The Alternative Healer

On the One Year Anniversary of My Blog

I started this blog a year ago to outline the different levels of our being that different forms of medicines address. This anniversary week I plan to return to the this fundamental question. Last August I began by listing the levels of therapeutic intention that various healers can have. In other words, what is your healer trying to do. I saw this as an important question that all who seek health care, whether conventional or alternative, should understand. I outlined the levels as follows:

1) Intention at the level of diagnosis, i.e. fix the abnormal number or test

2) Intention at the level of feeling, i.e. fix the pain or discomfort.

3) Intention at the level of vital systems, i.e. fix the energetic imbalance.

4) Intention at the level of consciousness, i.e. shift the pattern of perception underlying the expression of physical and mental disease.

These I called the four basic levels of healing, seen from the point of view of any given healer’s therapeutic intention.

Around that same time, while reading in ancient Egyptian medicine, I had a realization. The medicine of ancient Egypt divided the human being into seven different dimensions:

1) the physical body (The Khat)

2) The vital or energetic body, also called “bio-plasmic body",   (The Ba, the soul of breath)

3) The emotional body  (The Khaba or astral body)

4) The intellectual body which consists of the lower and middle states of consciousness  (The Khaibit)

5) The spiritual Self, or Higher Mind (The Ka)

6) The Super-consciousness. The plane where Universal knowledge is available to those attuned to it.  (The Sekhen)

7) Pure spirit, or divine mind (The Ren).

What I noted in looking at these seven levels was the strong similarity they had with my levels of therapeutic intention. The only difference was the ancient Egyptians viewed the emotional dimension as deeper (i.e. further from the physical realm) than the energetic dimension. Levels two and three were switched around. I agreed with the ancient Egyptians. My levels of therapeutic intentions, in contrast, addressed the way healers in our society actually work. It might be worthwhile to put another level of intention between my 3rd and 4th levels. I have found healers with specific therapeutic intentions at the emotional body to be relatively uncommon. They do exist however. For example a shamanic journey has as its intention to retrieve lost or traumatized parts of our emotional selves--an intention specific to the Egyptian emotional body (3rd dimension).

I have since decided to use the word ”levels“ when I am referring to healers and their intention and ”dimensions“ when I speak of the actual layers (dimensions) of human energy. They are not exactly the same. As it turns out, you can numb the 3rd dimension by addressing the physical body (i.e. a 1st level intention), for example the use of prozac, tranquilizers, or pain killers. Therefore, 2nd level intentions are close in character to 1st level intentions in the physical dimension. i.e the 2nd level usually addresses the physical, although in a different way. The 1st level intention addresses an objective finding or diagnosis; the 2nd level intention addresses the unpleasant feelings the person is having, both working through the physical plane. People for millennia have learned to numb the emotional body (3rd dimension) through substance use (acts through the 1st dimension), whether it be alcohol and drugs or simply overeating. It’s the realm of self-medicating the emotional body through the material or physical dimension. Today’s medicine simply does this in more sophisticated ways.

Some people wonder whether the physical and emotional might not be two aspects of the same dimension, like their doctor tells them. But they are not. Energetically they are different. The emotional body appears to be a field of energy that exists in and around the cells of the body.

Because we as humans necessarily process experience through the physical body--e.g. the stress (emotional dimension) of the office today has landed in your tight, aching shoulders (physical dimension)--all experience from deeper dimensions will impact our physical dimension. It does this in ways that are predictable with knowledge with what is happening at deeper dimensions. For example, grief will energetically affect our lungs. In the same way, experience that impacts the physical realm (e.g. eating, sleeping, sex, accidents, exercise) will affect the deeper layers of who we are. These are more difficult to predict. For example, a person sensitive to fright (an issue that goes into the 4th level and dimension; note how 4th dimension is the same as the 4th level) has an accident on their bicycle and goes home and dreams of being chased for the rest of the night. Any aggravation at the physical dimension can aggravate specific, idiosyncratic 4th dimensional issues.

Welcome to a new year of my blog. I will continue to define these levels and dimensions in coming weeks.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

There has been a bit more controversy lately over a disease that does not fit neatly into the measurements of the physical plane (i.e, 1st level, see my Levels of Healing on the right). Chronic fatigue syndrome is perhaps best understood as “profound exhaustion” that interferes with living. Strangely, sometimes it can interfere with sleeping as well, yet often people with this disease sleep their life away.

