Homeopathy is a complementary or alternative approach to healing.  This means that homeopathy is different from treatments that are part of conventional Western medicine in important ways.

It's based on a series of ideas developed in the 1790s by a German doctor called Samuel Hahnemann.

A central principle of the "treatment" is that "like cures like" – that a substance that causes certain symptoms can also help to remove those symptoms.

A second central principle is based around a process of dilution and shaking called succussion.

Practitioners believe that the more a substance is diluted in this way, the greater its power to treat symptoms.

Many homeopathic remedies consist of substances that have been diluted many times in water until there's none, or almost none, of the original substance, left.

Homeopathy is used to "treat" an extremely wide range of conditions, including physical conditions such as asthma and psychological conditions such as depression.