The 11-year-old boy comes with his mother, who says he has dyslexia and problems concentrating despite a visual IQ of 140 and a verbal IQ of 133. He immediately butts in and says: “it’s something quite different.” The mother calms things down: “His difficulties started suddenly four months ago when he switched from elementary school to high school. Since he’s so gifted, he picked the most challenging school, which is definitely what he wanted. However, that is where he went to pieces and suddenly started making basic mistakes in dictation. He couldn’t learn any more vocabulary, despite desperately trying to do so. Yet at the same time, he lectures people on DNA and biology; he’s well up to date in that field. He’s got a knowledge CD with everything on it; he’s an all-round expert.” 

The boy: “The CD is called Knowledge, but it’s not precise. They say, for example, that Martin Luther King won the Nobel peace prize, but when? That’s part of it. At least I’m at the new school now. The kids from the old class were a bunch of idiots anyway.”

What exactly happens when you can’t learn anything more? He replies: “I don’t understand it either. Something gets mixed up. I want to learn English vocabulary but I just can’t. Then… (he ponders about this situation for quite a while as if to re-feel it in his own mind and to be able to give a suitable answer) … then I suddenly find my imagination gets mixed up with the facts. Yes, that’s exactly what happens. Or I want to write “Saarland” and suddenly don’t know whether it has two a’s or two r’s.  After all, knowledge is everything, and now I can’t even remember any vocabulary, and I’m writing everything all wrong! Why can’t I just do it?”

The mother: “He’s extremely bothered by it. Yet he makes such an effort. He talks all the time. He talks himself to sleep at night, then he stops in the middle of a sentence and he’s asleep as if he’s been switched off. Sometimes he talks excitedly in his sleep, then he wakes up and says something. The spoken word won’t leave him in peace. His father used to be the same, which is why he understands him so well.” (The father is an academic, an expert in an unusual field).

He feels disturbed by noises, which distract him. Complete quiet is best of all. He likes factual knowledge, listening to the news, and messing around in the cellar, where it is quiet. He wants to be a lawyer. He has a strong dislike of pineapple (shudders) and curry.

His colour preference is orange 4C, white, black, blue 15C, and his dislike is a “pale sickly green” (that is what he called it) 24A. At the second consultation, he picks completely different colors. Only 4C comes up again, but this time in last place.

Analysis, Prescription, and Progress

In this case, I was soon sure that he needed Europium[1]. In numerous cases, the keynote of the intelligent “smart aleck” – the wise guy who always finds the best solution and knows everything – has proved correct for Europium. Another boy, who also healed with Europium, was given the nickname at school of “know-it-all” because he was such a nitpicker. Knowledge is power, knowledge is everything, you have to know everything precisely but nevertheless something goes wrong at the crucial moment. Europium is the Lanthanide from stage 9, the stage just before complete success[2], in which – of all times, at the last minute – something still goes wrong. You think you have everything under control but that is exactly when it happens. He wants to learn vocabulary, yet just at the moment when he exercises his concentration in order to remember the word, “imagination gets mixed up with the facts” and then his mind is in a muddle. He observes himself as this happens and sees how the word he wants to remember instead just slips away; then it is gone.[3] Reflective behavior is a characteristic of the Lanthanides, who always think along two separate lines, immediately contemplating what has been presented to their minds via the senses; they check themselves and seek the truth. The fact that it is just at the moment when the boy wants to grasp it that the word slips out of his grasp indicates stage 9. The dyslexia itself is a good clinical indication for Lanthanides. The flow of words might indicate a Phosphorus compound, but the close relationship to his father, who is similar to him, indicates a Carbonicum instead. The color choice was so uncertain and changeable that we could not use it here.

I’m not quite sure whether Euro-p or Euro-c is more similar to his condition, so I gave him both to take, with a gap of two weeks, telling him to see for himself and test which one works best. He liked this idea because he understands that I value his own discriminative intellect and not just impose something on him, again a lanthanide quality.

He starts with Europium phosphoricum C200. In the first week, he writes a particularly good English essay. He is highly motivated and wants to become even better. But after Europium carbonicum C200, his father thinks that this remedy is even better, so he gets Europium Carbonicum LM6 and takes it daily. After four months, he comes again. He seems much more relaxed and has come on very well. He can study better, is surer of himself, and is less easily distracted by disturbing fantasies. His school report is outstanding. He says: “After three weeks, I could study more easily. I can also remember the vocabulary better now.”

Seven months later, he is still improving; he can remember everything better and his studying has got even better. The parents are very pleased and so is he. They have stopped the remedy and his condition remains stable. But after the autumn vacation, shortly after (Stage 9) starting school, he has another relapse, although milder than before. He immediately recognizes what’s going on and takes the remedy of his own accord. It quickly helps, more rapidly than the first time, and he soon stops taking it again. Six months later, he has another minor relapse, which the remedy once again puts an end to. Then he no longer needs it. Almost two years have since passed. His school reports are good and his marks are mostly near the top of the range, except for German, which bothers him. He has not needed to use the remedy again.

Comments

DD Asperger[4]: We can clearly see how his problems overlap with Asperger syndrome and at the same time how they differ from it: he is just as eager to learn yet not so compulsively fixated on a single area like Asperger's. He is always ‘talking people’s ears off’ yet he still has friends, unlike Asperger's. His social interaction is not so disturbed and he has some idea of what is socially acceptable and what is not. He likes laughing and is not so serious as Asperger children, in fact, he does not appear to be ill at all. He is just tense because he does not know how to control his learning disorder. He is well aware of it and wants to get it under control, and this is typical for a Lanthanide.

Summary

A highly gifted child with reading and writing difficulties, who was successfully treated with Europium carbonicum. His reading and writing difficulties are differentiated from Asperger syndrome.

Key concepts: Autism spectrum, Asperger, reading and writing difficulties, dyslexia, Lanthanides

Note: the photo shown is not showing the actual patient.

[1] Scholten, Secret Lanthanides, Stichting Alonnissos, 2005

[2] The exact description and differentiation of the stages can be found in The Periodic Table in Homeopathy, Welte, Narayana Publishers 2010

[3] As in the song by Simon and Garfunkel: “the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away”

[4] This refers to the article about autism in Spectrum of Homeopathy, a new homeopathic journal by Narayana Publishers