Of course, any deep chronic disease can cause fatigue. Cancer for example, could cause fatigue, as could any auto-immune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. Chronic fatigue syndrome, on the other hand, does not have the markers of other physical ailments. For the most part, it is simply fatigue. Often there is a history of mononucleosis in these people; thus the association of chronic fatigue with the Epstein Barr virus of mono.

In June the CDC did a randomized telephone survey using a “less restrictive methodology” (see the New York Times article NYT July 17th article on Chronic Fatigue) and found that about 1 in 40 adults ages 18 to 59 met the diagnostic criteria — an estimate 6 to 10 times higher than previously reported rates.

Here’s the rub, though, quoting from the same New York Times article,

Many patients and researchers fear that the expanded prevalence rate could complicate the search for consistent findings across patient cohorts. These critics say the new figures are greatly inflated and include many people who are likely to be suffering not from chronic fatigue syndrome but from psychiatric illnesses.

Within this paragraph we can find two glaring assumptions:

1) That the physical fatigue these people feel is distinct from what they feel on the mental level, i.e. that it is possible to make sharp distinctions between physical disease and mental disease.

2) That medicine can best serve people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome by trying to hunt down an objective marker on the physical plane.

I see no evidence for #1, and consider #2 to serve the medical system itself rather than the patients it serves.

A medical illustrator with chronic fatigue syndrome quoted in the Times article says this:

There are many, many conditions that are psychological in nature that share symptoms with this illness but do not share much of the underlying biology.

This man is determined to believe that he has a physical illness, and that what is going on in his psyche is a separate matter altogether. We do not have to believe him.

My latest chronic fatigue case in my practice took me five hours to take. As always, it was a hunt for the deep confluence point where the physical symptoms intersect the underlying consciousness of the patient, knocking through that door to the 4th level prescription.

Here are my general observations about what is termed “chronic fatigue syndrome”:

1) First and foremost, I find it is almost invariably what the ancients would call “a disease of Mars.” (Note that “venereal disease,” comes from the ancients as well, specifically meaning a “disease of Venus.”) Mars for the ancients ruled over aggression, anger, and battle. Mars, coming from the Greek Aries, was a warrior. Without restraints, Mars is a belligerent tyrant that wants what he wants and walks over anybody to get it. On the other hand, if this part of ourselves does not function, we cannot assert ourselves well, and other people tend to walk over us.

The classic situation for problems is if the Mars instinct in us is strong but repressed. Anger is present—often it is outright rage—but not usually expressed. In some real sense, this aggression, this desire to engage life, which requires, at least to some degree, conflict and battle, turns inward in self-destruction. "Chronic fatigue" becomes a code phrase for deeper conflicts of the will.

2) Closely allied with this are the patient’s level 2 words to describe the feelings surrounding the physical symptoms. There often will initially be two separate lines of feelings words: those coming from the physical and those the patient uses in conjunction with his psyche. Examples of the latter might be “indifference,” “numb” “hopeless,” “helpless” and such. This simply means that a practitioner needs to press in deeper in the casetaking to find where the two begin come together. Not always is the case, though. Sometimes patients will immediately tell you “I cannot separate out my feelings of fatigue from my feelings of depression.”

3) As always, at the 4th level the 1st level diagnosis “chronic fatigue” sorts itself out into one of hundreds of different core conflicts at the level of consciousness.

4) It might be thought that having the patient work on expression of underlying repressed rage would help the fatigue. It might, but this would in effect be seeking a 2nd-3rd level solution of the problem, and will likely only partially help if it helps at all. What we have to understand is that 4th level issues are "in our cells." Healing the 4th level requires an energetic approach that addresses the 4th level.

5) It is interesting to note that Mars is also associated with the sex drive. Usually in chronic fatigue syndrome there are sexual issues, generally the loss of the sex drive--just another expression of a loss of the Mars life force.

Some Thoughts on Gynecological Disease

My friends at Laughing Sage Wellness Group said this in a recent newsletter covering fibroid tumors of the uterus:

Dr. Christiane Northrup (author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom) calls fibroids an "illness of competition." At LSW, we believe that fibroids represent stored emotion - most typically anger or resentment. As modern women, we often don't have an outlet for the stressors in our lives, leaving them to be stored in our bodies as unprocessed emotions.

