Homeopathy and Phenomenology Dr Tom Whitmarsh

Homeopathy and phenomenoogy  There is no substance in this talk that is really new to hearers.  In many ways, all of this talk is absolutely obvious, and hardly needs saying, but a reminder seems to be required.

Point of Stoer - Kenneth White Near Point of Stoer Full moon and a wind from the North little sleep tonight up at four walking along a silent shore trying to translate into a tongue that’s known a poem writ in the language of stone.

What is phemomenology?  To the things themselves [ Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) ]  Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 61)

Dualism & contrast with phenomenology and homeopathy.  ‘Cartesian’ dualism - ‘cogito ergo sum’ & rise of ‘scientism’.

Husserl - Epoché  Or ‘bracketing’.  ‘(It) has in truth a hitherto unheard of radicalism, For it encompasses expressly not only the validity of the previous sciences, but even the validity of the pre- and extra-scientific life-world, i.e. the world of sense experience constantly pregiven as taken for granted unquestioningly and all the life of thought which is nourished by it.’ (Husserl).

Is this anything like the homeopathic process?  We say we always try to do this in homeopathy, with each patient, following Hahnemann ’ s statements in the Organon about case-taking (paras 82 – 104): e.g para 83:  ‘ This individualising of a disease case,..demands nothing of the medical-art practitioner except freedom from bias and healthy senses, attention while observing and fidelity in recording the image of the disease, ’

Further example  Definition of Disease and Cure para 6:  ‘The unprejudiced observer, even the most sharp-witted one – knowing the nullity of supersensible speculations which are not born out of experience – perceives nothing in each single case of the disease other than the alterations in the condition of the body and soul, disease signs, befallments, symptoms, which are outwardly discernable through the senses. That is, the unprejudiced observer only perceives the deviations from the former healthy state of the now sick patient, which are:  1.felt by the patient himself  2.perceived by those around him and  3.observed by the physician All these perceptible signs represent the disease in its entire extent, that is, together they form the true and only conceivable gestalt of the disease.’

Similarity with the phenomenological process?  different ways of looking  Massimo’s tree-trunk

Conventional ‘science-based. medicine  ‘ Illness ’ by Havi Carel  Limited  One view point, ‘if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t matter’. ‘The body as machine. Incredibly successful in many ways.  Ignores the experience of the person to whom the body belongs.  Has been talked about in terms of ‘embodiment’ in the philosophical movement of phenomenology.

Modern medical texts  Not all they ’ re cracked up to be! Allen Rodger K 2010 The failure of modern textbooks BMJ 15 May 2010;340:1085.

Homeopathy ? Analogy with phenomenology  Does it help or make any difference?  I think it does, in that we should find a way of encapsulating what we are up to, and why we have chosen this path in addition to more usual ways of trying to help ill people.

Humanity  Medicine is humanistic only to the extent that it takes account of the full humanness of patients.  Phenomenological account of illness has much in common with the homeopathic account of illness.