Here you will find following essays:
What is Biodynamic Psychotherapy?
Accompanying Children in Crisis with Homeopathy
What is Biodynamic Psychotherapy?
Lecture on Biodynamic Psychotherapy given on March 21, 2004 in Cham for the 3rd Breath-Day (updated on February 13, 2006)
On the Joy of Healing
Von der Lust am Heilen, is the title of a book about Biodynamic Psychotherapy that two journalists (C. Leudesdorff, Ch. Santer) wrote together with Gerda Boyesen. I was a student of Gerda Boyesen for the last 18 years. I have a deep gratitude for this wonderful woman who brought her method of bodywork and spirituality through persistent and inexhaustible work into the world of Psychotherapy. Since 1968 her contribution as a leading role changed the worldwide psychotherapy scene. She died on December 29th, 2005 in the arms of her daughter Ebba.
The highest command or the first rule in Biodynamics is love. Gerda’s attitude in regards to the client – therapist relationship is best understood when viewed as that of a good mother. She learnt from nature and observed how animals brought up their offspring. The animal mother feels the needs of her babies instinctively, is careful, attentive, supportive and loving until her ‘child’ can go it’s own way. Gerda was so devoted as a good mother, still connected with her instinctive nature, both in her work with her students and her clients. Even in old age she tracked down the suffering of others with interest and curiosity. She was always by her client’s side with love, tolerance and empathy for the weakness of others. She took great concern to accept and accompany her clients as they were. She provided an energetic space in which the wounded soul could develop and enter archaic and oceanic depths and transpersonal fields.
Her pupils learned the proper tools to have in order to assist life’s process for every therapy situation, without intention,. Biodynamics offers a wide, lively and creative variety of therapeutic tools. ‘Sit relaxed and comfortable’, was a sentence that we often heard as therapists in Gerda’s courses when the client began to work through deep and painful processes.
Every therapy must be fun, said Gerda Boyesen often in her lectures! Client and therapist must feel good, otherwise the work is not good.
What is meant by Biodynamics and why did Gerda chose this particular term. Bios = life. That is simple, but what does dynamic mean ?
Let’s use music to help. Here dynamic means the span between the softest tone and the loudest tone.
If we relate this to life (bios), this means to surrender to the whole span of existence. For most of us, this creates great fear. We would rather hold on to our habits and behaviour patterns out of security, and therefore live a life of deception. We are afraid to follow the flow of life.
We search pleasure and push away unpleasant feelings, evading life’s challenges, until we are called to awaken by some fate of life or through illness. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is my life’s purpose?
How deep can I feel joy and pain on the emotional level, how great is my ability to feel love and suffering, happiness and unhappiness, joy, sensuality, desire and sorrow? How willing or prepared am I to live with others in community? Have I integrated the loneliness in me to be able to stand alone in life, thus awakening the adult in me? Can it be that I still react out of the lonely, left out child in me in many of life’s situations? Do I take my unrestrained feelings carelessly out on others?
Most of us live in mediocrity. We don’t dare leaving the neurotic layer of conformity. However, when we really want to allow love in its deepness and beauty to enter our lives, we must also fully open the door to pain. Fear hinders us from living intensely. We could loose something from our illusion of security.
The role of the therapist in the Biodynamic Psychotherapy is to guide the client through his/her neurosis to his/her own integral security. To offer him/her an energetic space in which he/she can discover him-/herself and return to his/her innate spiritual consciousness.
The responsibility of the therapist is to find the ‘key’ to every process, so that life in its full dynamic receives space and the personality, with all its beauty, can unfold.
How does a Biodynamic Psychotherapy session look like?
Most of the people who come to my homeopathic practice, come because of some physical ailment. This means that many emotional processes in the body lie dormant and speak through the bodily symptoms. It is obvious that these ailing people have already been through many states of doubt, hopelessness and depression. Most are from trauma in early childhood, which are hidden behind illnesses. The body rebels because these old burdens hinder the enjoyment of life. Of course, situations like separation and divorce, loss of a partner, or some other crisis may also lead to illness.
Let’s take an example of a 45 year old successful doctor who came to me because of being overweight. She also had skin eczema. She did not speak about her depression, which was clearly noticeable. The first sessions are mostly conversation. This is the first pillar or fundament in the Biodynamic Psychotherapy and is based on the ground principles of psychoanalysis. In this phase the patient learns trust, because he/she feels understood, cared for, taken seriously and feels loved. The second pillar (fundament) is then the biodynamic massage. The goal here is to relax the muscles or dissolve the protective (character) shell. Every unsettled feeling that is still deposited in the body as a by-product of stress will be worked through.
