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| Hpathy Ezine - May, 2007 | |||||
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Dr. Urvi Chauhan<-- Interviewed by Elaine Lewis |
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| What can be said about Urvi Chauhan that hasn't been said a million times? And with that I give you, Urvi Chauhan! Wow! Short and sweet! Thank you, Elaine. Any time! Who, exactly, are you? I am Dr. Urvi Chauhan... Is Urvi short for Irving? I don't think so. I must be thinking of another Urvi Chauhan. I'm a practicing Homoeopath and a Yoga Consultant. Wait a minute! Did you say, Smt. Chandaben Mohanbhai Patel Homeopathic Medical College, Irla, Mumbai, India? Yes.... Did you know Gandhi? No, Elaine. Gandhi? Elaine, that's Mohanbhai, not Mohandas! Oh. I guess people make that mistake all the time. Actually, no. So as I was saying....during the course work, it was my delight to gather clinical experience from Dr. Nimish Mehta, the one who not only has been a subtle teacher but also a good friend til date. Though I have always been a writer, or to be more precise, a Poet--my passion!--it has been an ecstatic experience to provide a language to the voices originating deep inside my heart- thus I have a collection of a few poems to my credit. Dr. Nimish was the first person who encouraged me to write my first ever article in the field of Homoeopathy- the one which itself never saw the light of day but the one which gave birth to the interest deep within me to mother many such articles - the latest is a published book, where I was able to pen down Dr. Rajan Sankaran's ideas: An Insight into Plants Vol-III. So, you're the voice behind Insight Into Plants, vol. III! Well, let me explain. Dr.Sankaran proposed this Idea that different drugs falling under the same botanical family of a Plant kingdom shared a common vital sensation / experience (for example, Stiff, Caught and Cannot move is the Vital experience of all the drugs that belong to Plant family Anacardiaceae) and that if we have a patient with such a vital sensation and if we can find out the miasm of that patient (in the case- receiving process), it is possible to find a remedy for that patient though this approach. Aha! Stemming from this idea, drugs from 21 plant families were studied and demonstrated with respect to the derivation of their vital sensation, miasms and cured cases from Sankaran's and his colleagues' practices to confirm the idea. Insight into Plants volumes I and II were the product of all these efforts (these first two volumes were done by my husband, Dr. Dinesh Chauhan). Are they as good as Insight Into Plants, vol. III? Yes, Elaine, every bit as good! So, after these 2 volumes, there were cases which were done on the same principle of Vital sensation but the drugs belonged to other plant families not listed under first two Insight volumes. Also, there was a scope to study more families in the light of same idea- hence came up the project of Volume III of Insight into Plants. My job was to find out the vital sensation for more plant families, find out the miasms of possibly each drug falling under that family, collect cases from over the globe from colleagues who are successfully working on this idea and then finally give this entire effort a good legible flow so that to not only share the research interest fully but also to make them available for all those eager souls who want to add it to his / her practice or teaching. Good lord! Do you have any idea how much work that is? That's a whole career right there! And you still find time to write poetry? Allow me sum it up metaphorically. Please do. This Idea of vital sensation proposed by Dr. Rajan Sankaran is
like a fertile soil ready to nourish any seeds eager to form into
a plant and then grow tall- the book Insight into Plants volume
III was one such seed and I was the gardener :) So, this is all in answer to my question about...something. I can't remember. Some question I asked. Have you tried Medorrhinum, Elaine? Let me know if you're interested. Is it the good Medorrhinum? Because if it is....See me after the show. Elaine, I said "Medorrhinum", not Marijuana! Oh! I guess people make that mistake all the time. Actually, no. So, anyway, I was in college... And again, that would be: Smt. Chandaben Mohanbhai Patel Homeopathic Medical College, Irla, Mumbai, India. Thank you. Any time! So, after graduation... You went to a Dance, stayed out really late and had too much to drink. Actually, I was going to say, I obtained a post as Residential Medical Officer in Mumbadevi Homeopathic Hospital, an affiliate to C.M.P. Homoeopathic College, Mumbai, for 6 months, which facilitated my skills in handling various Orthopedic, Rheumatic and ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) pathologies Homeopathically. So you skipped the dance? Urvi, I probably should point out that if we don't start talking about homeopathy soon, our audience is going to start drifting out into the hall! Good point Elaine! By all means, let's talk about homeopathy! Good! Now, I'm just going to lay out what I think the average classical homeopath does when he or she is presented with a case; and then you can tell me what you do differently. Usually when a case is presented to us, we have to find out the onset--sudden or gradual, the etiology, the clinical diagnosis, we look for what's strange, rare and peculiar, any delusions, and yes, we ask 'What is the Sensation?' and the location and the all-important modalities and concomitants; the 'generals' (the "I" symptoms--I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm sleepy, I'm thirsty, etc.), the color, odor and consistency of discharges, etc. We ask about perspiration, sleep, food, thirst, weather preferences, digestion, reproductive issues and so on. We try to do as Kent said which is to not mix up chronic and acute symptoms. We have to decide, in a multi-faceted case, what the Worst Thing is, where the most suffering is, so we can peel that layer off first; for example, we may have to, as a first order of business, take the case of a person's pain, as in a facial neuralgia case, for example, and ask: What is the sensation? Does the pain extend/radiate? What is the character of the pain--does it come and go suddenly, does it wander here and there? What makes it better or worse? Are there