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:
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