Thinking Tools; Challenging the Unspecified Symptom

The flavor of homeopathic obsession.

The mission of the Homeopathic Teacher is to enable students’ clinical success. We are told that a well taken case is 50% of the cure. Such ability is then indispensible.

Skill Acquisition Easy to use roadmap/Thinking Tools Experiential Coaching

Basics Organon § 151 But if the patient complains of a few violent sufferings, the physician will usually find, on investigation, several other symptoms besides, although of a slighter character, which furnish a complete picture of the disease. Disease is the syntax of its own cure.

Organon § 153 We are especially to hold in mind the symptoms which are useful in narrowing our choice of medicine. The unspecified symptoms are to be disregarded unless they can be more characterized (specified)

The Problem Organon § 95 …the patients become so used to their long sufferings that they pay little or no heed to the lesser accessory symptoms, which are often very pregnant with meaning (characteristic) - often very useful in determining the choice of the remedy…they can scarcely bring themselves to believe that these accessory symptoms, these greater or less deviations from the healthy state, can have any connection with their principal malady. So there is often the possibility that the characterizing elements of the case remain invisible to interrogation.

A Possible Solution Useful proving symptoms are precise Disease symptoms are often characterizing On reflection the patients description become more generalized The goal is then to recapture expression of the primary experience

Thinking tools Identify the stubbornly vague Principles of questioning Apply the algorithm

First a series of open ended questions to stimulate a flow of useful info. a. Say a little bit more about… b. When you say----what do you mean? The re-iterating question. c. What kind of is that? d is very vague. It is like the label on a folder—if we opened the folder what is inside?

In very stubborn cases we offer new frames in time space and sense. If I had just been reviewing a video of your sons thought and actions over the past week since ill-what would strike me as being very different? If I were inside your mind with a microphone as you feel that way what am I be hearing? When you feel ----, what are you exactly feeling? Dissimilar counter example. Extreme reframe

Case Examples.. Mr. S was very Mr. S.80 years old. A mild, pleasant gentleman. Tall, thin and frail looking. He has been lovingly caring for his sick wife who for 6 years was ill with Alzheimer’s. She recently passed away. He is complaining of memory loss, mild confusion and a kind of vertigo that is not really ‘dizzy’. This last feeling is impairing his ability to walk.

Case Example Mr C. A 45 yr old businessman. 1 year ago he took a recreational program to learn Kayaking. The Instruction took place in a community swimming pool. As a training exercise he was required to turn the craft upside down and hold his breath for a few seconds before up righting himself. In the process his timing was a bit off and he sucked up a nose full of pool water. He felt an immediate irritation of the nasal membranes that passed in a few minutes. Since this episode he has not been the same. He suffers an irritating congestion that is there most of the time. With the congestion his head always hurts. He has not been his usual self since all this. His stamina is less. This is all he can say.

Case Example Mrs M. Suffers what is diagnosed as CFS. On taking cold she becomes quite ill. This is occurring since about 4yrs.(approx 86).When ill she has flu like symptoms with swelling of glands in the neck, throat pain and great weakness with coldness. The weakness has been central and so she has been unable to work since nearly the start of this recurring flu like syndrome. In fact at the height of the weakness she is confined to bed for days at a time. She has hunger in the forenoon (hypoglycemia).Craves sweet Over the next 3 yrs I prescribed many times with only slight and occasional help. She left for one year to try other practitioners but returned because of faith in homeopathy. She returned and again many prescriptions until…