Taking the case: methodology and flexibility

Hahnemann left few guidelines on how to take the homeopathic case. He pre-dated Freud in advocating very little 'interference' from the doctor. Hahnemann correctly stated that if the patient were interrupted s/he may never say what s/he were going to say in quite the same way. Thus he recommended a very non-invasive way of communicating with patients. A century later, Freud would advocate a similar way of communicating in which the function of the few words uttered by the doctor was to stimulate the patient to reveal more about himself or herself. This can be effective but can sometimes be very frustrating and time-consuming.

Since Hahnemann, much has been written about communicating with patients. Other viewpoints have emerged since our founder's death. Hahnemann clearly wanted to avoid making his way of taking the case into a dogma but gave some honest guidelines on what he found useful at the time. He wrote far more about remedies and case analysis than he did about taking the case. Thousands of homeopathic remedies have been added to his Materia Medica Pura. Some of these have even been proved. Different schools of thought on analysing the case and how to prescribe have also emerged but very little has been written about taking the case other than to parrot Hahnemann's sage advice on the issue. It is time that homeopaths pay attention to innovative ideas that can be time-effective and cost-effective.

It seems reasonable to explore complementary methods of communicating with our patients. I would like to put forward some of the case-taking strategies that have proved useful. Methods to be considered will include reverie, creating images and humorous provocation. My objective is simply to stimulate a much-needed debate on this vital part of the homeopathic process.

Keywords:

Communicating with patients, reverie, creating images, humorous provocation.

Schlüsselwörter:

Kommunikation mit Patienten, geführte Träume, Bilderleben, humorvolle Provokation.

Korrespondierender Autor: Dr Brian Kaplan M.D., FFHom., (Fellow of the Faculty of Homeopathy, London, UK), 140 Harley Street, UK-London W1G 7LB, Great Britain

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