In this regard, listen to the words of one patient describing her fibroids:

The fibroids, they are that unseen thing. I always feel like I'm stuffed, like I have something stuffed inside of me. It's a heavy stuffed feeling…like bound, just tight.

An hour later in the case, listen to her describe her childhood:

My father raised us like children are to be seen and not heard. If you raised anything contrary you were being disrespectful. You had to keep it inside. It couldn’t be verbally expressed. Total oppression. Like being oppressed feeling that you had to be secretive about what you thought or felt about things. You had to make sure and be watchful to express any idea that might be contrary to a household belief.

When I asked her to describe "oppression" a bit more, she said:

Stuffed, like stuffed away, hidden, secretive, and it just doesn’t feel like anything could be revealed, it’s the opposite of feeling free to be able to express. Keep it all in. Keep it hidden. There is so much that wants to come out, so much that wants to be expressed, feeling of expression; there’s a lid on it. It can’t be expressed. It wants to come out. It just feels like bursting.

Is she talking about the emotions she felt in her household or is she talking about her fibroids? Notice that there is really no difference. This is the nature of what I call the 3rd dimension or level, where emotions and body come together. There is a hint of the 4th level here as well, which is the pattern in consciousness (strictly speaking, the middle and deep layers of consciousness) underlying this mind-body unity.

We might wonder about the "hidden" nature of the female reproductive system and exactly how this factors in with “stored emotion” and disease. I was fascinated to read this in Marnia Robinson’s Peace Between the Sheets:

I visited a community in Germany though whose founders viewed monogamy as an outdated, artificial economic arrangement between men and women. They condone simultaneous liaisons with partners as a welcome historical correction. Feelings of jealousy or resentment are highly censored.

For years they also held workshops to help people explore their sexuality fully and even set up an erotic academy. One told me that they halted that line of development when too many people became ill after the workshops. Incidentally, the women of the community have an unusually high incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease.

Pelivic inflammatory disease is a bacterial infection of the female reproductive tract. Note the line “Feelings of jealousy or resentment are highly censored,” and how this relates to the “keeping inside” of the fibroid case. In this community, with its emphasis on sexuality, it would make sense why these stored emotions would manifest in the sexual organs (2nd Chakra). This is not as clear in my fibroid case.

More of a mystery, though, is why workshops to help people explore their sexuality fully would coincide with “too many people becoming ill after the workshops.” A homeopath like myself could explore that deeply by taking the cases of individuals who became ill after such workshops. The specific conflicts (i.e. 4th level) out of which the disease would spring would be quite individual; nevertheless there is a broader theme here. Always we humans seem to have paid a price from expanding our sexual expression. It might be easy for some to speculate here, but I stop short of even making suggestions as to why, because I feel the issues are complex, and it is easy to see it in terms of our own personal issues.

Bedwetting

Occasionally I get follow-up “through the grapevine.”

About a month ago I treated a patient in his late teens for intractable bedwetting. Scheduling of follow-up had been delayed, and I had made a note to call the mother. Then I got a message from a woman regarding treatment for her grandson who had bedwetting. The second part of the message was that this particular teen had a dramatic response to his remedy and that his bedwetting was gone, therefore the call.

So that’s how I got follow-up on this bedwetting case. It brings to mind a couple important points:

1) People generally cling to a 1st level understanding of how healing occurs. That is, when they seek to understand if treatment in my clinic can restore health, they check to see if someone else with the same diagnosis has had results. From my perspective, the critical factor is whether I can take a crystal-clear case down to the 4th level. Any number of different prescriptions could cure a case of bedwetting. The diagnosis becomes more important when the disease on the physical level becomes severely debilitating or life-threatening, e.g. cancer, multiple sclerosis, lupus, other severe auto-immune disease, and such. At that point, diagnosis becomes more important in prognosis. In general, if a person’s health is not yet severely debilitated, assume that it is curable with good homeopathic treatment. Moreover, many cases of severely debilitating illness can still go to cure.

2) Many assume that when their physical diagnosis is better, i.e. when they are better on the 1st level, it makes sense to cease treatment. This creates some tension, because from my perspective, treatment should stop when the 4th level has clearly shifted. Often this occurs long after the physical symptoms are improved. Using this case of bedwetting as an example, there are some obvious emotional issues that go along with a young adult who wets the bed. In taking the case, there will likely be issues of dependency and fear. You can usually get a clue to the deeper aspects of the case by asking what the bedwetting prevents him from doing; this often opens a door down to the 4th level.