The ‘fright reflex’ is easy to explain. A child may cringe, cramp its muscles, because of a loud noise, for example when a door slams shut or an irritated adult is yelling. It begins to cry, because it is upset and confused. Consolation and loving tenderness from the adult causes the cramped muscles to loosen up and the body relaxes. However, when this situation happens too often in a short time span or the mother and father are not available to console the child, the ‘fright reflex’ becomes chronic and the muscle tightness remains, eventually causing bodily illness.
Pain is always a cry from the tissues for flowing energy. The massage is like a deep cleansing process during which we always pay close attention to the breathing and the movement of the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the gateway to the unconscious. This means that when we massage the rest of the fright reflex out of the body, the repressed feelings come alive and is seen as a change in the depth of breathing. The fluttering movement of the diaphragm gives us information that the repressed feelings are beginning to surface. Here begins the 3rd pillar of Biodynamic work – the Vegetotherapy (derived from the Autonomic Nervous System).
The repressed feelings rise with a concentrated charge and discharge in a catharsis of regressive body movements, which then relax the muscles. Crying, yelling, hitting and whatever else the body would like to discharge are present. Everything, which the child could not or was not able to express, now has space in an atmosphere of love and security. I am a silent witness: for the cruelties endured, good mother or consoling father when the energy begins to subside and the soft melting begins. Every session must have a happy end. This simply means, that the harmonizing phase must last at least as long as the charging phase, for the repressed feelings to rise.
The harmonizing can occur through being held, massage or by monitoring the pyschoperistalsis
with a biodynamic stethoscope. The psychoperistalsis filters and clears out the rest affects from the biodynamic processes. A deep feeling of peace and inner happiness pervades. From this deep place of bliss one can accept one’s fate and love for the parents or ‘perpetrator’ can be restored.
The Vegetotherapy is mostly about releasing the Autonomic Nervous System responses. It needs time and most of all trust in the therapist so that this process can occur. Only when the therapist is familiar with ‘the land of unconscious feelings’, can he/she accompany his/her patients in this process.
‘Key searches’ is one of the most important techniques in this process to guide the process in the proper direction and in the corresponding depth. The accompanying therapist reacts only to the stimulus that comes from the patient.
Short commands such as “Let it be”, or “Do it”, are commands aimed at the unconscious and result immediately in deeper breathing. The voice of the therapist must be appropriate in this situation because the inner resistance of an injured person trying to protect their most painful wounds should never be directly confronted. The result would be only greater resistance. My responsibility is to understand the meaning of the resistance, to quietly stalk it or seduce it.
If we see a therapy as being successful, this means the client’s primary personality has achieved more scope and not only health but joy and happiness have returned to his/her life.
The spiritual aspect of her work was especially important to Gerda Boyesen. Healing meant to her, that a person is brought back to his/her connection to the universal flow of cosmic energies. A Biodynamic therapist guides a sick person to reconnect with the uncontrolled forces of life, so that he/she may enjoy each day without fear and full of energy, may go his/her own way.
The Biodynamic therapist is like a guide for the initiation into the unconscious depths of our soul. The living core essence of a person, which we call the primary personality, may develop through the field, which the therapist provides from his/her own inner growth. The protective wall, built to keep out unwanted emotions, slowly disappears and the desire for self-realization, which is kept hidden away in every soul, is awakened. He or she must construct this protective wall because they were chastened for these unwelcome feelings. These old burdens remain as muscle tension in the body and hinder our ability to enjoy life. The feeling of being left out, for example is often covered up with arrogance, Also, behind our fear often lies anger or simply desire or sadness.
The rediscovery of life’s potential leads automatically to seeing one’s own loving potential.
Most often, during such bodywork opening into a spiritual sphere occurs, a connection to where we came from.
The goal of the therapy is to help the client independently of the therapist to go through his/her neurosis to his/her own inner sense of security and find his/her own innate spiritual guidance.
In the area of Psychotherapy there are many good techniques and methods, however it is always the personality of the therapist as well as his/her humanness and ability to love that determine the success of a therapy. Methods simply as methods are not enough.
I began with Gerda’s words from: Von der Lust am Heilen, and so shall I end :
“Every person is a treasure in his-/herself and a wonder, it is a special privilege to have a job in which one helps this wonder to express him-/herself fully.”
