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".

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