises safety or reports: name the rupture, explain the reason plainly, affirm care for the client, invite their anger; keep the next appointment offered. In safeguarding cases, tell the parent what you are doing unless that would increase risk to the child.
  • "My NCI-reviewed treatment": use 4.3 once, with the NCI page as the shared reference; avoid repeated debate, which entrenches positions.
  • Remote practitioner advises against telling the doctor: explore the effect of secrecy on the client's safety; support disclosure to the doctor; this pattern may also be a reportable concern (4.13).
  • Client asks the therapist's opinion of the protocol: give the one-line evidence status as sources state it, decline to recommend for or against any remedy, refer remedy questions to the prescriber and pharmacist (4.14).
  • Family member (not the client) brings the concern: work with the family member's own distress; do not act on the ill person's care without their consent unless a safeguarding or capacity issue arises.
  • Deterioration or death after alternative-only treatment: support grief, guilt and anger in survivors; avoid confirming either "it was the protocol's fault" or "it was their choice so no-one is to blame"; screen for complicated grief.
  • Therapist's own strong reactions (frustration, contempt, fear for the client): take to supervision; check that interventions serve the client rather than the therapist's need to win.
  • Cultural context: in India homoeopathy is a recognised, regulated system and may be the family's first-line care [source: NCH Act 2020]; respect this while still ensuring access to effective treatment for serious disease.

Sources

Web sources:

Books cited:

  • Banerji, P. (2013). The Banerji Protocols: A New Method of Treatment with Homeopathic Medicines. [uncertain: not verified; publisher not confirmed]