The important thing to realize is that treatment should conclude when the person is free from the deep fears. Of course, the fears will likely have had a significant shift when the bedwetting resolves, but it is usually not all the way gone. This is to look at health from the perspective of “inner freedom,” rather than simply a freedom from physical illness alone. Physical disease always has certain “inner hooks” within the psyche of the patient. These inhibit at the emotional level as well as the physical. In the case of this teen, there were confidence issues that I wanted to see resolve. Usually it takes a number of months longer for this inner freedom to occur after the physical ailment has resolved.

The Case of the Unhealing Wound

I have one case particularly useful in educating people on classical homeopathy, and specifically, what I mean by “4th level” prescribing. I have included a diagram of the levels below to help bring understanding. There is an added opportunity, because the patient in this case is writing about her experience and will make an appearance on this blog. My explanation, the diagram, and the patient's input taken together should provide a deeper look.

She presented with depression, low self-confidence, inability to concentrate, and complained of being “whacked” emotionally, by which she meant being “super-emotional” and “frequently on the verge of tears.” Easily “knocked off her base,” she found it increasingly easier to stay alone, mainly because of her tendency to change herself to fit her idea of what other people wanted of her. Even though she had plenty of friends, she felt alone anyway. She described her aloneness as “the empty set…emptiness.” She also told me

I have gone thru periods where you eat because you feel better, where you just keep eating until you can’t eat anymore…knowing you have something you need to fill.

Another important part of her case was a strong need for connection. She had been adopted and felt that she had “never bonded with her mother.” She romanticized about finding a soulmate and being “at one with the universe.” Describing herself as “mystic”, she had an intense searching in a spiritual direction, for union with God. On the other hand, she had reached a point where she felt “cut off” from other people and God. This experience of being cut off she also described as “disconnected” and “fractured”:

Just the fluidity of who I am is not there... all separate pieces but nothing really melds together.

On the basis of these feelings I gave her a homeopathic remedy from the conifer (pine tree) family of remedies. It didn’t work. It took me a while to figure out that I gave the wrong tree in this family.

Over the time I treated her an important part of her story was a romantic relationship that had developed with a minister she had originally sought out for spiritual counseling. She came out from this relationship feeling “betrayed” and “wounded.” Every time she came back there was no change in this. Early in each follow-up she returned to this same story and the wound it had opened in her.

I became more determined to hunt down the specific conifer she needed. In reviewing everything in detail, I found it notable that a main remedy for “longing for a soulmate” was the huge tree Sequoia. I considered giving her this remedy, but parts did not fit. I went over her physical symptoms again, looking for clues that would mark a confluence point. I then looked closely at these words of hers:

I have always had these little ulcers in my nose, worse in winter, but they never heal, little ulcers, like little cuts, and they hurt. They sting. They are painful
It’s just like a wound. Open and raw skin, when the air is dry, my nose bleeds. It always reminds me that they are…
Open wounds, every time you blow your nose you are reminded of them, all I have to do is move my mouth, and they are torn open again. A week by the sea completely healed them

This idea of a bleeding, ulcerating wound that never healed began to suggest a 4th level confluence point between her physical symptoms in her nose and the emotional wound she had from betrayal.

Searching in the family of conifers, I found the following excerpt written about a tree in New Zealand, the kauri tree, latin name Agathis australis.

The resinous gum…oozes (in the case of old wounds, for hundreds, even thousands of years) from damaged branches forming stalactites aloft and corresponding stalagmites upon the tree's mighty roots and the forest floor below. Indeed this gum, which in the Victorian era had commercial value as a furniture polish, was 'bled' from the trees in the manner of maple syrup, while solidified deposits were dug up from logged forest sites. Lumps of aged resin used to be a common find, washed up on Northland beaches.

The kauri tree has an unhealing wound. I gave her this remedy, and the result was dramatic. I will leave it to her to give the details of her response and post them as soon as available. The chart below outlines how I thought about this case:

click for larger diagram

Eating Disorders and Classical Homeopathy

Eating disorders present medical doctors and therapists with some of their most difficult challenges. My understanding of the limited effectiveness of traditional medical and psychiatric approaches will not surprise people who follow my blog: eating disorders spring directly from "4th Level" conflicts in the middle and deep layers of consciousness. This level is beyond the direct reach of psychotropic medications and even deep psychotherapy.

