Following the human needs instead of the materia medica symptoms

Following the human needs instead of the materia medica symptoms

To my detriment I was singled out for being too different and subsequently a number of psychiatric admissions followed 10 years ago. This helped me to better understand the needs of the most vulnerable and socially excluded. I found out the hard way that psychiatry medicalises our social problems and has a place in our society because it lacks compassion. Too many people are occupied with keeping their luxurious lives afloat and do not listen carefully enough to those in disarray, lonely and isolated. Homeopathy is a medicine that counteracts the unhealthy effects of personal efforts to comply with our culture of blatant greed and the abundance of things we do not need for truly happy living. However, we can step up our effectiveness in our support of individual lives troubled by societal demands when we solely start following the human needs, putting the client’s will even more centre stage, and NOT let ourselves in with the querying in line with the materia medica.

In this article I demonstrate how I apply homeopathy in my daily practice for liberating the rebel in the name of love in each of us. I am aware that any miasmatic prescriber will be fulfilled with a sense of delight as I claim to have found why miasms do “predict” an unhappy ending in the form of decay, death and severe “pathology”. But the answer and many other answers with it won’t be revealed to the letter as I rather leave it to the readers own perceptions. What homeopathy is about and whatever the most beneficial way forward may be, requires consensus and the understanding that we are a social movement too.

We homeopaths are marginalised by the same medical establishment that is supported by the pharmaceutical industry and fuelled by materialistic ignorance, characteristic for the pandemic culture we live in. Here we may feel obliged to contrast our professional values with the materialistic beliefs of our counterparts but we do adapt to the needs of an increasingly secular society too. We do adapt to unhealthy conventions that help us to meet demands for an evidence base of what we are doing. In particular of course this is demonstrated in meeting the limitations of research that supports reductionist flavours in medicine and do avoid the mind-body unity at all costs. Yet, in the acknowledgement and support of the strange, rare and peculiar individual characteristics, that makes one standing out in being different, lays our strength and self-esteem. We do undermine our own professional self-esteem by not acknowledging the most individualising symptoms and characteristics in each case. If we, for example, record that the patient feels much improved from her symptoms associated with the Coronavirus, we strengthen our position. However, if we assess all diagnosed cases of Covid or monkeypox in order to find out what remedies are most indicated I feel we make a start undermining homeopathic principles and our self-esteem. This is because it opens the possibility for generic prescribing at the cost of prescribing on individualised symptoms alone and with it, we obviously underestimate what homeopathy is essentially about.

To me working in line with the principle of similarity means contrasting your practice with that of your local G.P. perse. It really means undermining conventional medical practise with every patient we literary cure from their personal perspective. With the full acknowledgement of the client’s perspective in all cases we will introduce equality in medical care which in homeopathy is a no-brainer but is severely lacking in conventional medicine. In my practise we meet truly as equals because me with my homeopathic knowledge meets the client’s expertise on her life and the nature of our cooperation helps us to determine what remedy suits us for the benefit of the client.

The threefold soul and approach to case analysis

In her truth finding mission the client avails of her threefold soul. First of all, we relate all our sensory impressions to what I call the sensory soul by qualification of what meets the eyes, the ears, what we smell, touch and taste. We are in a continues effort to reach unconditional happiness and basically this means that all the generals that meet that attitude are worthwhile to be recorded during consultation. So, we only ask questions that helps the client to positively confirm that drive to feel better. That is what I call true support and all the generals that aggravate are mentioned in a spontaneous manner and are of particular interest obviously. ‘What measures do you take to sleep comfortably or to avoid your sleep is not satisfactory?’ I could ask. And the answers invite me to ask an array of questions that emphasise wellbeing. The sensory soul requires us to open up and live in the senses, makes one adjust to the outside world. The impulses of the sensory soul are made sense of by the intellectual soul and makes us more or less turn inward. The sensory soul is the cradle of our feelings and sensations that are put into a context or concept, into a story that works for me, with our capacity to think and intellectualise.

