designer diseases

[Charlotte Gilruth]

Tanya and Sheila wrote:

From: "tanya marquette"
Subject: Re: "designer diseases" --a reply

So, are what people saying is that we cannot use homeopathy to relieve
people of their guild, despair, sense of loneliness? Or is it that we need
to hone our skills more?

I know what you mean about patients not being ready to get well. But I
always thought that is what we did in our work. The description of peeling
an onion was often used to describe the process of removing separate layers
of dis-ease. Is it that we sometimes get stuck at understanding a
particular layer or correctly perceiving what the layer is before us?

tanya

how i would look at the woman with
guilt or fear or whatever it is she feels in her dis-ease about her mother's
death. this comes from my experience of listening to thousands of stories
over more than twenty years, not in homeopathy. i would look at what was
done/not done, said/not said to the CHILD that caused her to have this guilt
or fear or whatever the feeling is, this wound. and i would suspect that it
was done/not done said/not said by this self same mother. father also or
other caretakers could also have played a part. that for me would be the
never well since and what needs to be healed. sheila
Hi Sheila and Tanya--

I agree that healing needs to occur at that depth, and that is the basis
upon which I chose the remedy. But this woman (and many others) have all
awareness of this level locked up tight in the unconscious and resist all
attempts to look at it. If there is an unconscious need to feel pain, along
with an unwillingness to become conscious of that need, and explore where it
came from, wherever it came from, then my hands are tied. This woman's
focus was entirely on getting rid of the pain in a mechanistic sort of way.
When I stressed the need to go deeper, she dropped out.

I have to respect that everyone has their timing, and that I can't DO the
awareness for them, I can't fix them with homeopathy if they aren't ready to
unfold. They need to be proactive participants in the process, "two people
journeying together". (Did Joy say that?) If they don't stay in the
process, there is nothing I can do, although I'm willing to apply myself
fully as long as they keep coming. It's important for me to recognize that
the journey with each client will go on for only a certain distance, rarely
for as long as I feel and believe it should. I am learning a lot lately
about detachment and letting go, working with those who are really receptive
and ready for what homeopathy can offer, and not pushing against the
resistance of those who aren't ripe for the process.

The people who are ready take the remedy and run with it, making profound
changes very quickly. It is like a seed on prepared soil, a beautiful thing
to witness.
"Then the day came when the risk it took to remain curled tight in a bud
became greater than the risk it took to blossom." ---Anais Nin

Charlotte
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Rosemary Hyde]

Hi, Joy and others.

Several times I've run into another situation that is related to the
situation you describe, but that doesn't carry it that far. In fact, the
case I'm preparing to submit next is one of them -- a gentleman who's about
90 to 95% improved with homeopathic remedies but who needs his illness
because it's been a coping mechanism, so he doesn't see any improvement and
keeps enlarging the bits of symptoms that remain. With a number of other
patients, too, I've ended up discussing with them at some length during
follow-ups the issues that they are facing as they heal. It's actually an
important challenge for many folks who have been chronically ill.

If they are actually fabricating a disease and are fully aware that they
don't in fact have it, this is deception on a major scale, and odds are they
are at least borderline personalities, if not frankly psychotic. I suppose
it would be included in such "Mind" rubrics as "deceitful," "charlatan,"
"perfidious", "manipulative." There are also "feigning blindness"
(dyslexia???) and "feigning deafness." And "feigning to be sick."
Interesting situation.

The issue, I guess, is that if they are truly feigning illness for their own
purposes and when they come to you they don't want to be discovered and
aren't seeking help for their REAL illness, what should you do ethically?
I think that once I realized what was going on, I'd tell such truly
deceptive patients who don't really want help why I would not treat them
further now and express my hope that they would be willing at some point to
address the unhappiness and pain driving their current behavior.

With patients who don't realize what they're doing or who really want to
heal and are having a hard time doing the emotional work that goes along
with healing, I find, as someone else has said, that somehow they eventually
do what's needed, and get unstuck with the help of the right remedy. They
also appreciate support and caring as they embark on this challenge. I'm
convinced that remedies help enormously in these cases, where otherwise the
patients have been unable to traverse the emotional minefield they've been
avoiding through their illness. This is where the layers really show up --
they get through one problem with its accompanying physical symptoms and
then start expressing the next layer, which can look very different. And
they do seem to peel off, as some classical teacher has described, like the
layers of an onion.

Rosemary

[Tanya Marquette]

Dear Charlotte,

My question is this: How do we separate our personal choice to limit our involvement in a case from what homeopathy can do?