For those new to my blog, I have divided medical and alternative therapies into levels or depths of healing--a necessary move towards understanding what is going on in healing today. Check out the category "Levels of Healing" to the right for more information.

For the past couple years I have often thought about partnering with a woman psychotherapist or MD and devoting maybe 40% of my time to treating eating disorders. One reason is that I have had a lot of success in treating them. It can be a long and arduous, but often it is not. I often see a dramatic shift right after a good remedy. The cases I have had of anorexia or bulimia by and large are much better or entirely cured. Classical homeopathy is uniquely suited to "going deep" and shifting the core issue out of which the eating disorder originates.

The word "control" almost invariably gets bound up with the 4th level state in cases of eating disorders. One of my first big successes with anorexia/bulimia was a woman in her 20s to whom I gave the remedy Mantis religiosa (the praying mantis). The issue of control in this remedy is huge. This young woman came to me, deeply angry and depressed, failing in school. A month into her treatment out came her ultra-controlled secret regarding her anorexia. Once I gave Mantis, the case shifted profoundly.

I have had certain cases of overeating that have responded to remedies from the big conifers (pine trees). Because only the outer part of the bark is alive and the inner trunk of the tree is dead, people who need conifer remedies can feel "dead" or "empty" inside and eat like crazy to try to fill the emptiness. This is not to say that everyone who feels this way needs a remedy from conifer source. People who need these remedies are not all that common, but they are out there.

Another remedy that I have recently found to be associated with overeating is the Stingray. The words I have heard in relation to this remedy is that food is "like a magnet." They feel "controlled" by food. Stingray is a fascinating remedy. Similar to the shark and other sea animals, there is a lot of issues around sexuality, and food is often tied in with this.

So, it's possible I may spend more time with eating disorders. I just met another psychotherapist today in New York. In general I have been on the look-out for psychotherapists to partner with; certain cases are so complex that I need their help. In addition, Dr LuWanda Katzman-Staenberg's thoughts on this (see my blog Homeopathy, Psychotherapy, and Beverly Hills) have also influenced me.

If you know of people suffering eating disorders, do not rule homeopathy out. It takes expertise to heal the deep issues of eating disorders with homeopathy, but in my experience it can bring results like no other therapy.

Treating in the 4th Dimension

An interesting aspect of practicing homeopathy is that its very existence raises questions of who we are and the nature of the universe we live in.  The process of repeatedly taking cases down to the 4th level subtly alters one’s view of life.  One must become more attuned to subtle dimensions because that is where the homeopath directs his treatment.

Psychotherapists who are familiar with the way I take cases often say, “We are after a similar thing.”  I cannot agree with them.  The reason they see a similarity is that I am traveling through the emotional realm where psychotherapy sets its intention.  Psychotherapists, as a rule, do not have an intention of “curing physical symptoms.”  A classical homeopath does.  Adding in the physical symptoms to the psychotherapeutic emotional terrain brings a profound shift into the 4th dimension.  It is an entirely different layer of immateriality. 

To put it differently, let me go back to my discussion of the 4th dimension.  I have called the 4th dimension the energy of consciousness itself.  It is the camera lens through which we see and experience life.  Trying to see it would be like trying to see our own eye without a mirror.  It is the “stuff of life,” in that we apparently are swimming in it.  It is everywhere and nowhere.  It embodies everything we are, can see or experience.  Moreover, a particular pattern of consciousness streams through every molecule that makes up our individual being, giving coherence to who we are as individuals.   

The psychotherapist treats the picture that our consciousness forms in front of us, working to bring awareness to and alter the perceptions that frame our emotions.  A homeopathic remedy, on the other hand, treats and shifts the “camera lens” itself.  It is a subtle but profound difference.  It is amazing to watch as it becomes revealed.  High level homeopathy is the process of learning how to uncover the peculiar, fixed lens through which an individual perceives the world.   