any concomitants? Is there a mental picture associated with the pain--apathy? anxiety? etc. Note that we're not interested in their childhood, their relationships or any of the other things we care about when taking a constitutional case. When the patient is better because he's taken his Mag-phos. or Spigelia and he wants to stay on with us, we can then think about prescribing the constitutional remedy, assuming there isn't another "worst thing" that we have to deal with--Never Well Since pneumonia from two years ago, perhaps. Then we would have to take the case of the pneumonia, what was that like, etc. So, my question to you is, to what extent do you jettison this whole thing and just let the person talk, and how would you deal with the multi-faceted case which is so typical in today's patient, thanks to immune-compromising drugs that everyone's on, suppressive treatments, vaccine damage, junk food diets....what is your approach? How is it different from what I just described? OK. So, the question is.... Oh, geez, I'm sorry, our time's up! Elaine! Wait a minute, your watch is on upsidedown! Oops! Now, getting back to what I was saying... Where's that Marijuana? You mean Medorrhinum! Right. Right. Right. Do a lot of people get those two mixed up? Actually, no. So as I was saying..... 1] What is my approach when an acute case comes up and... answer to the first question- 1] what is my approach when an acute case comes up? A: There are three possibilities which I face in my clinical practice
so far as the acute picture of disease is concerned: For example, I had a child patient whom I was treating for recurrent upper respiratory tract infections- after the exploration of entire state of the patient, I came down to Cina- and the child was responding well to Cina. Then, once she was out for a pilgrimage tour with her parents and the temperature there was very high; she developed a high fever [103F] and I received a phone call from the parents; I took her acute history on the phone and again her state was calling for Cina. I repeated it in higher potency and she responded wonderfully; within an hour, her fever was down, she was active and the family had a successful pilgrim visit. Also, one more observation, after such acute manegement, the over all improvement in the state of the patient is much faster in comparison to otherwise with the same medicine. Sometimes, development of such acutes helps to find a perfect simillimum for those patients who are not in good contact with their inner beings [whose level of experiencing life is very superficial] and hence, failed to give a good history in their first consultation. In such instances, development of acutes act like a reflection of sun [core] in a clear water in comparison to the same in muddy water [this happens in cases with superficial level of experience /bad case history]. b] The second possibility is the first consultation itself comes in the form of an acute picture and when you explore the entire acute picture and the picture of the patient's state otherwise [through their life's other uncompensated areas like dreams, desires, interests, etc.] you again come down to the same core. So, again, same single simillimum. There was this case of Dr.Dinesh [the case was in a recent issue of the ezine] the patient had come down with Acute Myelitis and Arachnoiditis - and after the entire exploration, he was prescribed Hydrogen. After Hydrogen, not only did his acute problem come under control but also the overall state of the patient improved wonderfully. c] At times, it happens that the developed acute state behaves
differently from the rest of the state of the patient- this we have
witnessed in two types of cases: 1] where the power of external
exciting cause is much higher so as to cause its own state in a
patient who otherwise harbored another state, such as in the case
of epidemic disease. This is what is the observation with different kind of acutes that I have witnessed clinically. Very comprehensive reply! In my interview with Dr. Luc last month, he started by saying, "I will begin by observing that the present homeopathic world seems to be focused on 'finding the simillimum.'" I think the Gangrene case above is exactly the kind of situation he was referring to. We all should know that when a person has been given a life-threatening diagnosis or a disease diagnosis, this, by definition, is the top layer in the case and will most likely NOT respond to the constitutional remedy; that is why we have remedies like Secale. I've read cases where people have looked for the constitutional remedy in Pneumonia, Prostate Cancer and Coma from Snake Bite! It shows that even the best homeopaths in the world are confused! They hear that they are supposed to be finding the Simillimum, the patient's "essence". But they also know that there are remedies known for their affinity for certain diseases, organs, conditions--Nat-mur. for Shingles, for example. How to reconcile the two? I have heard people say, "I have Shingles, but I'm not a Nat-mur person; so, I don't see myself taking Nat-mur." As Dr. Luc pointed out in his interview last month, this stems from our not being familiar with Hahnemann's Organon. Aphorisms 151-155 are all about how the symptoms of a remedy have to be matched to the totality of the characteristic symptoms of a person's DISEASE, not to the patient as a person. It's like when I asked Dr. Luc last month, "When can you use 'Loves Animals' as a symptom in the case?" He said, when it's obsessive, when it's ONLY animals, when you don't like PEOPLE... This makes sense, doesn't it? There's nothing pathological about people loving animals! When people come to see us, chances are it's because they do, in fact, have some sort of disease. When is it appropriate to be looking for a person's "essence"? When is it the right time? Definitely not when the diagnosis is Gangrene! In the early stages of a disorder, when a person has only functional problems and there is no pathological tissue change or damage and his problems haven't come from without, like an injury or an epidemic disease or a botched surgery, AND, when there is no Clear Remedy Picture before you: a clear Rhus tox case, a clear Arsenicum case, a clear Belladonna case with its heat, congestion, throbbing and redness; THEN you can look for the "essence" and give that remedy.