Essentially, I keep the client as close as possible to their sensory impression in the here and now with my questions and so it is the here and now, we share for the moment of the consultation. I do not specifically go into the past other than meeting the necessity of following Hering’s principles. This simply means that from day one I have a clear understanding of the history of disease and traumata so that I can pre-empt the learning curve towards full-blown self-realisation and get an idea of what is possible with my efforts to cure. I feel that the more we are willing to hold on to what essentially homeopathy means, namely to cure like with like, the more we are willing to work in line with human nature itself. So, after having a close look at the particulars followed by an examination of the sensory needs, we delve into the abilities to self-reflect of the intellectual soul with three simple questions, somewhat like:

1. What in your experience was specifically a bad situation involving people? A situation that you never hope to encounter again.
2. What in your experience was specifically a very positive moment for you? What happened and why do you treasure it up to this day?
3. If you had a chance to change something in your life today, something with your own range of capabilities, what would you realistically change?

These questions help the client to consider her direction in life as far as this may be intellectually determined. Also, these three questions that I ask at every consultation give a wide range of opportunities for me and the client to establish what needs to be changed and maintained in order to make life work. The intellectual soul is very much about secure living, control of needs, the adverse effects of traumata in all shapes and forms and/or the anticipation of an uncertain future all from the client’s point of view. This is the point of view in which personal believes, norms and value determine what is true to be seen and from this perspective we feel as if the world is only about me being happy and satisfied. The key activity of performing happiness in the intellectual soul is to-let-go-off while the intrinsic activity performing wellbeing in the sensory soul is to-hold-on-to. Letting go off outstanding issues as the prime activity of the intellectual soul is relating sensory impressions to our concepts of this world in order to understand and prepare for what an uncertain future has in store and to have peace of mind. Sensory impressions that do not comply with the intellectual soul’s concepts and beliefs are troublesome and in cases of trauma these impressions may seem unreal. The sensory soul’s activity discriminates between shapes, colours, known, unknown and holds on to what we qualify as good and affordable but ignores things that are of no interest.

With the help of our inclination to be empathetically involved we overcome our limitations of egocentrism by drastically choosing to appreciate the point of view of the other more than your own. This usually means that parents sacrifice themselves in aid of better care for their children, a teenager boy for a better comprehension of his girlfriend’s needs, a mother trying to meet the needs of her grandchildren while her son is in a court case for divorce settlements, etcetera. Many people wilfully sacrifice aspects of their wellbeing in aid of someone worse off and with it demonstrate the involvement of the aware soul, the aspect of our soul that demonstrates unconditional care. In consultations I love to address this aspect that is alive in all of us but many times people are not willing or able to address their caring needs involving people they dearly love as to them this care for the other worse off has to meet the condition of first feeling content yourself. This is normal but not healthy for the longer term. This is because the satisfaction derived from bodily needs are not as lasting as the satisfaction secured by better cooperation for the benefit of increased food production. Clearly increased food production benefits our bodily wellbeing to a higher extent. Now, truly lasting happiness is derived at by helping someone out, perhaps a total stranger, irrespective of your own situation, just because the person is in dire straits and you cannot watch them suffering like that. Unconditional care works in two ways as well. First of all, it benefits the care receiver and secondly it helps the caregiver to feel well about herself. And this increase of feeling well about yourself, self-worth or self-esteem, stays with you for the rest of your life. This well-being however is not limited to the mental-, emotional or spiritual level for it also has an effect on your physical well-being. Here I would like to mention the care of a mother for her infant even though the pains from childbirth are still there. Her unconditional love for the infant helps her to overcome her discomfort and she hardly thinks about it. How easily does she forget about her labour pains? We safely may state that of all our needs, the need to care unconditionally is one of the highest that is identifiable with the help of plain everyday language. Unconditional care brings people together that otherwise never would have met. This is because it helps each of us to overcome our lonely existence in the intellectual soul. It helps us to exceed our limitations caused by our brooding on problems that hamper our own personal wellbeing.

Overcoming our personal problems by little or bigger sacrifices for the benefit of someone worse off is aided by a third aspect of my consultations that start with the question: ‘Is there anyone you know among your friends, family or anyone else that requires your special attention, because of the unfortunate position she is in?’ My client may choose her child with problematic behaviour and explains me the unpleasant situation he is in, her predicaments and dilemmas that come along with it. This leads to a number of challenges that I record as signs and symptoms which will help me in determining what remedy to prescribe.