It is a bit confusing for an outsider, because we interact with other people and we perceive it as merely human.  It is hard to imagine that within each of hides a non-human source through which we perceive.  Yet, if you watch people closely you can pick up on their deep patterns, even though you may not know what substance in the world matches it.  Watch Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western, the way he softly threatens.  Make my day.  It is a veiled threat.  It says, “Cross this line and I will blow you away.  Stay within bounds and I’ll let you live.”  He is like a rattler rattling his warning.  There is something very “snaky” about this.  Find someone who embodies energy like this in a deep, unalterable way, and he probably needs a homeopathic remedy of a snake.  In some way, he expresses the energy of a snake, yet this springs from a deeper source.  That source is a pattern of consciousness.

   

Psychiatric Disorders in Children

Last month in the New York Times there was an article “What’s Wrong with a Child?  Psychiatrists Often Disagree.”   The article made clear how inadequate terms such as “oppositional defiant disorder” or “bipolar” or “obsessive compulsive disorder” can be:

…And parents of disruptive children in particular—those who might have been called delinquents, or simply “problem children”—say they hear an alphabet soup of labels that seem to change as often as the child’s shoe size.  [New York Times, Nov 11, 2006,  front page]

The article notes, “there are no blood tests or brain scans to diagnose mental disorders.”   That is to say, the issue cannot be found at the physical level (1st level, see my Levels of Healing on right).  Stepping down to the 2nd level, the therapeutic intention can be to numb the child’s emotional pain through psychiatric medications, or helping the child deal with emotions through talk therapy.   

Although taking a numbing approach through medications can be effective, it often disappoints.  Moreover, children, like the elderly, are more sensitive to medications and can react unpredictably.  We have all seen the articles suggesting that anti-depressants in some children can cause agitation, making suicide more likely.   Even when effective, medications only numb.  They produce no fundamental change. 

Although I advocate talk therapy with children, they frequently do not have enough of a cognitive structure to make it strongly effective.  More than adults, children simply feel, and no amount of talking is likely to change that. 

Descending down to level 3, where therapeutic intentions address the energetic matrix of the body, I have seen many parents use cranial sacral therapy and to some degree acupuncture in children.  Acupuncture I have not seen have a noticeable effect.  Particularly in situations where a child suffers from intense emotions, cranial sacral therapy can be beneficial, yet usually only mildly.  I recommend it, but not enthusiastically.   

To truly be satisfied, parents will have to look to level 4.  Classical homeopathy has the ability to produce fundamental and lasting change.  It takes a homeopath with the ability to clearly mark the 4th level, and it frequently requires diligent work.

An example from my practice was a teen whose diagnosis was “oppositional defiant disorder.”  Defiance in this boy was everywhere.  He slammed doors in my office, stonewalled me for entire sessions, glaring at me with hatred.  The situation at home was just as bad.  In his early teens, he was beginning to encounter problems with the law.  It all climaxed with an admission to a psychiatric hospital, which was a horrific story of how psychiatric admissions can go terribly wrong.  Just conjure up images of men in white coats circling you to pin you down and inject you with tranquilizers, and you get the picture. 

It was right after that psych admission that I broke his case.  I gave him a remedy from the insect family, and it utterly changed him. I saw him not too long ago in my office, and his life had turned around.  He was enjoying school, getting good grades; no longer having run-ins with the law; his relationship with his mother was peaceful.  His future was looking brighter and brighter. 

As a patient, he was a headache, but the change was more than gratifying.  Teens can present special problems, but it is an age group I love.  Homeopathy can release a person’s full potential, and what better time than in your teens?  I think of how much easier my life would have been if a homeopath had done it for me. 

Therapy vs Homeopathic Casetaking

One of my patients wrote me an interesting comment after watching my presentation (see link on the left): 

As far as their questions regarding dealing with people as they go further in their state, and the possible reaction, i.e.  rage, I thought about the fact, that you do not offer an opinion or comment for example “ that must have been hard”  etc.  I think these people thought you were/are in essence “doing” therapy to get to these levels.  Given my need for acceptance, I was acutely aware that you did not respond/react to the things I said.  There is no judgment; there just is what was said.

I have mentioned before that classical homeopathy is like eavesdropping.  You gently lead the patient through a series of levels to listen into the deep 4th level state.  In this process, there often are strong emotions a patient expresses.  This was the concern of a few therapists at my presentation.  What they did not understand was that in the process of casetaking, I am always moving through these emotions.  It is as if the homeopathic case is always found in the eye of the hurricane. 

