Prescribing Symptoms: only those that represent changes away from health?

[artybergman]

Just trying to clear this up for myself as I seem to read
contradicting or ambiguous texts on this matter.

Tale this case for instance. A person is naturally shy and chilly, ie
both of these traits are part of their life-long natural way of being.
They have a disease for which they are seeking a homeopathic cure. The
characteristic symptoms that represent their disease (their totality)
are selected for repertorisation and remedy selection and in their
diseased condition there have been no (discernable) changes to their
shyness or chilliness.

Questions: Do I, or do I not, include 'shyness' and 'chilliness' in
the Totality which will be repertorised and from which a remedy will
be selected? Does this person's remedy need to be a 'shy' and 'chilly'
remedy, even though shyness and chilliness are not aspects of the case
that need to be 'cured'?

Is the Totality upon which one prescribes comprised only of symptoms
that represent CHANGES AWAY FROM HEALTH? Is this answer to this
question the same for acute and chronic conditions?

Regards - Arthur Bergman

[Christine Wyndham-Thomas]

Hi Arthur
I'll answer according to my own understanding, but hopefully others more
experieinced will add their comments.
I wouldn't class 'shyness' as a symptom unless it's totally out of character
for that person. Bear in mind, a child can be naturally shy and never grow
out of it. If, after repertorising the case, I was left with a choice of
five remedies and in the keynotes, one of those remedies mentioned
'shyness' - I would more than likely choose that remedy.

However, if you met a person, say, when they were 25 and they are now 35 and
in all that time that person appeared 'shy' to you, but then you find out
that before that age they were quite extrovert, then obviously it would form
part of the symptom picture, would form part of their chronic state.

Some people are naturally shy, others become shy due to circumstances.
'Chilliness', on the otherhand, isn't natural, even though they may have
been like it from the time they were a child, and so I would certainly
include this in the symptoms; again, it would form part of that person's
chronic state. I know someone like that and they'll have an heater on in
mid-summer and hate having windows open. That's not natural, nor healthy.
When repertorising a case, we need to determine what's natural against that
which isn't.
Christine
www.dogsonholiday-uk.com
www.homoeopathyclassical.com

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi Arthur,
Which symptoms to use for prescribing is not a straightforward
question...
It depends on various things--is the prescription acute or chronic? Is
the homeopath viewing / treating the case as "layered", or looking for
a single remedy to "cover everything"? And perhaps other factors...

Shyness and chilliness would both be considered "changes away from
health", tho not necessarily extremely so. As the patient comes into
better balance, you would expect to see them have an easier time with
both interacting, and maintaining body heat. Whether those changes
happen quickly or slowly, tho, again could depend on various things...
How strong the quality is, how long it has been present, what the other
needs of healing are, and probably other things too.

Sorry, that's not much of an answer--does it help at all?
Shannon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[DCR]

There are many 'traits' for which we use a single word - but have such a wide range that it makes this a very difficult question. By 'naturally shy '- the range may be from someone who choses to wait for a few moments to mingle or speak up to the extreme of someone who can't enter a room with strangers or avoids all contact with people. Chilly may be someone who simply likes a wrap when walking in the evening to someone who shivers and piles on extra blankets when not in an overheated room. For me the worst of these words is fear. The range for example might run from someone who knows not to touch a poisonous snake (common sense/good fear) to someone who runs panic stricken from a room when the word snake is spoken aloud, or whos blood pressure rises when a book has an image of a snake. Your definition of shy, chilly, etc. often depend on the vocabulary your family used to describe these things when you grew up - so will mean something very different to different people. I recently saw a young man classified as shy when his only problem was that he did not join in the arguments in a class. His 'shyness' was simply an expression of his distaste for the 'rudeness' of his classmates.

In general - if someone expresses something (unsolicited) then I consider that THEY consider it abnormal - and I put it in the rep work. If I ask questions and elicit information (for example they feel chillier than their husband in similar situations), then I add it to a list of traits. I usually don't include these traits in the rep work, but when finally selecting a remedy ( doing the MM reading ) it seems helpful to find some of those traits in the remedy description. Just one approach.