Literature:
Von der Lust am Heilen Gerda Boyesen, C.Leudesdorff, CH. Santner, Kösel Verlag
Über den Körper die Sele heilen, Gerde Boyesen, Kösel Verlag
Study materials and stehescope by Frank Zimmer, email@fraozi.de
Accompanying Children in Crisis with Homeopathy
Can you hear what I cannot tell you?
The child’s soul is confronted early in life through difficult family situations and divorces with abandonment, fear, helplessness, anger and sadness. Aethusa cynapium, Antimonium tataricum, Cicuta virosa and Bufo rana are important remedies to support children in such crisis.
Children are not little adults but highly sensitive beings that still need to learn the themes of humanity. Fighting, separation, divorce and death are the most painful experiences that a human being encounters. If adults despair when confronted with those life experiences and the accompanying emotions of abandonment and helplessness, then we can only imagine how much deeper the pain of a child’s soul must be when confronted with those experiences.
It is almost obvious that the child’s organism reacts with physical illness to demonstrate that it needs love and attention during those times of crises. Aconit, Belladonna and Stramonium are the first and most important shock remedies, when there are too many arguments and outbursts of violence at home. A child experiences many phases of grief when parents separate. The child rejects reality and often wishes for their reunion, even after years when both parents already have new partners. It really takes years until children accept their given fate.
Next to great loneliness, which these children experience inside, other difficult feelings force themselves into their consciousness. There is great shame, almost a taint that forces them to deny reality. How are they supposed to explain that all of a sudden they don’t have a father anymore or that the loss of a secure situation of protection has suddenly been lost? Often financial hardships, change of location and moves and unhappy parents who suffer from the broken relationship especially if there is a new partner right away are added.
As a result of the shock and fright three year-old Lukas experienced during phases of intense and violent arguments between his parents he often needed Aconit for episodes of pseudo-croup. After the parents separated, Bacillinum was the remedy for pneumonia. Later, for the paralysis of his left leg he needed Ignatia. During times of great longing for his absent father, Acidum phosphoricum helped him. Later, he developed intense fears and Stramonium and Calcium carbonicum were helpful remedies. The treatment lasted many years and was difficult because the parents repeatedly tried to reconcile without success. This short example shows the different ways Lukas processed each separation phase and that indeed several remedies are needed to go through such a life crises without taking suppressing allopathic medicines.
Children often process fear through illness of the digestive system. The emotional channel begins with the lips and ends at the anus. If the child is overwhelmed by the threat or the reality of a separation, it reacts with diarrhea and vomiting. Aethusa cynapium, in pediatric work, an important remedy when infants or small children are afraid to lose their parents or siblings. Little Leon was three days old when his father was diagnosed with cancer. During the first weeks of his life he developed a spastic pylorusstenosis with vomiting up to a distance of 3 feet. Aethusa cynapium healed this condition completely. The intensity of the sickness corresponded with the drama of his life. Five years later Mercurius solubilis helped him to process and grieve the death of his father.
Children, also in divorce or separation situations react with vomiting and diarrhea. A separation can also mean a long absence due to business trips or hospital stays. Marcus was just four weeks old when he developed an intense diarrhea. His father had betrayed his mother already during the pregnancy and continued to see other women after the birth. The child expressed fear, helplessness and sadness through screaming attack and then through the diarrhea. A year later, he developed an intense bronchitis that was healed with
Antimonium tataricum. Six months later, the mother left the father and took both children with her. Only after the separation had she told me about the unbearable situation in her marriage.
Anger and grief are the most important feelings that are embedded in a coughing sickness. It should be noted however, that anger is more of a rejecting feeling, so that the pain of the grief behind it, cannot be felt. Jemandem etwas husten (literally translated: to cough at someone) is a German idiom used in a sarcastic way when a person feels hurt and retreats from a relationship.
When we treat a sick child, we have to consider that the sickness is always an expression of the overwhelmed soul. On a psychological level the child is trying to handle difficult feelings for a long time. But nobody hears this. The physical sickness is the sign that it can no longer bear the difficult feelings alone and brings it to a physical level. There the pain is bearable. On a physical level the pain can be shown and gets attention. A quiet, reserved child that wants to spare his parents during their crisis rarely gets a lot of attention. Parents that are overwhelmed and too occupied with themselves, quickly reach for antibiotics because a sick child needs too much time and attention. This starts a vicious cycle. The immune system gets irreversibly damaged, the children are chronically sick, and often, a cough that is repeatedly treated in a suppressing way, end up as hay fever, allergies and bronchial asthma.
