An Organon-based guide to finding the simillimum and healing gently
In holistic methods like homeopathy, a temporary worsening of complaints followed by improvement (or, without improvement, a return to the old unhealthy state) is what we call a healing crisis. You take a remedy, and the complaints you went to have helped intensify. Your homeopath says: endure it — this is a wonderful sign. You cannot endure it; your life comes to a halt.
The healing crisis sometimes appears in oversensitive clients. The technique was applied correctly, yet a healing crisis still developed. In my practice, oversensitive clients make up only 5–10 per cent of my clients. So attributing every healing crisis to the patient's sensitivity does not explain this phenomenon. It happens to me rarely — and when it does, I resolve it with the methods I describe below.
This article is not about oversensitive clients; it is about how the crisis that appears routinely — and is seen as ideal — can be prevented.
In practice, there are technical reasons why a healing crisis is caused even though the "right" remedy was given. The biggest is the "base" layer remedy given at the wrong time — believing, based on the structural remedy myth, that the client has a single core remedy, and giving that remedy prematurely. Why the homeopath falls into this trap is answered in this piece: (see The Structural Remedy Myth).
In practice, the problem unfolds like this:
Between the ages of 0 and 6, this client was a typical phosphorus little girl. 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.
When this client comes to you at 38, she has given birth twice, used birth control pills for a period, and has become a woman whose life energy is depleted — who now wants to be alone, who sometimes doesn't want to see even her husband and children. Her periods are irregular, and when she menstruates the bleeding is bright red. She is still a little afraid of the dark, her coughs linger, and she still loves cold water.
The homeopath looks at this woman and says: there are sepia symptoms, but underneath there is also a strong phosphorus constitution. Sepia covers the irregular periods, the birth control pill history and the desire to be alone. Still loving cold water and starting at the dark point to the phos constitution. A homeopath following the "there is one right remedy" school (see Kent and the Structural Remedy) gives this client phos. Because that is her "deepest" remedy — so it must be right. But the woman's problem is on the hormonal plane.
Loving cold water and starting at the dark are not pathological. Her irregular periods and her inability to bear her children even though she loves them dearly — those, yes, are problems. These are the problems we must prescribe on. Whichever remedy covers these problems — the complaints troubling the vital force most — is the one we give. 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)
When we give this woman the phos remedy just because there is a phos constitution at the very bottom, she experiences a healing crisis. We have handed the vital force a huge task it is in no way ready for. Heal despite your current exhaustion. Heal despite your problems on the hormonal plane. Like perfectionist parents. We load the vital force with more than it can carry. Of course the woman goes through a healing crisis. More erratic periods, outbursts of anger, the severe lung infection she had as a child returns. The homeopath says, "wait, it will pass." She waits in that uncomfortable state — and it doesn't pass. And when it does, she returns to her old state. The periods are still irregular, the energy still depleted.
Yet what needs to be done is to seek not the constitutional remedy but the simillimum. To read the signs of the vital force's suffering at that moment, and to take the modalities of those signs. Not that she still loves cold water — but to ask about the consistency and colour of her menstrual bleeding. To ask at which hours and after what her fatigue worsens. Because these are the main complaints, and until they are resolved we have no life energy to work 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 — in other words, a remedy map.
The finest step you can take to prevent a healing crisis is to give the remedy that covers the pathology of that moment — the complaints the vital force is wrestling with right now. To find the simillimum. Not to 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.
If you are giving a remedy even though it does not cover the main complaint, simply because you believe it is the "constitutional" remedy — that is the remedy that mostly causes a healing crisis. You can prevent this with a highly technical piece of knowledge.
There are several aphorisms in the Organon (6, 18, 211 and 213). To summarise in my own words, Hahnemann says this:
And please, read the Organon — see what Hahnemann actually said.
Hahnemann does not say constitutional remedy. He does not say all problems pass with a single remedy. He does not say our soul is ill. He says simillimum — find the remedy counterpart of the existing picture of illness. Crystal clear.
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