Mind & Homeopathy

Mind is the faculty involved in perceiving, remembering, considering, evaluating and deciding. It is the place from where the origin of thoughts takes place. These thoughts can be either positive or negative. Mind is the most wonderful gift to the human. The Human Mind is like a parachute, it works only when it is open.  Mind is what we make ourselves, it is nurture by the thoughts we put into. So it depends on us what we want to grow a plant full of flower or a plant with thorns. It responds in the same way, we think.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic theory divided the mind into three distinct level:

1. THE PRECONSCIOUS MIND– it is that part which consists of anything that could potentially be brought into the conscious mind. These includes memory which are not repressed that means these memories can be extract for a specific purpose at a specific time. These are not part of immediate awareness, but they can be quickly brought into awareness through conscious effort.
2. THE CONSCIOUS MIND– this part contains all of the thoughts, sensations, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. This involves all of the things that we are currently aware.
3. THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND– this is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. The unconscious contains contents that are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. This can include repressed feelings, desires, habits, thoughts and reactions. The bad memories and emotions which are painful, embarrassing, shameful or distressing are stored in unconscious mind. In fact, we can say all those things which a person repressed unknowingly all goes to this part of mind.

In this article, two major mental disorders are discussed in which homoeopathy plays a vital role. Homoeopathy offers several drugs that can be used to cure such ailments.

First is MOOD DISORDERS– this is a condition that affects mood and related functions. It is a mental health problem affecting persons emotional state. Here person experience emotion like a roller coaster rides, One time happy and cheerful and other moment gloomy and sad. It is characterized by changes in mood that causes disturbance in daily life activities. Three major states of mood disorders exist, these are Depressive, Manic, and Bipolar. Depressive disorder as the name suggest are characterized by mood depression. Elevation in mood are the features of Mania or Hypomania. The cycling between both depressed and manic is characteristic of Bipolar Mood Disorders.  

Second is OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER– this is characterized by repeated unwanted thoughts or sensations (obsessions) or urge to do something over and over again (compulsions). In simple terms this means  habit or actions or thought that is repetitive which are beyond control and person really did not enjoy that and that might affect day to day activities. For example some people have habit of washing hands, checking  of locking of door or almirah, habit of saying one thing again and again.

 The above two disorder got a very good scope in Homoeopathy along with need of proper counseling. The materia medica is full of such mental symptoms, what a physician requires is proper understanding of patient. Now let us explore this co relation of mind and homoeopathy in detail.

Homoeopathy and mind are interrelated. As we all know Homoeopathy is the science which treats the patient as a whole. The medicine is given on the basis of totality of symptoms which includes both mental and physical symptoms. It is based on the concept of “Individualization” which means every patient is different and requires different medicine for the same conditions. What makes patient different is their mental features. Their different thoughts and reactions to the same stimulus. In this hectic schedule of life, always chasing and achieving different goals, the person usually forgets about himself. The tough competition, aspirations, chasing the targets etc leads to the mental distress. And all these leads to the development of so called fancy diseases which we called as Life Style Disorders. The sole cause for the development of these diseases is stress. Homoeopathy believes that diseases are just not the results of infection or any external agent, it is the derangement of vital force, so in order to remove the disease, one has to look forward to cure this derangement rather than just removing the symptoms. Homoeopathic case taking is different from conventional method. It is not only  jolting of symptoms narrated by patient but also observing each and every single detail of patient like the way he walk, way he talk, way he expresses his or her symptoms, reaction of patient etc. Mental symptoms secure a prime place in homoeopathic prescription. Peculiar mental symptoms and special sensations are given the utmost importance. Every disease irrespective of its name has a root cause at mental level. So it’s the sole duty of physician to find out this cause.

Every person reacts differently to different emotions, sensation and various stimulus. It is the duty of Homoeopathic physician to investigate the cause and tries to understand the patient emotional aspects. Homoeopathy offers several drugs for the treatment of mental ailments. One such example is Magnesium Group drug. The core of magnesium group is “Repression”. Here the patient is usually not aware of his thoughts. They remain in his unconscious state.

Dr Hahnemann in his Organon of Medicine has given a section for mental disease. He describes  Mental Disease in his aphorism from 210- 230, where he discussed every aspects beginning from its development to treatment.

Various materia medica are available which is based on personality of patient, giving importance to the mental symptoms. A drug is described in a way that is easily comprehensible by creating a image of the patient. Examples of such Materia medica are

1) Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica by Dr J T Kent

2) Homoeopathic  Drug Pictures by Dr M.L. Tyler

3) Homeopathic Psychology- Personality Profiles of the major Constitutional remedies    by Philip M Bailey

4) Soul Of Remedies by Dr Rajan Sankaran

5) Portraits of Homoeopathic Medicines by Catherine R. Coulter

Specific repertory is also designed that focus only on mental symptoms. Various mind rubrics are given , which prove to be a boon in day to day practice. One can refer these repertory:-

1. Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica by Dr JT Kent
2. Perfect Repertory of Mind Dr Yogesh Sehgal
3. Decoding the Rubrics of Mind by Amulya Ratna Sahoo
4. Analytical Repertory of the Symptoms of the Mind by Dr C Hering

REFERENCES:-

1. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
2. Organon of Medicine by Dr Samuel Hahnemann
3. www.webmd.com

P.S.: Do share your feedback about the above content in the comment section. Also mention any particular topic you would like to know about.

Note: We at The Homeopath take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found at Disclaimer page of our website.