Cortisone is then given and the child is blocked in its natural physical and mental development. When we live in a family we breathe the same air. When the air gets thick, breathing becomes difficult. What does the idiom dicke Luft (literally translated: thick air) mean? Arguments at home – can they cause a cough?
Children feel in vibrations. When their loving support system, necessary for their development, breaks down because of relationship difficulties, the response is always sickness. In difficult relationships children are therefore, often sick. The sickness enables them to process their sorrow. Every child has its weak spot, which means its own way to react with its body and soul.
Tics or bed-wetting are signs that the child is emotionally overwhelmed. High fever or a sudden cough, such as pseudo-croup or repeated infections are other ways to express emotional stress. The parents have to take intensive care of the child because it is sick. Worrying about the child puts their own relationship conflict in the background. It is not unusual that a child decides subconsciously to become chronically ill, because it wants to keep its parents together. In that sense, the child becomes the symptom carrier for the disturbance in the family system. When this child recovers, the family system changes immediately. This means the disturbance goes back to the parents’ relationship. With sufficient attention they can then work with a therapist to become more aware of their conflict and possibly resolve it. What is the truth in the relationship and in the family system? If we look at the global divorce rates, it becomes obvious that separation is too often the ‘answer’, rather than trying to resolve the conflicts with love and understanding.
The child accompanies its parents during a long path of suffering until the work on the relationship leads to a successful stabilization or a separation.
Antimonium tataricum is one of the first homeopathic remedies to be used when the relationship becomes ‘shaky’ and the child reacts with bronchitis. In 80 % of all cases that were treated in my practice with Antimonium tataricum, the marriage fell apart six months to five years later.
FEAR is the center of the Antimonium tataricum pathology. The child has a strong need for protection and support from its parents. The fear of death could always be felt, when the parents carried a baby or an infant into the practice. That was the first characteristic sign for me. The children were too weak to be able to walk and they had the strong desire to be carried. Older children were seated again in a stroller so that they could manage the way to the practice. Those usually friendly children did not want to be talked to, looked at or touched. The face was pale, sunken in and with dark rings around the eyes. The child seemed to be in a life-threatening state. It was very sleepy and in some cases even apathetic. The fever measured between 38 and 40 degree Celsius. Rattling and bubbling sounds in the lungs could be clearly heard. It was difficult to cough up the mucus.
In some cases, the children vomited mucus or the coughing attacks were combined with nausea and vomiting. Older children wanted to sit up during the coughing attacks or be carried again by their parents. The appetite was poor and apples were often the only food that could be eaten. I added Antimonium tataricum into the category: complaints due to disagreements between the parents. It is entered under the category: coughing caused by anger. We can understand a child’s anger when the parents are arguing. Who likes to live and breathe in such an atmosphere? Children need protection, security and love for their growth.
Children who need Antimonium tataricum not only seemed angry but they were already in a state of resignation as if they gave up hope for a happy living situation. No matter if it was a newborn, an infant or toddler it was always obvious that life seemed to hard and the life energy was exhausted.
„Love for men is always associated with pain for her” said a mother during the anamnesis about her five-year-old daughter. Her true, physical father was violent and her stepfather had just hurt her, when he dragged her against her will, head upside down, to her bed. Due to a lack of attention he had stepped several times onto her long blond hair.
For me, a loss of trust in men was a guiding symptom to administer Cicuta virosa to newborns, infants and small children. Who are these men that cause a child’s soul so much pain and injury so that a persistent sickness leads those children to seek homeopathic treatment? They are fathers who were themselves hurt and abandoned children; fathers who reject the pregnancy and the unborn out of fear to become responsible, who do not create a protected space for the pregnant mother or beat her or even worse leave her and the child. The arguments and consequences for the marriage or relationship, particularly when a pregnancy was not planned, always affect the relationship between mother, father and child. It is a natural fact, that we meet a child we wished for, in a different way, than one, that life fatefully sent us and that we did not plan or want.
In my practice, I heard many times that men don’t want to have a second child because they believe that they can only love one. If the first child was wished for, they are often overwhelmed with a second pregnancy and at first reject it. Then the child has to fight for the father’s love. It almost seems impossible for me to depict in clear language, without prejudice and with all honesty, cases from my daily practice without evoking guilt and resistance in the male reader. This is not my intention. Parents have to have weaknesses and make mistakes so that the children learn to find themselves. Life meant it this way. In the past years I observed over and over again that parents go through big crises when children need them the most. This means that the child’s soul is confronted very early with pain and loneliness in order to deal with life. Children who need Cicuta virosa as a remedy are very sensitive and a rough father, with his uncontrolled behavior, can frighten this child very much. Unfortunately beatings and other experienced violence are triggers for a Cicuta pathology.
