Strategic games

Volume82, Number3, July 1993 Hahnemann distinguished three routes used in clinical medicine: causal therapy, suppression and the use of 'specifics', and chose the first of these for his own 'royal road'. Where it proved impossible to establish the cause, specifics might be used, but Hahnemann felt dissatisfied with the specifics used in his day, as there was no rational principle of their use. Testing medicines on healthy subjects and comparing their reactions with the symptoms of patients who responded to the same medicine, he arrived at the law of similars. Initially, he used a very open approach, accepting phenomena as they stood, even if they were not explicable in terms of contemporary science. Later this became a system, even dogma for some. Further investigation and discussion of the law of similars as a deuteros ploun, or second choice, may provide a counter balance to the excessive value put on Hahnemann's late work. One important task would be to review the 200-year-old history of homeeopathy in the light of this. Documenta tlomteopathica 1992: 12: 51-60. (Austrian annual, in German).

Strategic games P. A N D E R S C H - H A R T N E R The different manifestations of aggression both in the patient and in the physician's approach to treatment are considered with reference to rubrics in Barthel's Synthetisches Repertorium. In his conclusion, the author says: 'If homoeopathic treatment can penetrate to the core layers of the person, where the wrong attitudes that lead to aggressive behaviour have their roots, this would be a practical contribution to the defusion of aggression and brute force--an ideal we can work towards, even if it is only rarely achieved.' Documenta Homoeopathica 1992: 12: 61-71. (Austrian annual, in German).

Role of guilt and conscience in the search for personal identity G. MATI'ITSCH At the LMHI Congress in Vienna, Dr Mattitsch was one of four singers and actors who presented a brilliant, delightful performance of Orazio Vecchi's L'Amfiparnaso. In this paper we see the physician as an artist who perceives diseases and especially their localization as 'windows' which allow access to the deep-seated conflicts which prevent the indi-

193 vidual from discovering the longed-for personal identity. These 'windows' need to be approached with deep personal interest in the spirit of Martin Buber's I - - y o u and not only made objects of scientific curiosity in the sense of his I--it. In a family situation, give and take are subject to certain laws (Hellinger), and disease may arise where a child who should be a 'taker' becomes a 'giver', feeling the equal of, or superior to, the parent, or perhaps taking on the guilt of a parent (history of a woman helped by Platinum). Common situations are those of the exhausted daughter who tries to make up to her father for her mother's failings (Natrum tour.), the restless son who has 5 sons of his own but still has no real relationship to his wife because he feels drawn to his mother who has been humiliated by his father (Tarantula). Give and take, essential elements in the process of life, can become reversed and give rise to feelings of restlessness, moral dilemma, and guilt. Visualization and role play can help patients to find a slightly different, i.e. 'similar' perspective. The physician can take a number of different perspectives, which causes the 'object' of homoeotherapy to become fluid, at the same time bringing the therapeutic approach and the homceopathic medicine closer together. Our materia medicas will and must change in time to come, with 'toxicology' identifying the 'windows' through which the sick individual opens up to the world, whilst guiding symptoms point to the potential solution. Thus Platinum's great sense of justice must be given its due, and attention given to the warmth of heart as well as the hot feet of Sulphur, and the love of life as much as the fear of death seen with Arsenicum. Inclusion of these dimensions in the approach to patients may open up new horizons and show the way to healing and wholeness. With first prescriptions in particular, prescribing confidence is gained by entering into the atmosphere a patient brings to the encounter with the physician. Compared to this, 'paper cases' and video tapes are 'banal, sapless maps of a landscape which cries out to be experienced with all our senses'. At a higher level, guilt and a bad conscience are windows on the individual person and a means of access to a whole garden of flowers:

Viola tricolor, Cyclamen, Lilium, Aloe, Clematis, Pulsatilla and a great many others which are to be found in these and related rubrics.