I prescribe a remedy that matches the highest needs presented during the interview. So, most of the time the need to control is at stake. This is because most of my patients find it difficult to make ends meet and do, for example, everything to be on top of their finances or require a need for increased self-control in order to meet the devious practises of regular psychiatric assessments by two assessors. This requires a remedy that supports the intellectual soul which is most represented by two remedies, namely Nat-m. and Ars. while many other remedies with similar characteristics could be indicated. Some people that require my attention may suffer from short lived problems relating to what the senses have to offer. This means that they can’t let go of joys derived from the sensual to the extent that it hurts. It may result in having a changeable mood and difficulties to focus their thinking on one subject. They may be overly sensitive to sensory impressions or longing for something impossible to hold on too. The remedy that represents best the characteristics of being stuck in the sensory soul activities would be Ign. Also, Puls., Nux-v. and many other sensitive remedies may be indicated for bringing relief in situations that are associated with being stuck in a development of the sensory soul.

Being overly engrossed in the sensory needs comes along with difficulties and ill health as it severely restricts our freedom and may take on the nature of addiction. The essential activity of the sensory soul, to-hold-on-to all pleasant sensory impressions is taking over at the cost of the ability of the intellectual soul to-let-go-off. However, it is unavoidable having to deal with this matter as we all are genuinely addicted to affectioned love and the lust for life. Living in the senses makes us feel alive (I feel therefore I exist) and is most times celebrated in sexuality that meets the needs of both in the game. From this perspective we feel that there is a lot at stake at birth and rebirth (whether you believe it or not) as they are of a divisive nature at the best of times. We feel responsible for the perfect birth and likewise everything should be put in place to prepare and celebrate our departure. Primarily sex is about procreation but the joys and ecstasy derived from it do help us to wonder off in a desired direction or also many times a direction that is not sustainable for a joyous life. Our instincts provoke us to become independent in meeting the challenges of life and are synonym for what we also call the life force.

The life force or prana springs from the most basic chakras situated in the sexual organs and is directly provoked by primarily three remedies, namely Puls., Nux-v. or Con. in a low potency, usually C6 or C30. The life force is most explicitly recognisable when addressing the sensory needs during consultation. A lack of vitality is characterised by decreased wellbeing on this level, so decreased energy, quality of sleep, libido, apatite, etcetera. In line with the principle of similarity it is rather easy to prescribe solely for the most basic needs and just one of the three remedies, dissolved in water and plussed taken twice a day over 1, 2 or 3 weeks, will help to rejuvenate the vital force in all cases were this is deemed necessary. However, first of all this is only possible when we continue to solely follow the needs involved with the client and secondly this aroused vital force needs to be guided by a remedy that addresses either the needs of the intellectual soul or the aware soul and which is given in a higher potency. If the vital force is provoked with one of these remedies but not guided with the help of a higher potency the client may suffer temporarily from adverse effects.

A good sensory relationship between partners in life is beneficial for health and wellbeing as it involves the skin and this is one of the most underestimate sources of joy and mutual understanding. Sensual love and the need for it becomes dominant the more we are exiled into a lonely existence of the intellectual soul and helps to balance out the impulses derived from intellectual activity alone. So, the life force manifests in our aware field first in the sensory soul and provides us homeopaths with the most vivid description in terms of what we experience, feel, think or project onto the world out there, etcetera, of the harmonious activity of our organs. The more our self-awareness manifests in our conscious life, the more the “I” is willing to take over, the more we liberate ourselves from our instinctive inclinations, the better we are able to also consider someone else’s higher needs and build more lasting relationships. However, those relationships are still conditional and it requires unconditional love and care to liberate ourselves from the earthly ties indefinitely and reach out to those who are marginalised and dismissed by our unhealthy culture of greed and control.