Their are several impressions I am receiving from this thread in the posts. On one hand there is the issue of people who manufacture fake diseases, for whatever their reason. I think it was Joy that described patients who invent diseases like cancer and play out the course of treatment with demands on friends and family for caretaking. Then, there are the people who manifest their pathology with a vise-like grip and cant seem to let go. They seem more committed to being sick than to healing. This from Charlotte.

I think cases like these are very difficult. They speak to deep pathology whether it comes from terror, guilt, cosmic isolation, etc. I keep coming back to the question as to whether homeopathy is able to penetrate the defenses. Vithoulkas had at one time spoken of incurable cases (I dont know if he still does). Homeopathy cannot restore a limb that has been severed, but it can help a person accept their limitations and loss. And, homeopathy should be able to help people accept the vacancy from losses on an emotional level, hard as it may be. Such cases are more than simply a challenge to our practice. I kow of one practitioner who says she will try 3 remedies and if their is no success, she referrs the patient on. This speaks to an attitude that defines personal limitation or boundaries, without denying the possibility of a positive prognosis for the patient.

The discussion on minutus seems to be reflecting the level of frustration that arises in practice. But it sticks in my craw to translate this frustration into a negative prognosis. Perhaps these notes are more a reflection of my 'never-say-die" attitude in life.

tanya

[Rosemary Hyde]

Hi, Lisa.

Thanks for your well thought out comments. I agree with your assessment,
and in fact, I generally assume that whatever a patient's behavior, if
they've come to me for help, then I'll do the best I can with what they give
me.

I was musing not on the vast majority of patients but on Joy's original
presentation, which seemed to indicate that she may have experienced a
patient(s) clearly and overtly using consulting her purely as ammunition for
perpetuating a fraud -- with no desire to improve their health. I still
think that if I became aware that a patient was using me in this way,
consciously, I would tell them that I wished them the best but that I
couldn't treat them any further at this time. I still believe that this
would be the ethical way to proceed -- always assuming they weren't actually
seeking help, but came to see me only to buttress a fraudulent situation.
How to tell? Well, for instance, if a patient consulted but then didn't
take the remedy, or, as Joy said, if it became clear that they were
consciously lying, through some repeated lapses of veracity in what they
were saying.

Yes, they're sick if they do this. Yes, they need help. But if they don't
want help, they're creating a maintaining cause of illness that renders
treatment futile. Patients who genuinely imagine illnesses or somaticize to
the extent that they express multiple illnesses with no apparent cause don't
fall into this category. With them -- the vast majority -- your admonitions
are absolutely appropriate, and their delusions are a strong symptom of the
case.

A much greater number of patients exemplify the related situation I
described, of having to confront and change the emotions that are preventing
them from healing, and they manage to do this despite its difficulty.

Rosemary

[EarthLink User]

Hi all,
In a way I hate to keep this discussion going but I really feel compelled
to add my two cents.As a new homeopath I felt that I couldn't take the case
for my best friend (she's closer to me then my sister) so I referred her to
a classmate.After five different remedys nothing had changed for her and I
wanted to know why( after all I am still learning), it turned out that each
interview was a mini psych dissection and the assumptions at the end of
each, led to wildly incorrect remedys. We can go way too far with psych stuf
if we are not careful and bring no healing or help to our clients. Whitmont
claimed that homeopathy should only be used with therapy, which means a lot
of us wouldn't do what we love and feel that we make a differnce doing.
As far as old texts all you have to do is look at any hospital and talk to
the nurses to see that though old , those texts are really pertinent today
as well as when written. I see all sorts of behavior on a daily basis
working in a hospital, it's stuff you won't get to in an interview at least
not initially and maybe not ever. These pts probably won't even grace our
doors.As society becomes more complex so will the issues facing us as
practioners. Blessings, Sue

----------

caused.

[Wendy Howard]

> The issue, I guess, is that if they are truly feigning illness for their
own

A practical approach which might be helpful: I learned this from Ian Watson,
and I've found it very useful, not just with patients like these, but with
all patients presenting for treatment of chronic conditions.

Before commencing treatment, discuss with the patient their goals: ie. what
it is they want the treatment to achieve. A wishy-washy "I just want to get
better" is not acceptable. The patient needs to be able to define where they
hope to see improvement. This whole process is an enormous step forward in
helping the patient take responsibility for themselves, and to engage them
in their own healing process. It sets readily identifiable targets against
which changes can be assessed (ie. no shifting goal posts). It also helps
the practitioner to set boundaries clearly and to avoid inadvertently taking
on too much of the patient's "stuff". Ian himself refuses to accept people
for treatment unless they are able to do this. He will work with them to
help them define their goals if required, but will not commence treatment
until this is done.