An inattentive father dropped his daughter on her head while playing, or while riding on the father’s shoulders, the child banged its head into the doorframe. Cramps caused by injuries to the head and spine, even if they occurred long time ago, can be positively influenced with Cicuta virosa. The same is true for cross-eyedness after a fall or hit, after fear or mood swings. A child suppresses such a trauma because it loves its father. When the mother is inattentive or violent a Cicuta-pathology can also develop. In my practice I administered Cicuta virosa more frequently for girls than boys. Cicuta virosa is very similar to Opium and grows in muddy ditches, marshland and at the edges of ponds and rivers in Europe and Asia.
The screaming attacks are the most obvious symptom of the Cicuta newborn and small child. It is a very high pitch scream that makes others restless, stressed and upset. The atmosphere created by a Cicuta child makes us angry. With this in mind, Hahnemann called Cicuta virosa the Wüterich (literally translated a hot-tempered person). Surely, the suppressed or split anger leads eventually into the deeper pathology of the Cicuta sickness. Infants and small children often have bluish shadows under their eyes. The face is tense and distorted. Opisthotonus is present, with the head, neck and back arched backwards like a bow. They get easily frightened and are sensitive to sound. The head jerks in a backward movement. The older child also shows jerky head movements, especially when answering our questions. They radiate some sort of disdain so that I sometimes feel uneasy and formulate my questions with great care and calm. I always have the feeling of being at the wrong place.
The children don’t like to be looked at or to be photographed with a video. They escape from the screen and from unpleasant conversations. Their way of answering is very peculiar. They talk fast and arrogantly and with disdain as if I was really stupid to ask such a question. They are children that have to be handled with velvet gloves because they are very skeptical and suspicious. We find Cicuta under the categories:
“Loss of trust in people” and “avoids the foolishness of people.” From the perspective of such a child, of course, I as the therapist, also appear in a dubious light. We always have to learn to understand the child’s inner world from its perspective. A Cicuta child does not trust the therapist easily. Lara, who I treated almost ten years with Cicuta virosa, started to really trust me only in the last years. Men especially, had abused her trust as if this is the viewpoint a child needing Cicuta constitutionally is born with. Here the girl felt abandoned by her teacher and maltreated by doctors. In our conversation she was very critical and moaned about different men and women. This is a very unusual behavior for children. The mother of the girl had the feeling that she was abused in her early childhood. Perhaps there was the root for the Cicuta constitution. In the Homeopathic Repertory Synthesis Number 6, we can find the following category under mental and emotional symptoms: an aversion to men, disdain for men, loss of trust in men. Unfortunately this category was removed from the repertory. ‘ The loss of trust in men’ was always the center of the Cicuta pathology, since the fear of men always results from the loss of trust in them.
The children are restless and show childish behavior, which is noticable during play. For example, an eleven-year-old picks toys like a three-year-old and also plays like a three-year-old. I have different play corners in my practice so that the children have the chance to escape from my conversation to hide themselves and their pain. Cicuta children are listening with big ears pretending not to be present, but then once and a while they abruptly add a sentence to their mother’s explanations. Some children needed the remedy Cicuta virosa during and after the divorce. In three cases I administered the remedy for many years again and again and rarely changed during acute sickness to a different remedy.
Patient case Marie
On May 9th, 1994 a mother comes with her two-year-old girl into the practice. On the phone she had told me that her child suffers from a general rash.
The mother carried Marie into the practice. As soon as she sat down the little one started to scream. She didn’t look at me, but turned away. When I calmly addressed her she screamed even louder. She appeared very angry and clung onto her mother. She was lying on her mother’s lap, her head pulled backwards, the face distorted and her back arched like a bow. Her rash was spread in small pustules over her entire body. Especially on her face and around her mouth, was a light yellowish crust formation as a result of exudation. The rash did not itch.
She is cross-eyed. The eyes are turned inwardly. The mother says that Marie is a hyperactive child. She sings and dances a lot. She is afraid of men and of loud noises.
A coordination dysfunction of the central nervous system was medically diagnosed. She had received all vaccinations.
Before the pregnancy the mother worked as a tour guide. Marie was conceived in New York and the father did not want the child. There were many arguments during the pregnancy and the father left the mother when she was in the 7th month. During that time the mother had a nervous breakdown. During our conversation she is very nervous and hectic and feels overwhelmed being a single mother. The birth was strenuous and Marie was born with asphyxia.