The instinctive drives of the vital force manifest the most in the sensory soul’s activities and to a limiting degree in the intellectual soul. As soon as we give in to the needs of someone in a vulnerable position, we have to come to grips with how these instincts influence our care and by attentive listening we adapt ourselves to the needs of the other. This requires us to know the truth from the care receiver’s perspective only and our higher I or spirit of truth comes into play. For example, we do everything to understand the needs of a non-verbal autistic child before we decide on what care is required and so our conscience takes over from our instincts. Our choice to care unconditionally for the other worse off is a free independent choice guided by our moral compass and helps us to unite in the here and now with God.

Our compassion is a healing power, a force to reckon with, which complements, yes overtakes, the vital force and aids us in bringing about physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health while increasing lasting social cohesion at the same time. I call the force of compassion also the spirit force as it operates in full awareness of who you are with respect to a care situation and set you free as your independent moral compass, your conscience, comes into play.

All it takes for the vulnerable client is a listening ear and special attention to make her feel understood, however at the other side of the care spectrum we feel obliged due to urgency to let ourselves dictate how to provide our care. Here obviously we talk about life threatening situations such as during surgical procedures or saving people out of a six-story apartment complex that is on fire. Here we generally have to rely on well-established protocols which help us NOT to take time to sort out each individual condition but to act in line with best practise. Now, psychiatry takes it a step further and is about taking control of the mind of very vulnerable individuals by which their pitiful system becomes central stage with the help of intoxicating drugs, coercive measures such as seclusion rooms and of course electro shocking¹. Thanks to the similarity principle in homeopathy, we are able to challenge these practises but the problem arises when we are not acquainted well enough with situations where personal problems are medicalised for social control only.

Not understood in homeopathy land is the fact that essentially it is not about the flavour of homeopathy we apply. If we feel we know it all in homeopathy and even if we feel very effective prescribers with a busy practise, still if we didn’t take away the causation to our client’s suffering, true relief would be impossible. It is plain homeopathic understanding to first take away the causation in order to provide effective treatment. In all cases where loneliness and isolation are significant contributors, we have to understand that continuation of this unfavourable situation will keep our client from participating in the human family and so will not be able to meet her highest need, namely to care for the other as she wishes to be cared for. This is in line with the threefold approach the highest need that only can be fulfilled when people are able to truly meet. And so, meeting this golden standard is what life is about in relation to true self actualisation as unconditional care helps us to independently, guided by our moral compass to set each other free from unhealthy cultural conventions. When we start deliberately addressing the highest needs with homeopathy, we as homeopathic practitioners intentionally and with certainty have a positive effect on the social cohesion in our society.

Social norms are changing rapidly for the better, I feel, as the Covid made people realise, yes, even politicians and the national broadcaster where up in arms about it, that loneliness and isolation have a negative impact on our so-called mental health². Why then, do we allow the most vulnerable and socially excluded to be put in seclusion rooms? The Mental Health Act provides us with opportunities to rid ourselves of unwanted elements who do not meet the criteria for being treated as criminals.

Earlier I have explained that loneliness and isolation is a natural attitude as well and that it is promoted by our sense of wellbeing derived from our intellectual soul’s activities which requires brooding or deep thinking. The mutual care that springs from the intellectual soul is conditional, because first we have to think and rethink and even put protocols and procedures in place before we are willing to meet the needs the vulnerable. We increase the intellectual soul’s functioning by stimulation of its core activity, namely to let go off things and in that way, we promote living in the here and now and to be less prone to dwelling on the past or feeling anxious about the future. Only indirectly this benefits the people in our care but when we allow the client’s needs for unconditional care to manifest in our practise, and so the aware soul’s prime activity, the remedies we prescribe have a more direct effect on social cohesion as this form of prescribing helps unconditional love and care to flourish. The glue that makes living together possible is unconditional love and the threefold approach to homeopathy provides us with a scope on our practise that emphasise the need for self-actualisation in the community for humanity. Naturally, and I will explicitly mention this once again, with our progress in self-actualisation in aid of our community and humanity to a greater extend, we will increase in general wellbeing and even particular acute symptoms, such as an ordinary toothache or a bladder infection, will alleviate when prescribing from this perspective.

