The Healing Crisis — Is It Necessary?

In holistic methods like homeopathy, a temporary worsening of complaints followed by improvement is what we call a healing crisis.

If this healing crisis ends quickly without making life unbearable, and the complaint ends along with it — marvellous. Why did your client get worse before healing? Kent explained the reasons in his essay "The 12 Remedy Observations" two centuries ago; there is no need to repeat them here.

In practice, the biggest reason a healing crisis is caused despite giving the "right" remedy is the "base" layer remedy given too early: believing, based on the structural remedy myth, that the client has a single core remedy — and giving that remedy prematurely. Why does the homeopath fall into this trap? The answer is in this piece: (see The Structural Remedy Myth)

In practice, the problem unfolds like this:

The client is a 38-year-old woman; she comes to you with general fatigue and irregular periods.

In childhood she had frequent lung infections, her nose would bleed, she was outgoing and afraid of the dark at night. A lively, bubbly child. She loved cold water; throughout her childhood she wanted to drink it even when her mother wouldn't allow it.

Now, arriving at 38, she has given birth twice, used birth control pills for a period, and has turned into a woman whose life energy is depleted — who sometimes doesn't want to see even her husband and children. Her periods are irregular; the bleeding is red when she menstruates. Her mood swings before her period. If she can't find time to exercise, her fatigue and listlessness increase. She is still afraid of the dark, her coughs linger, and she still loves cold water. She has a pleasant, talkative session with you.

The homeopath looks at this woman and says: "What a sweet woman; she chatted away so brightly with me. She still loves cold water, she is afraid of the dark. A true phosphorus woman. Yes, there are sepia symptoms — but underneath there is a strong phosphorus constitution."

Sepia covers the irregular periods, the birth-control-pill history, the improvement with exercise and the wish to be alone. Still loving cold water and starting at the dark point to the phos constitution.

Which remedy should be given?

If she follows the "there is one right remedy" school, she gives this client phosphorus — deeming it appropriate because it is her "deepest" remedy.

When we give this woman the phos remedy just because there is a phos constitution at the very bottom, she experiences a healing crisis. You have handed the vital force a huge task it is in no way ready for.

Like perfectionist parents. We load the vital force with more than it can carry.

More erratic periods follow, outbursts of anger, a lung infection as severe as the ones she had in childhood. The homeopath says "wait, it will pass."

The menstrual bleeding increases, the fatigue and anger increase. Meanwhile the patient starts sleeping more from exhaustion. And you wait, saying "increased sleep points to the right remedy."

Because your remedy does not cover the main complaint — that is, the hormonal system problems.

Every remedy has a different field of action. These are not sugar pellets from unicorn land that each help with everything; each one is a medicine, and their ranges and fields of action differ.

Among this woman's existing complaints, loving cold water and fearing the dark are not pathological. Her irregular periods and her inability to bear her children even though she loves them dearly — those are problems.

The problem is on the hormonal plane. Whichever remedy covers these problems — the complaints troubling the vital force most — is the one we give. The relief of fatigue with exercise and her indifference towards her loved ones are two golden symptoms in our hands.

Taking these two golden symptoms and the hormonal system problem together as the "totality of symptoms", we give this woman Sepia. Her periods regulate, her relationships improve, her face smiles, her energy returns. In all likelihood the phos constitution will show itself a few months later anyway. That is when we will give the phos remedy. After all, phos and sepia are complementary remedies. A great "coincidence" — and a relief :) (see Remedy Maps)

The totality of complaints, or the totality of traits?

Doesn't the Organon speak of giving the "simillimum remedy for the totality of symptoms"? What is meant by the totality of symptoms here is the TOTALITY OF COMPLAINTS — that is, the totality of the signs the vital force brings out as problems. If you misunderstand this and, with a Kentian approach, say "I have 10 symptoms here, most of them point to phosphorus", then you give phosphorus.

That is not a totality of symptoms; it becomes a totality of human TRAITS belonging to that person.

Why is the phos remedy wrong, and according to what? Wrong according to the Organon. You did not give a remedy for the totality of symptoms; you gave a remedy for the healthy character traits the person was born with. The woman has a problem in her hormonal system; she struggles before her periods. She improves with exercise. She is normally an outgoing woman — yet she can no longer bear her family.

We use the mental-emotional changes brought along by the state of illness in finding the remedy. So the woman being outgoing carries no symptom value. But the "not wanting to see anyone" that emerged along with the irregular periods is a mental-emotional symptom — and a very valuable one.

We see this in Aphorisms 211, 212 and 213. Hahnemann speaks of the mood that changes along with the illness, and of giving the remedy suited to that state. He says the changed state; he does not say the character traits one was born with.

Homeopaths who work like Dr. Kent taught us that everyone has a single constitutional remedy, and that once it is given all symptoms will pass. Homeopaths are still searching for this magical remedy and believe they must choose between a handful of remedies in practice. Yet instead of a single constitutional remedy, each of us has a group of remedies that will be used through the process and complete one another's work — a remedy map. (see Remedy Maps)

To prevent a healing crisis

The finest step you can take is to give the remedy that covers the pathology of that moment — the complaints the vital force is wrestling with right now: find the simillimum; do not hunt for the constitutional remedy underneath. For that, always question the modalities of the most prominent complaint. Even if the complaint is fatigue: ask when this fatigue increases and what relieves it. How is the thyroid, how is the menstrual cycle, is the liver healthy? The factor causing this fatigue may not be emotional, as you might assume. Don't get lost in the patient's emotional state and say "she has known grief, let me give Nat-mur." That would be your interpretation — and you would be lost.

And if the crisis still comes: what can be done?

The healing crisis sometimes appears in oversensitive clients — the technique was applied correctly, yet a crisis still developed. Or the homeopath gave a wrong remedy at a high potency for a long time. It happens; it can happen to all of us.

• Some homeopaths use the cup method; I hear they get good results. I use olfaction — the smelling method.
• There may be situations that call for an organ remedy: first support the organ, gather the vital force, then move to high potencies. In these patients even 30c can be a high potency. If you give high-potency remedies to people without a gallbladder or with a removed thyroid just because you think it is their constitutional remedy, the vital force tells you through a healing crisis: "I cannot function." Some people don't even have the strength to produce the remedy you gave within themselves, because there is a serious deficiency of vital force underneath. Organ and lesion remedies come to the rescue here.
• Don't start with high potencies in people born with low vital force and chronic disease (200c is a high potency too!).
• There are methods that resolve a healing crisis (such as applying remedy water to thin-skinned areas); use them when you are in a tight spot.

And please, read the Organon

It works out — it all gets solved. Kisses.