Minutus

I once treated, just after starting homoeopathy, an alcoholic violent man
who became depressed and took to his bed refusing to talk, via his mother
with Nat Mur 1M. He got his life together, resumed his relationship, had a
child but a year later everything fell apart and marriage broke up and he
did not seek help. I have since worried about the wisdom of that. Treatment
of such people requires compliance, counselling , follow up and a team
approach. The Lyssin bloke also worried me. He was certainly helped in the
acute situation i.e. anger and terrible spasmodic pain. Family services in
remote area asked me to help. I sought to find him for follow up and
counselling but he had suddenly left the area. He was really quite
intelligent and I hope he realized that something had happened and that he
might seek help from homoeopathy in future.. I do believe he wished to be a
better person. Jean
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I think we cannot take responsibility for people's committment to their dis-eases. This is harking back
to our dialogue on this list about treating people who are addicted to their illnesses. I once tried to
treat a man who had a violent and angry streak. I had given him Med 200c which his wife said really
helped. But it didnt hold long enough. In hindsight I had realized this was a person who should have
been given a 10 or 50M immediately, but I was being too tentative. This man really liked being the
piece of shit he was; he got off on it. So he didnt return for treatment. I saw him every day because
he worked for me during this period. Ultimately his wife got it together and left despite his threats to
her. Unless we get into the game of trying to control people (and I am not suggesting this at all), we
have no way of making people return to us. We can only set a boundary as to what we will work on
and do our best to communicate this to others. We are in a very frustrating situation at times.

Peace

tanya

Hi Tanya,

I agree with all you've said *except* (this is kind of a small point) I
don't feel comfortable with assuming that people e.g. "liked being the piece
of shit that he was", that they don't want to get well. Change is always
hard, and the more deeply you're caught, and the fewer "good times" you have
to draw on, the harder and more frightening it is to contemplate change.

In a way this makes no practical difference to treatment (whether lack of
follow-up is thru liking the pathology, or thru fear of the process of
getting well); because as you say, it's up to *them*, we can't force the
issue! But the difference it does make is in the easier patience and
compassion that follows from one view, versus the "judgement" that flows
from the other. Besides, even if it were true about some few, I think we're
safer -- less apt to miss someone we *could* help -- if we stay out of
judgments or assumptions.

Despite holding this view strongly, I haven't always been *able* to do it;
some people and situations just push one's buttons! But I think it's a goal
worth aiming for.

Pedantically yours,
Shannon
on 1/26/03 4:54 AM, tanya marquette at tamarque@frontiernet.net wrote:

you may not like my colloquialism, but in the case i mentioned, he was a piece of shit and loved it.
he grew up with a father that set a standard of meaness and cruelty as the way to empower yourself.
he was a biker type and got off telling me some of the things they would do. his sense of security
(and i mean this in a legal sense), prevented him from telling me certain details. he really enjoyed the
power--a high-- in getting over on people and ripping them off or beating on them. he had lots of
good times. the problem was that they were at the expense of others. there was no
value in things that you and i might place high on list of ethical/human goals to work towards. the
'in' to him, was that he did have some sensitivities left. otherwise he would have been a highly
sociopathic person in an extreme way. but he did make a choice to not change. i am not making
any assumptions in this case. whether there was a fear of change--i couldnt say for sure. i do
not think that was the driving force in him. i would say that he didnt want to relinquish the power
he felt in his abusiveness. i also dont feel that it is that important now since he stopped/refused
treatment.

tanya

Okay, I guess I see what you're talking about.
What had he come for treatment for?
Shannon

on 1/26/03 10:28 AM, tanya marquette at tamarque@frontiernet.net wrote:

first i treated him for an acute. then he let me take his case because his wife had managed to convince
him they needed help. he really had no particular goal but he loved having the attention. he was an
interesting case. i thought he was ADD and was able to trace it back to reactions to vaccines. he was
32 at the time.