Mood
Fear of men because of loss of trust in them
Screaming
Back
Opisthotonus
Eyes
Strabismus – converging
On May 9th, 1994 Marie was given Cicuta virosa 200C, again on July 11, 1994 and on September 20th, 1994. Her condition improved. She became much calmer and more balanced. Her eyes turned straight and the rash disappeared completely.
Patient case Line
Line (born 1995) is the second child. During the first pregnancy the parents argued a lot. That was not the case during the second pregnancy. But, the mother had a nervous breakdown during the second pregnancy.
Nothing distinctive occurred during the birth. When leaving the hospital the mother tied the cap too tightly and strangled the baby. A nurse noticed just in time that the newborn became blue. The mother told me this story when she came with her two-week-old baby into my practice. The baby did not interact with me. It seemed exhausted and apathetic. It seemed to be in its own world and I administered Opium 200C.
During the next consultation the mother tells me that the father stuffed the pacifier violently into the mouth of the crying baby. I could not quite imagine how this can happen with a baby but I registered the aggression in the father’s behavior.
In my practice the six-month-old girl sat on the floor, screamed and the head jolted backwards again and again as if caused by electric shocks. The shrill screaming left a stressful impression and made me restless. The child’s face was tense and distorted. The entire body seemed tense. Later, when I held her on my arm, I could clearly feel the tension in her back (Opisthotonus). The mother said that the little girl is a hot-tempered person and that she frequently gets those screaming attacks. She gets conjunctivitis with every tooth. She has a rash around her chin and blue rings around her eyes. The face is read and the pupils are enlarged.
Head
Head jolting
– backwards
or
Head
Hits (= shocks, pushes, jolts)
– like an electric jolt
– suddenly
Line received Cicuta virosa in increasing potencies for three years.
At the core of the pathology of a child that needs Bufo lies the delusion that ‘the house is turned upside down.’ The house in which the child lives with the parents is no longer a place of protection, security and love.
A Bufo child could say, “There is no one left who loves me,” if he was able to verbally express his deepest feelings. The emotional suffering caused by deprivation, social isolation and neglect takes the child to a state of numbness, which can be interpreted in its deeper pathology as mental deficiency or autism.
The old Bufo image demands a modern description, so that this precious gift can keep its place in our time. It is difficult to explain to parents why their child needs Bufo rana. Parents who are in emotional distress often reach for modern narcotics like alcohol, cigarettes, sedatives or drugs. Thus, they cannot feel or perceive their child anymore and cannot fulfill its emotional needs. This social or emotional isolation caused by an inadequate parent-child relationship takes the child into numbness. The hunger for touch, the hunger for love creates an overwhelming physical pain, which can be soothed by attention, being held, interest and understanding. But because of their own emotional stress (difficulties in their marriage, divorce, illness, death of the partner or other extreme circumstances) parents are not able to offer this to their child. How can an unhappy mother or father who needs consolation or support for him or herself console their child? The child escapes into a dream world. He experiences states of consciousness that could be called trance. His psychological and mental development is on hold. In the deeper pathological state the child starts to masturbate. That is perhaps the only way left to feel something.
“Every table leg suits her. She rubs herself on every corner of the house. At school she hangs on door knobs with her legs spread apart like a monkey to masturbate,” complained the foster mother of a child who frequently needed Bufo throughout her childhood. This illustrates that Bufo children do not always seek privacy when masturbating. Often they fulfill their sexual needs without shame. In the office the frame support of the massage table or stuffed animals are used to move the pelvis rhythmically or to ride on. “Is your child easily aroused or sexualized?” I ask the parents, as I narrow my search down to Bufo, Hyoscyamus or Medorrhinum. In the Synthesis we find under the category for girls under female genitals, tendency to masturbate. The Bufo child likes to play sexually by itself. The Hyoscyamus child prefers sexual experiments with other children. He is rather the seducer on the adventurous road of sexuality. The Bufo girl often keeps one hand near her vagina, as if she wanted to go to the bathroom to urinate. The Bufo boy touches his genitals often (see category male genitals). However, this symptom is not reliable since the parents most likely have suppressed it through their child rearing practices. Sometimes children just show it for a short moment.