From the individual perspective the root cause of almost all suffering is loneliness and isolation as they are maintaining and increasing stress levels considerably. Stress is also understood in conventional medicine as causing a whole range of ailments as it inhibits unhealthy life styles and causes all sorts of unusual bodily responses, such as increased blood pressure, -sugar levels or just increased tensions in especially the neck musculature, leading to headaches. Beside that chronic stress levels causes an irregular menstrual cycle, disturbs the hormonal balance generally, leads to sleep deprivation, etcetera, etcetera. An open door, I know, but at the other hand many maintain a firm belief in the miasms too. When living in isolation in a psychiatric institution, away from family and friends or just marginalised and neglected in a neighbourhood, you only are able to talk to the walls, reconfirming yourself unless you do something extraordinary of which you think you will be able to explain this sufficiently at a later stage, estranged from social norms and values as you are. But modern society is not geared up to actually listen and as a consequence we fail to socially include the most vulnerable. Stress as a result of taking on the challenges of life is healthy as in far, we are able to sufficiently listen and support one another. Trying to survive in isolation is detrimental to our ability to cope with stress.

Conclusion

By overcoming the major challenge in my life, I have witnessed the horrors of pushing the evidence base bias at all cost in and outside the walls of the psychiatric industry. In my article I touched on some key principles of my approach to homeopathy which only could have been advanced in being critical to what proper care for the most vulnerable entails. The threefold approach to homeopathy, easy to communicate to the wider public, is self-evident and demonstrates how our efforts to become holy and healthy is hampered by the continuation of living in loneliness and isolation. The spirit force entices us to commit to social learning where the health and happiness of the other are at stake by allowing the one and only guideline for proper care to dominate, namely to love the other as you wish to be loved. This standard for happiness is the ultimate reason why it is so damn important to stop arguing about methods or disregarding colleagues who happen to have a different attitude. The only way we go about social inclusion of homeopaths is by listening attentively, aided by focus groups with the needs of the most vulnerable and trampled upon centre stage. In this way we keep our ethics alive while at the same time we sort out what truly homeopathic cure entails and what not.

The threefold soul and her activities
Soul part	Engaging of the higher I, the spirit, in this soul part	Activity	Most representing remedy
Sensory soul (Sensual love)3	Opening up the senses while holding on to the good and avoiding the bad.	Holding on to	Ign.
Intellectual soul (Conditional love)	Turning inward while reflecting on experiences, conceptualisation, incorporation of worldly insights and engaging in control	Letting go off	Nat-m. or Ars.
Aware soul (Unconditional love)	Surrender to the here and now by giving up the egocentric position and at cost of control, through putting the suffering of the marginalised central stage guided by your conscience alone.	To be	Ip.4

Through the self-help groups based on the golden principles Faith, Hope and Charity I integrate my homeopathic practise in community life. Please feel free to visit my website and find out about how I have socially included myself and integrated homeopathy in social context: http://www.homeopathy3fold.com

1 In psychiatry electroshocking is referred to as Electro Convulsion Therapy or ECT. It is introduced by the Italian psychiatrist Lucio Bini in 1938. In Ireland the procedure may be applied for all ages from 18 onwards and in the U.S. also children are subjected to this inhumane treatment. The average maximum voltage applied to the patient’s head is between 400 volts 450 volts via an alternating current, to induce seizures. This is fired through the brain for a tenth of a second to about 1 second from temple to temple (bilateral) or from the front of one side to the back of it (unilateral). Methohexital is used for sedation because of its anticonvulsive properties but this requires an increase of voltages up to the maximum mentioned for reaching similar effects. Anticonvulsive properties help the service user not to break bones due to extreme muscle contractions while the sedation helps not to panic when shortness of breath kicks in.

2 The words “mental health” relates to “mental illness” suggesting that when you feel unwell there is something wrong with you and that requires medical attention. However, mental and emotional unwell being is a normal reaction to human problems and the key is attentive listening while keeping the vulnerable central stage and not the medical system.

3 Our mission on Earth is to love one another and homeopathy helps to establish this from the inside out.

4 Ipecacuanha requires further confirmation which can only be obtained through a broad consensus on what homeopathic cure actually means.

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