Urvi, in the interest of time maybe we should move along to case management?
With multi-faceted diseases, thanks to the presence of multiple
factors - a byproduct of today's life style, there is definitely
a need for much more of a comprehensive package to restore as well
as prevent and maintain the health. Homoeopathic medication helps to create inner balance in the disturbed vital energy thus leading to an appropriate perception of life, balanced emotions and a healthy physical state. The approach of Yoga on another end aims at correcting the life style by cultivating a rational positive and spiritual attitude towards all life situations and towards one's own Mind-Body complex. Experiences achieved in Yogic techniques helps in establishing healthy routines, right habits [including Food habits], a change in values & priorities, a change in motivations, and a change in attitudes. Once the internal harmony called homoeostasis is established with right thinking, right attitudes and right living, maintenance of health comes as a by-product of an enriched way of living. Yoga is a very wide and comprehensive system embracing all walks of human life. Many times I have observed that it gets difficult to follow these Yogic guidelines if a patient's imbalanced state of emotion is over- powering and his faulty perceptions of life and physical discomforts [disease] are too much disturbing, It becomes difficult to sit in meditation when the mind is restless, this is where the role of Homoeopathy comes in. Thus, both holistic systems complement each other, not only in restoring health faster but also maintaining so.
Let's move on to case-taking. I know that those who practice the Sankaran method have a very special way of "case-receiving"; can you describe?
If the case Receiving process is done in a manner where the patient is allowed to travel and enjoy the entire ride along with the physician - that in itself becomes not only a diagnostic procedure [to diagnose the core /Vital disturbance] but also a therapeutic one where in the patient becomes temporarily aware of his/her own disturbed energy pattern, and the associated delusions and unbalanced emotions which were paralyzing the patient, thus not allowing him to experience, perceive, and feel life as it is. This awareness in itself starts the healing from that day, even before the administration of the simillimum. It also helps as a confirmatory sign as in the physician has struck the correct cord and not entered the wrong path. For this to happen, the case receiving process is divided into three compartments: 1] Initial part: Passive Case Receiving Process:
here the physician is completely passive allowing the patient to
talk whatever he /she wants to talk and reveal about his/her life.
If the patient stops talking /does not find what to talk about,
the questions posed here are again open-ended, general ones which
just allow the patient to wander freely. For instance - "Tell
me more about what you are saying," or "Describe what
you spoke in detail," "Tell me more." ...to determine the issues of the patient's life that bother him the most ... to determine which issue is coming up repeatedly from completely disconnected areas of the patient's life. This gives the certainty that this is the issue which is "THE" issue of the case - so now, we know that if we probe this deeper, we will reach the ultimate inquiry [the CORE] easily. ...the patient to develop a rapport with the physician where he feels he is being heard and understood at his own pace. This may be crucial in the latter part of the case where the active Case Receiving begins and the homeopath needs to delve deeper. ...to minimize chances of errors in interpretation later in the case. ...in understanding the level of Experience of the patient. ...to inform the practitioner which case taking technique [Focusing/word association/denial/projection etc.] will be needed later in the case to explore the core.
2] Latter part - Active Case Receiving Process: This begins when the physician discovers the most palpable, vulnerable part of the case [Issue of the case / entry point of case] which when probed, will take us straight-away to the Core. Here the questionnaire again becomes more directed- where we aim to know the feeling, perception, experience and the associated reactions of the patient. At this point, the patient starts talking about experiences which are the product of their Disturbed Vital Pattern- thus not making sense to our rational mind. In a way, we enter the world of Non-sense - a world which is Non-sensible to our rational mind but very much making sense if viewed in the context of the energy pattern playing its chord deep inside the patient's being [what we call a disturbed Vital Energy Pattern]. 3] The Final part: Flexible Process Here, once the patient starts talking about the world of Non-sense, we again become passive so as to allow the patient to talk freely and completely and vividly about his /her experience of the source-"The Core". We get active if he comes back to the conscious talk of his/her life. So, here, every step taken by the patient decides the next move of a physician [to be active or passive]. One thing is crucial to understand, that to explain the entire Case Receiving process theoretically I have divided it into three compartments [meaning this is how more or less each case happens if I view my cases after the Case Receiving has been completed]. Practically, in a case, all these are a simultaneous process. If a physician will sit with a rigid mind-set of following the above mentioned steps in their exact order, the entire beauty of this system will be lost. One thing to keep in mind is that Ride with the Dolphin. Don't be rigid. Each case defines and demands its own style to reach to the core. Hence, in True sense, the Case Receiving Process is an Art.
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