It is just such conditions that the allopathic physician, imbued with the new spirit of psychosomatic medicine, will give the patient a “mild” sedative for his “nerves” and plenty of assurance and consider himself practicing real, “scientific” medicine, when in reality he is only postponing the day of reckoning. He is doing the patient a lot of harm because he is treating the patient only partially. And it is just as harmful to treat the psyche without the soma as it is so treat the soma without the psyche.
There is, however, much to be learned from psychosomatic medicine in spite of its shortcomings. Homoeopaths, as a group, should consider nothing common or unclean and should be quick to utilize any and all sources of knowledge, the better to enable them to practice their Art, provided of course that this knowledge is not in conflict with the fundamental tenets of their philosophy.
Most of what is to follow good homoeopathic prescribers already know and have used, albeit instinctively, since Homoeopathy came into being. But it is worth while repeating.
Homoeopaths can obtain a better totality of symptoms and thereby do better work, if they attempt to understand the personality of the patient. Some patients may seem outwardly calm and serene and overpolite when they are actually ranging inwardly–a situation very characteristic of many hypertensive patients and obsessive-compulsive neurotics.
It is also important to not that speech is not only a means of communication, but it is also a means of hiding vital symptoms or minimizing their importance, because it pains the patient to discuss them with the doctor. Therefore the doctor note not only what the patient says, but how he says it. We must be alert to see through a verbal camouflage. Also ascertain what the patients symptoms mean to the patient.
With patients who find it difficult to relate their symptoms without hedging, it is sometimes better to leave the history taking for later and do the physical examination first. Patients on many occasions will want to talk and give a better history after the physical examination than before. The physical contact which the physician makes with the patient during a physical examination seems to accelerate the establishment of a rapport between patient and doctor.
There is a certain group of patients whose complaints need no remedy.
All they want to do is discharge some of their pent-up feelings. The interview with the doctor serves as a means of relief of emotional tensions. In such cases the understanding physicians the best remedy. All he has to do is be a sympathetic listener and steer the emotional torrent of words when it lags. Such people have a great need to unburden themselves. They need a friend and they need support.
This brings us to the last and most important lesson we may learn from psychosomatic medicine and that is the meaning of the doctor-patient relationship.
Many times patients come to us with their troubles and we try our best to prescribe for them and somehow we fail to relieve them of their conditions. This is so because we either have not obtained the whole of symptoms or a proper evaluation of them. It may also be that we dont know enough materia medica or that we have forgotten to remove some obstacle to recovery. Yet these same patients keep coming back to us and we wonder why. The reason is that we have established a certain relationship with the patient without understanding its meaning. Sick patients are like little children, say the psychiatrists, they regress to a childish dependence on the doctor. This is the basis of the doctor-patient relationship. To put it in another way,the physician may take the place of a good father or a father figure. When the patient is ill he becomes anxious and is being anxious he is more dependent, less mature, and therefore his relationship with the doctor who is going to help him is not that of an adult to an adult. It is more like that of a child to a parent. The doctor patient relationship is determined emotionally.
It is important for us to remember that a positive spiritual comradeship must be established between ourselves and our patients before we can ever hope to obtain a good through anamnesis. Because once this liaison is formed, the patient will want to unburden himself and we shall, therefore, be able to obtain a better history of the case and consequently do better prescribing. We shall also be able to hold on to our patients better.
The patient-physician relationship is also the basis of psychotherapy. In its essence, psychotherapy consists of reassurance, relieving anxiety, and discovering the motivations for the patients behavior and making the patient perceive them. I believe homoeopaths will enrich and enhance their Art, if they consciously and purposely utilize this form of treatment as far as possible in conjunction with the indicated remedy.
In conclusion, I should like to say that homoeopaths, as a group, are far better suited to practice the tenets of psychosomatic medicine than are the allopaths.
The idea that a patients bodily ills as well as his personality, should be treated as a unit is second nature to homoeopaths. Good homoeopathic prescribers are invariably good listeners. They do not give the patient the impression that they are in a hurry. They are always sympathetic.
The very nature of a homoeopathic history, the manner in which questions are phrased and the subject matter they touch on tends quickly to establish and cement the all important doctor- patient relationship.
The patient suddenly becomes aware that this doctor is different. The doctor is not only interested in the patients complaints, but he is also interested in the patient as an individual.
The many “sensations as if”, and the strange, rare and peculiar symptoms which patients may relate to the homoeopathic physician strike a responsive chord in him. They have meaning for him and the patient senses it. “Why you are the first doctor I ever told this to!”, is a very common remark. Here at last the patient has met a physician who understands hi, who doesnt look at this fidgety, anxious individual as though he were crazy when he relates these peculiar sensations and symptoms. Here is a physician who, it may be truly said, has “an understanding heart”.