There are many people who turn up in our clinics looking for
someone/something to "get them better" and who enter treatment in a very
passive state. In essence looking for the method/practitioner to do all the
work. Underlying susceptibility no doubt plays an enormous part, but this
situation can often arise simply because passive compliance is, after all,
actively encouraged by conventional medicine, and the patient may tacitly
assume the same dynamic applies in all "medical" situations, unless some
effort is made to *actively* disengage that assumption - ie. it's not enough
just to pay lip service to it. Passive compliance is an unbalanced state,
and should the patient choose to adopt this state, or be coerced into
adopting it, a compensatory balancing impulse will arise in an attempt to
restore a more equitable balance of power in the therapeutic relationship.
This may, if it is unable to find a consciously-mediated outlet, result in
the patient subconsciously ensuring the failure of the treatment.

By using Ian's approach, the practitioner has an effective method for
identifying those patients who are perhaps not yet ready to fully engage
with their own healing and to make the choice as to whether or not they're
willing to enter a therapeutic relationship. It can also help the
practitioner focus on aspects of their own dynamic which might need
attention.

Regards
Wendy

[Barbara Hamilton]

Excellent ideas. Thanks Wendy.
Wondering out loud --would a good rubric to bear in mind with these px be :

MIND; SYMPATHY, compassion; desire for (SRI-985) (30) :
or

MIND; CONSOLATION; amel. (K16, SRI-181) (15) :

Possibly?

Barbara

--- In minutus@y..., "Wendy Howard" wrote:

[The Annan's]

Hi Rosemary, my replies below your comments:)

[Wendy Howard]

> Wondering out loud --would a good rubric to bear in mind with these px be
:

Possibly, but I've encountered just as many who aren't. Since any state of
imbalance will produce symptoms of the imbalance *and* it's compensation, it
depends entirely on which polarity a stimulus triggers - which is an
individual thing, rather than general, and may vary with circumstances even
in the individual. Sympathy can just as easily produce aggravation as it can
amelioration.

I think it's important to distinguish between a general dynamic, in which we
can identify common themes, and the specific expression of those themes,
which is individual. The Shadow Dance is common to the entire human race,
and all of us will, at some stage in our lives, have evidenced greater or
lesser degrees of enthusiasm for embracing it. This is ultimately what we're
all describing when we talk about those patients who display some resistance
to the healing opportunities they're presented with. Only for those who have
achieved full en-LIGHT-enment is there no shadow!

I also think it's important to keep in mind that healing opportunities
continually come to us in all shapes and forms on a daily basis and that
homeopathy - while certainly powerful - can only take its place among them.
It's impossible to predict the precise stimulus that will propel a person
into a wider circle of freedom. It's also impossible to discount the fact
that such a stimulus may merely be the proverbial straw that broke the
camel's back. Too much emotional investment in homeopathy's "superiority"
inevitably tells us more about our own personal power imbalances than it
does about homeopathy. It can also become restricting and conditional
("I/he/she can't/won't get better until I/he/she finds/gets the right
remedy", etc). This is no different from any other impediment to freedom.

Regards
Wendy

[Rosemary Hyde]

Hi, Lisa.

Thanks for taking the energy to contribute to what becomes a lively
discussion. You've brought up some very interesting points, and given me, at
least, opportunity to think through the issues more.

Actually, I personally haven't encountered any ongoing client who would fit
into the extreme category of not seeking self-improvement and just
manipulating the situation for profit -- at least not anyone who kept coming
or who kept taking the remedy and participating in follow-ups.

I suspect that on some level the issue takes care of itself, in reality,
because people do see that they must confront their own demons. I think the
well-chosen remedy both helps them see this and makes it a bit clearer and
easier for them to do so, whereas previously they may have avoided action.
Anyone not wanting to do this doesn't continue participating, by and large.

People who keep taking the remedy and following up clearly are interested in
attaining higher functioning, and I keep working with them to the best of my
ability, continuing to learn from them as we proceed. This collaboration
between client and practitioner is one of the aspects of homeopathy that I
find truly inspiring and awesome.

I find this Minutus group immensely helpful in the wide variety of
perspectives its participants share, and I have learned a tremendous amount
from being a part of it. I thank the members sincerely for sharing their
knowledge and learning processes with the group, and I also thank Dr.
Shahrdar for coordinating the whole process, and Joy for overseeing the case
sharing aspect.

Rosemary