I like this line, “There is no judgment; there is just what was said.”   In a sense, this is also the eye of the hurricane.  It is true; I generally do not reflect back on things patients say with comments like “Oh, that must have been hard.”  It would contribute to getting stuck on the emotional level, which conflicts with my casetaking intention.  The other reason has to do with healing itself.  Homeo – pathic  means “same as the suffering.”  To mirror the disease is to cure it.  You start that process even at the level of casetaking.  You, as casetaker, become a mirror. 

The intention in taking a homeopathic case is different from the intention of a therapist, even profoundly different.  Therapy generally has the intention of processing the emotions, i.e. it is the 2nd level, the level of the patient’s feelings.  Thus, if a patient has a history of abuse, there are usually many emotions held around the events, and these commonly interfere with the patient’s life.  Therapy brings up these emotions and helps process them, freeing psychic energy for living. 

Strictly speaking, a homeopathic case has nothing to do with processing emotions, which is not to say that patients never do that while giving their case.  The case simply never rests there.  The intent is to reveal the underlying pattern of consciousness (4th level) in the patient.  All of us have a certain conflict within our underlying pattern of consciousness, and this conflict often gets in the way of fully healing the 2nd level emotions.  Therapy helps to process emotions and create cognitive structures to contain emotions (.e.g. instead of worrying all night, you write down all your worries on a piece of paper before you go to sleep); but if the underlying pattern of consciousness does not shift, the patient may get stuck in “endlessly processing” these emotions.  That is, the person keeps going to therapy for years and nothing truly changes.  The therapy is unable to reach the source of the problem.   

If you watch my presentation, in particular, the 2nd patient who speaks gives insight into this process.  This is a woman who suffered abuse and had years of therapy.  Nevertheless, something in her didn’t shift until she received a deep-acting remedy. I address this in the talk. 

Case: Hyperthyroidism and Miscarriages

A few years ago, a woman came to see me for treatment.  I will call her Susan.  She was in her mid-30s and wanted to have a baby.  Although she had no problem becoming pregnant, each time she miscarried—four in a year’s time.  She also had a diagnosis of an overactive thyroid with episodes of what are called “thyroid storms.”  She had not had normal thyroid lab values in 15 years.  I took her case, and over a period of three hours her story emerged.   

What was remarkable about Susan’s story was that at the age of 16 she had fallen deeply in love with a boy.  Her first words to me were:

I’m here to remove all pain and emotional shocks.  I was sent to a boarding school as a child.  My parents thought it was the thing for me.  I was separated from my mom way too soon.  The other shock, the big event of my life was when I was 16, I fell in love with a guy named Matthew.  We were together for 5 years.  We separated because he was unable to grow up, but we still were friends after that.  Each of has had new partners.  During that time Matthew committed suicide.

Sixteen years later, in her dreams and emotional life she was still back at that time of Matthew’s suicide.  Not long after the suicide she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.  I asked her about the hyperthyroid symptoms and she answered 

The possibility of having a crisis any time, to go to the hospital with my heartbeat going very fast, being sick.  I don’t like to always have to be conscious of being careful to check if my heartbeat is all right.  What will happen if I have another crisis?

Is she talking about physical or emotional symptoms?  The deeper we move into a patient’s case, the more the physical and emotional symptoms blur.  She experiences her heart as beating very fast, but her answer blends with her emotional shocks.

She came to see me because of the miscarriages.  How does this relate to the emotional shocks?  She told me a bit more about motherhood: 

I had a very very very enormous fear to be a mother.  I realized that when I had my second episode of hyperthyroidism. I cried with my therapist.  I remember in my mind it was not possible to be a good mother.  I remembered the pain my mother caused me when she didn’t listen to me or hear me.

She connects hyperthyroidism with being a mother.  This is not accidental.  She is beginning to tell us why she developed her hyperthyroidism as well giving clues to the emotional roots of her miscarriages.  My experience in taking the cases of hundreds of people, is that patients always, if you gently press them into it, will tell you why they have gotten their specific physical symptoms.  They are not fully conscious of it—if they were, it is unlikely they would have developed physical symptoms in the first place. 

Taking it a step further, I asked her what she felt like when her mother would not listen to her: 

I felt alone.  It’s like someone cut between her and me, and we were not in the same world anymore.