During conversation they often sit with their legs and knees spread apart, pulled to their bodies. In a variation of this, they sit rocking and moving their pelvis rhythmically. The mouth is open and the tongue plays inside the mouth around the lips or is moved rapidly in the air. The face is often bloated as if it has stored water. The swelling looks different from that of a Calcium child. There we find the swelling more doughy oedematous; the Bufo child’s swelling is watery oedematous. They like to bite on things, for example on the spoon with which they are eating, their fingertips, or they bite their fingernails. They touch and feel their face and pick their nose, for a long time and with pleasure. Often they enjoy eating the product afterwards. The animal instincts are dominant in Bufo children and for them there is no sense of disgust. They yawn a lot. When they have a good contact with their mother, they enjoy body contact. They climb onto her or sit with their legs apart on her thighs to stimulate themselves sexually. They are restless children who like to run screaming through the house or do their laps in the yard. They feel better outdoors. They are afraid of dogs and other animals (cow, ox, horse). Because of their emotional numbness they have difficulties concentrating, seeming to be behind or not to develop any further. They have a childish expression not appropriate for their age. When a five-year-old cannot be without her pacifier, we should think of Bufo. They often have cold feet and have sensations of numbness inside. They are very hungry, eat large portions and demand sweets.
Bufo Rana Patient Cases
Nils, age 18 months:
When the parents of Nils carried him into my practice, he was hardly recognizable as a human being. It felt as if his soul wasn’t present. A red wet rash covered his entire body. Because of it his face was disfigured, his blond hair sticky and messy. During the anamnesis he made no contact with me. He was sitting numbed and unresponsive in a corner and scratched miserably on those patches of his skin he could reach, which weren’t covered by his allergy suit.
He wasn’t interested in toys. The parents reported that he rejected body contact and closeness completely. He never cuddled or exchanged tender gestures with his parents.
They had seen a few other homeopaths. The last time they got a mixture of different globuli (nosodes). Remedies that don’t reach the patient bring forth the needed remedy even more strongly. This means that the sickness gets worse and the symptoms become more visible. The intensity of the Bufo image was caused by the incorrect administration of homeopathic remedies.
The parents described Nils as very funny, laughing a lot, being silly. He wasn’t afraid and had no sense of pain, which should alarm us with such a small child. In some situations he screamed until he was blue and then fainted.
This symptom was so obvious that I administered Bufo 200 C on 8-20-1996. The remedy worked well for him and was repeated on 10-11-1996. His screaming fits stopped. He loved to cuddle with his parents and his contact with me became more animated. Consecutive remedies in past years were Phosphorus, Tuberculinum, Sulfur, Medorrhinum and, each year for the last three years Mercurius solubilis Hahnemanni 1M.
Regarding his history: In his mother’s life was a grandfather who molested all of his daughters in the form of long lasting sexual contacts. His mother openly told me about it and suggested her son’s rash might have something to do with that.
Four months before their first visit, the child’s father suffered from sepsis. He spent a long time in intensive care, including three weeks in an artificial coma. As a child the father had suffered from psoriasis and frequent bronchitis.
I see the root of the Bufo pathology as occurring during the time the father was in intensive care and his wife feared for his life. I would consider the parents’ relationship as good. The father’s severe illness took little Nick’s parents as his primary caregivers away.
Mara, age 6 years:
On 6-25-2000 six-year-old Mara came with her mother to my practice. She had chronic cherry sized painless boils in her gums. At the dentist she refused to open her mouth, so homeopathic treatment was used instead.
In addition she had feelings of numbness in her legs, stomachache, frequent ear ache and her vagina was red and painful. Her heart often ached and it felt to her as if it was stuck. She was a very sensitive child.
“If her sense of freedom is restricted, she becomes nasty,” says her mother. “Recently, she has had a hard time deciding; she escapes into a dream world. Her mood changes quickly from laughing to crying. She is restless and runs screaming through the house. She is very afraid of dogs, spiders, and other animals. Conspicuously, she started licking her food. Cheese is put on a stick and then licked. Chocolate truffles are no longer chewed but licked from the outside and the inside out. Recently she has been suffering from lack of concentration.” Mara is a beautiful child, slim and delicate. She has fine long blond hair and big green eyes. She loves to be touched and caressed. She prefers to touch her mother’s body with her whole body. She has always slept in her parents’ bed. Even now after her parents’ separation, she sleeps in her mother’s bed.
During our conversation her mouth is open and she constantly plays with her tongue on her teeth. She is also getting new teeth.
History: The pregnancy was good. The birth was concluded with a Caesarian section. As a baby she received Magnesium carbonicum 200 C for colic, later Calcium carbonicum 200C, Tuberculinum Koch 200 C and then Pulsatilla for several years. Her brother was born 16 months after her. This was also the time when her parents’ relationship broke apart. Both parents suffered a lot from the separation. A lot of alcohol was consumed and under the influence of alcohol it frequently came to violent outbursts and intense arguing in front of the children.
