If One Remedy Fails

The Heart of Case Taking ( ref: Rajan Sankaran, “Spirit of Homoeopathy”)

The purpose of case taking is

¬     to trace the picture of the disease

¬     to note the individualizing features of the patient

¬     to understand the patient’s true feelings

¬     to perceive and record the inner experience

¬     to identify the central disturbance

Factors which obscure the Central Disturbance

1. the situation of the patient

2. pathology

Striking symptoms will catch your attention immediately.

Socio-cultural traits are like disguises that mask the real person.

Must remove symptoms that are explainable by his situation - what symptoms would be found even if he were from a totally different background? What symptoms would have persisted even if he had travelled a totally different path?

Basic traits do not belong to any particular group of people.

Must reduce expressions to the basic feelings that cause them.

How do you determine if the symptom is “original”?

1.      Has the symptom existed prior to the situation or pathology? (go back to childhood)

2.      Compare intensity with other patients with the same situation

3.      Ask which aspects of his situation he is comfortable with. Those he is most comfortable with are in tune with his true nature. Ask what situations he would be comfortable in.

Remember: We do not discard a remedy if the symptoms of the remedy are not found in the patient - we only discard a remedy if the symptoms of the patient  are not found in the remedy.

Ask about the following parts of a person’s life.

1.      Where they came from

2.      Who his parents were

3.      Occupation

4.      Story of his life

5.      Education

6.      Marriage

7.      Money matters

8.      Interests

Let the symptoms be heavily exposed before you accept them. Attack the idea - be very sceptical - confirm it in other situations and be very sure before you lean on it for support.

Hints on Case-taking (Rajan Sankaran)

F     Ask questions in the opposite direction. Ask a coward when did he stand up for himself.

F     Always confirm symptoms from relatives and friends.

F     Never accept what the patient says at face value.

F     Look at the hidden expression behind the symptoms.

F     Symptoms expressed with spontaneity, clarity and intensity are of the highest value. Answers that go beyond the direct response to questions.

F     If a patient is markedly irresolute, this will be best elicited when you ask about cravings and aversions.

F     Try to confirm the essential parameters of the patient in diverse situations of his life. Ask about all the possible situations where this could become evident.

F     Try as much as possible to avoid asking the patient directly about his nature.

F     If you cannot elicit characteristic symptoms in the patient’s present state, you have to go back to a time when the last characteristics existed. Look at 1. Time after a stressful situation 2. Illness before medication 3. Patient in childhood

F     Provoke a patient by making him wait beyond his time of appointment.

F     Avoid asking another question as soon as the patient stops talking. He may modify or change his answer upon being given time to think.

F     The patient must feel you care to open up.

F     What the patient asks you is more important than what you ask him.

F     If you come to a dead end, ask the patient to describe one typical day in his life.

Techniques of Case-taking (Rajan Sankaran)

1.      Observation - put your observation back on the patient and ask if he is experiencing it.

2.      Look at the mode of narration of the complaint - casual remarks, the way they approach the practitioner, the way they speak.

3.      Accompaniments to the suffering - state of mind during the pain is uncompensated.

4.      Interests or hobbies - anything the patient does to feel good or fantasizes about.

5.      Nature as a child.

6.      Typical behaviour - the things they do that characterize them.

7.      Reactions in life situations - how they reacted during and after stress and shock.

8.      Dreams.

9.      State of the mind of the mother during pregnancy.

10.  Intense real and extreme situations faced in their life.

11.  What feeling does the patient create in you - what do you involuntarily tell them at the end of the interview.

12.  What qualities in others and themselves can they not tolerate? What can they not understand in others? What are they angry about in themselves?

13.   What does the physical state indicate - violence, stubbornness, restlessness?

14.   Occupation and area of work - why he chose it, how does he function, what branch of that work has he chosen

15.   In relationships, what is the nature of their partners?

16.   The situations they have created in life - they will attempt to recreate a situation similar to the one in his imagination he has already reacted to.

17.   Interview friends and relatives.

Selection of the Remedy (Rajan Sankaran)

Ø      Observe everything about the patient

Ø      Depend on uncompensated features

Ø      Form a general impression first

Ø      Go from generals to specifics

Ø      Keep trying to prove yourself wrong

Ø      Examine the person’s situations in life and how he views them

Ø      Where do they face restrictions or blocks?

Ø      What situation does he imagine himself to be in?

Ø      Most important symptoms are the ones nearest to his basic feelings

Homeopathy is still missing a lot of knowledge to make it easier to find the right remedy. There is a known relationship between the psihical cause and the remedy needed.
In order to recognize the cause of the sickness, and by that also the remedy, is good to
know that the organs affected by the sickness are directly dependent to the cause.

By knowing i.e. that the knees or the shoulder are affected we can find the psihical cause if we know the connecttion between part/organ affected and cause and thus we can narrow the remedy.

What Sankaran does is exactly the same. He figured out the real cause of the problem.
He found by observation the connection between remedy and cause, which is great thing.

But, I doubt yet from my own observations,  that all his rules are appliable to people from western countries. Because there is a big differences between people from such contries and india. People in west have different dreams, different habits, different sicknesses, different way of coping with problems. You will barely see face warts in western Europe...

I found some helpfull books to do the connection between sick organ/part and the cause which created them:

DIME QUE TE DUELE Y TE DIRE POR QUE
Tell Me What Hurts and I’ll Tell You Why  Author / Autor Odoul, Michel

There are also some books by Rudiger Dahlke in german.

If anyone knows some other books or infos which translates the organ affected to a psihical cause, I would like to hear more.

Another thing to narrow down the cause are the vices/virtutes of somebody, this brings one also to the cause of the problem.

It is easy to notice that:

Kids who do not obey get rather problems with the ears. As Odoul says the side precise if the problems are with the mother or with the father. I found this to be true.

Kids who are angry get problems with the throat 

Kids whos mothers dont show enough body affection (caress, kisses) get skins problems (sulfur!, I found this in my second case of sulfur by observation because I knew the mother ). 

People who cannot see anymore a certain situation get problems with the eyes ( I found this in many patients. The right remedy is to solve the cause of it. In one case that meant to heal the son who was the cause and not only the patient. 

So what Sankaran tells us is : FIND the real cause of the problem, don't hunt for simptoms just to put them in the computer.

There are different ways to do that though. Sometimes the tongue alone shows more than
all simptoms together. Did anyone met a "snake" splitted tongue so far  ?

Any affected organ tells something important and essential about the cause.

Homeopathy missed yet to categorize and analyze that. It would be great if someone could gather all this informations from all over the world - specially from the experience of homeopaths - and put them together in a new and usable form.

You want to wait for science to prove miasmatic theory through genetics? If that was the case then no-one could have used miasmatic theory for most of homoeopathic history. We don't need to wait for science to prove what we already know about miasms.