This sentence is taking us straight down to the 4th level  There are a few pieces missing--I'm leaving out the bulk of a 3.5 hour case--yet all her emotional and physical symptoms come together around this separation.  For her, separated means alone and not in the same world.  When she said the word cut she made a gesture of a cutting scissors with her index and middle fingers.   

I gave her the homeopathic remedy that mirrored this fusion – [cut] [shock] –separate from world loop she lived in, a plant from the Malvales family. 

Four weeks later I followed up on her case.  She told me.

I feel good.  I feel very surprised what I experienced during the four last weeks.  The first week [after the dose] I made many dreams, big dreams, the week after that I don't really have dreams, I did so many things to get the attention of my husband.  I broke my toe, locked myself outside the house.  It was like I needed to be with people, I didn’t want to be alone.  My mother, sister, my husband all had to take care of me, I did a lot of things to put myself in bad situations.  The two first days after the remedy I slept very deeply for the first time.

She spontaneously told me about a dream:

I was near the house I lived when I was a kid.  I was really big, and the house was very small.  There is someone but I can't see them, they want to show me things in not a normal way, paranormal.  I was very very afraid of that, I shouted so loud.

I asked her to clarify this feeling. 

Surprised, to be able to shout. I felt I have the power to say ‘No’; so I was proud of myself for that.  Very surprised of the power of my shout,…everyone will hear that.

She then told me about another important dream she had about a previous boyfriend.  It came to her mind through the dream that she actually loved the brother. 

I remember his brother probably loved me…  I realized after Matthew I had a lot of fear of falling in love again.

Here we see some “rewinding of the tape” in her emotional life.  This is mysterious.  Then she added another important piece:

About my thyroid:  this week, each week I take a blood test.  I am in the normal range now, and it's the first time in 15 yrs that I am in the normal range.

Thus, right after she took the remedy her thyroid returned to normal functioning for the first time in 15 years.   

As a society, we think in terms of the improvement of the psyche, which is the province of the psychiatrist, and separately we think of the improvement of physical pathology, which is the province of the conventional physician.  Rarely do we speak of the two crossing.  This intersection of the emotional and physical is the 4th level intention, exactly where my homeopathic prescription went.   

At the conclusion of this first follow-up, I directly asked her to tell me what was better.  She answered, I think I feel more calm, and then,

Each Monday night I felt exactly that feeling when I cut with my mother.  I felt powerless.  I feel that I go back to experience more feelings that I had when I was younger, go back in time.   

She is going backward in time and processing.  I underline the word calm because it is a key word for the remedy I gave her.  She uses it to describe the opposite of shock or crisis or what she feels during a thyroid episode.  Her use of calm is, for me, a key indicator that she is heading down a deep progression towards health, that deep place where mind and body connect. 

A month later I followed up again.  During this time she had a transformational dream:

I had two dreams with Matthew.  He left me.  I was very happy because [in the dream] he didn't commit suicide.  It was like life continued without him committing suicide.  I felt very strange; it's like I accepted he is changing.  He’s not how he was when I was with him at 17.  As life continued, I never thought he changed.  It was the dream that made me feel like life changed, and I have to pass on to another thing.  I felt sad for 2 weeks after that.  Very sad.  And last week I became more joyous and happy…

Here, fifteen years later she is letting go.  Not long after this, she became pregnant, and this time she did not miscarry.  The happy ending is that she gave birth to a healthy child.   I have had to repeat her dose at various intervals, particularly after she delivered, because right after she gave birth her thyroid slipped out of normal range for the first time since before she saw me.  As is typical, a dose of her remedy immediately brought the thyroid labs to normal values again.  Normal thyroid function has returned.  She continues to do very well.  Most remarkably, she has a new sense of confidence and calm. 

This case briefly illustrates what I call a 4th intention healing.  All of us seeking to live long and healthy lives should know about it.  Many people struggle with chronic health conditions, in spite of the attempts of their conventional doctors and alternative healers.  If they find themselves in front of someone skilled in working at this 4th level, they often emerge not only well, but feeling better than before they ever got sick.  The significance of the case above is not only that her thyroid problem resolved and she was able to have a baby.  The treatment brought a sense of calm and faith in life that she had never had before.  This is the genius of classical homeopathy. 

For those who want to read further about 4th level healing please refer to the category Levels of Healing on the right.  In particular, the Oct 8 post Thoughts On Explaining Homeopathy outlines the four levels specifically.