That day, I prescribed Bufo 200 C and six weeks later, the mother repeated the remedy. On 10-20-2000 I gave her Bufo 1M. Then Mara had scarlet fever and was treated with Belladonna. On 1-7-2001 Bufo 1 M was repeated but without great success. Pulsatilla was her remedy again. In May she was given Bufo 1 M again. The consecutive remedy for Mara was Natrium muriaticum 1 M. The boils had disappeared completely. She had warts on her arm, which quickly disappeared with Natrium. The homeopathic treatment supported this child in this difficult time of her life and unnecessary surgeries were avoided. As her homeopath I could feel her pain and suffering. It demands a lot of strength and understanding of the homeopath to stand quietly on the side and to accompany the child with compassion. Loss of the territory (the home), separation from beloved people and carrying the pain of the parent that stayed behind asks more of the child than it can give in its own developmental stages. After a divorce, illness is a natural consequence of emotional and mental overwhelms, an expression of pain that the children don’t want to show. They hide it in order to protect their parents.
Children still love with open hearts and they often feel what is inside of the parents more easily than do the parents themselves.
Categories:
Mental and emotional
-complaints because of disappointed love
-complaints because of fright (violent outbursts)
-fear of dogs
-fear of animals
-screaming, running screaming through the house
Mouth, movement: tongue
-licking
Patient case Anja, age 5 years: Learning difficulties
The marriage of Anja’s parents had failed long ago. The father had a child with another woman at the same time as the pregnancy with Anja, without his wife’s or their three girls’ knowledge about it. During the time of the Bufo medication the mother was passionately involved with another married man.
She came to me because Anja complained about stomachache and had white stool. In addition the school doctor said that she was behind in her development.
In addition to the stomachache she also had an itchy red vagina. During the conversation she is restless, stretches herself on her mother’s body, plays with her tongue around her lips, bites onto her tongue, rubs her nose, picks it, then eats the secretion. She is very jealous when her mother takes care of the other children. Afterwards she also experiences intense stomachaches. She has begun using her pacifier again and cannot calm down when the pacifier disappears.
Categories:
Mentally and emotionally
-Complaints because of disappointed love
-Jealousy
Nose
-Picking the nose
Stool
-White
Patient case Lena: learning and concentration difficulties
Lena is the seventh child of alcoholic parents. All their children lived in orphanages. As a baby she was brought undernourished and neglected into a children’s hospital and then to an orphanage. When she was nine months old, foster parents took her as the youngest child into their family. She had two older brothers. The mother got pregnant shortly after Lena came to the family, and gave birth to a healthy boy. When he became sick with diabetes mellitus at age three, Lena’s symptoms became more obvious (absence of the mother and the little brother; the father was very concerned about his youngest son).
Doctors had suspected an alcohol embryopathy since she was behind in her mental development. Now she always had a hand on her vagina and masturbated whenever possible. The parents and the brothers were very embarrassed. Even inside the school building she always managed to find opportunities to masturbate. She didn’t seek privacy. She didn’t care what others were thinking about her. She lived narcoticised in her own world.
The mother described her as mean, stubborn, vicious, and obscene. It was incredible how many dirty words she knew with which she called her mother, and occasionally her father and brothers, names. She was intentionally mean and had a lascivious lustful energy about her. She hit her brothers and couldn’t bear harmony in the family. She was quarrelsome. The mother said, “It is unbelievable how much hatred lives inside this girl.”
Lena had great trouble concentrating, was restless, had difficulties falling asleep, and loved to eat sweets. She had a flaky rash on her hands.
In November 1990 she received Bufo 200 C for the first time. Her tendency to masturbate disappeared. Her being was more balanced. She never became a really good student but completed nine years of school. Other important remedies were Hyoscyamus, Natrium muriaticum and Opium. Last year at age nineteen she gave birth to a healthy boy.
It is questionable if a person with this life story will find a place in our society. The emotional deficit and the heavy alcohol burden in the womb shaped this girl. Perhaps she will find a place among the marginal groups and assert herself. Because of her social weakness she is still being supervised and taken care of by the youth office. She takes care of her son as best as she is able to.
Children are not little adults but we can find in every adult the small, neglected and abandoned child. If the pain is suppressed, it manifests as sickness, which leads the adults into our practice. Then, they need the attention, love and caring that they never received as a child. Can we as homeopaths fulfill this task alone?
Elisabeth Schulz,
January 2005