Friday, August 26, 2011

Empathy

As I was working on rebuilding my website (which now includes a track for homeopathy and a separate one for psychotherapy - check it out:), I came across a comment on my book where I describe homeopathic case taking as bypassing the emotional level exploration. The author of the critique seemed not to share my sentiment about this issue. I have found rejection of this idea in some professionals in the past and i am wondering what is the source of this rejection. Why do other clinicians reject the fact that it is possible - and possibly preferable - to avoid the whirlwind of emotional layers that can bring us to faulty conclusions and misconceptions of our clients.
I believe that true empathy lies in an ability to see beyond our client's emotions. If we strive to understand what is underneath the emotion, we will arrive at very personal and individual layers of the person's view of reality and inner world. I believe that using the emotional layer as a diving board to more person-specific areas of one's inner life is a useful tool in therapy and homeopathy.These are the layers of the unconscious which have roots beyond emotions. We might have emotional reactions or manifestations of these deeper roots but the roots themselves are not (necessarily) emotion-based.
The text from Sensations goes like this:
"Before we examine the cases of the animal kingdom, I want to revisit a key component of the Sensation Method of homeopathy so we can see how it applies to the following examples. The power of homeopathic case-taking lies in the fact that it does not involve the emotional layer. As I have mentioned before, our goal as homeopaths is not to explore the emotional layer, nor even the layer that feeds the emotions. Our goal is to arrive at the sensation level and hear the words that describe that level. As we are humans, and homeopathy utilizes our ability to verbalize our feelings, sensations and experiences, we use words to transfer these ideas. But beyond the actual words the coherency of speech has only secondary importance. Describing sensations is often far from what the person is used to. It is far from the realm the ego feels attached to or protective of. Our ego is what works the “pain body,” as Eckhart Tolle calls it. With the Sensation Method we go beyond this body and thus trick the ego.
Once the ego has no access to what we are talking about, we can truly describe our core problem with no pain and suffering. There is no guard invested in keeping the pain body as intact as possible. This pain body is the very obstacle to health. Our ego does not want us to be free of it. It wants us to stay ill-healthed because that is its only chance for survival. This process has a dual benefit. First, we can reach the core problem without touching painful, tender spots in the whole being  we don’t have to stir up traumatic experiences. Second, upon reaching the core level, we touch something truly essential, and once that essential core is addressed and healed, healing will emanate into the whole being, transforming the whole into a healthy state".

Monday, August 8, 2011

More on the intersubjective nature of the therapeutic encounter
Homeopaths conceptualize their cases in their own mind and they do not share this with their clients. There is no forum for it, as the system of thinking in the sensation method is far removed from the human interaction, which can be "explained" or commented on during a session. The most useful comments I am aware of in homeopathic consulting work are the connections we can make between mental, emotional, and physical symptoms. These are often eye-opened for our clients.
I find the lack of communication on the level of conceptualization a setback in homeopathic work. I believe that the homeopath and client relationship could be enhanced if this type of communication was activated. Many psychotherapists rely on and use the here-and-now events of the session and use the transference and their relationship with the client a sort of practice space for both understanding the client's issues and their healing process as well. If a similar way of interaction were to be utilized by homeopaths, the remedies' effects could be prepared and enhanced, thus treatment could be easier incorporated into the client's experience. It is not simple to point out what this process would be as the majority of these processes - both in psychotherapeutic healing and in homeopathic healing, are unconscious.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Modern psychoanalytic thinkers, like Mitchell in "Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis" published in 1993, talk about the interpersonal aspects of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. While there are many differing concepts in modern psychoanalysis, they all seem to agree on the crucial role the therapist's subjectivity plays in the treatment of their patients. Mitchell talks about the way the analyst conceptualizes, organizes the patient's experience. He considers modern analytic thinking to be different from the traditional, Freudian view in that today we focus on the patient's inner experience as opposed to the Freudian view, where the analyst created a conceptual frame which through his interpretations he conveyed to the patient, who in turn internalized it, used it for their own self-healing. Today psychoanalytic therapists seek to bring forth the patient's own experience, through which - according to Mitchell - the person's meaningful self-experience will develop and manifest.
I found this quite interesting, as the way I work is a process where the emphasis is on the inner experience of the person. Mitchell continues with his thought process and not only maintains that the person's inner experience is the cornerstone of modern psychotherapy but he also explains that the therapist's own conceptualization has a powerful impact on the emerging conceptualization which will be co-created by patient and therapist. This is a process, which I found fascinating. I started wondering what affect my understanding of the homeopathic remedy picture has on the process of the healing of my clients. How does it affect the whole of the process that my thinking is in the framework of homeopathy and that my conceptualization of the client is on the level of their vital sensation? If I am experiencing my client on the level of the vital sensation and my comments and guiding inquiry stays on that level, it greatly affects the type of healing and self-conceptualization of my client. This is definitely a direction to pay attention to and explore.