Homeopathy and the integration of feelings -2-

Psora and Miasmic Dispositions

In curing his patients of specific ailments Dr Samuel Hahnemann began to investigate the question arising in his mind as to fact that while he could be successful in giving homoeopathic treatment for someone, they would again at some future point come down with another form of illness. In wanting to find out more about the problem of sickness and what created the susceptibility to becoming ill. He began to look at what lay deeper, that being what he called their 'deep seated original disease' (The Chronic Diseases). What Dr Hahnemann began to uncover was the question of what generated sickness.

After much study and investigation he identified this process which he named the chronic miasm of psora. Interestingly, Samuel Hahnemann thought of psora as being the result of suppression. He described psora as an ‘internal itch’ almost like an internal disharmony within the person’s being. He also identified and named two other major miasms, sycosis and syphilis. For Dr Hahnemann however, Psora is the oldest and most fundamental of the miasms and all suffering, for him, emerges from the foundation of psora.
With an awareness of suffering as being the process of non-integration of feelings of self, I think we can begin to realize what psora actually is. By studying the mental/emotional symptoms of the remedies in the materia medica we can perceive what is common to suffering. As Dr Hahnemann considered Sulphur to be the deepest of psoric remedies, I will list some rubrics of Sulphur trying not to emphasize that which is specific to the expression of the Sulphur state and more what is general to all suffering.


From Dr Sangeeta Chawla’s book The Indepth Materia Medica of Human Mind we have:

Spoken to, called agg. mental symptoms, being.

Starting; called by name, when.

Touch; does not know if objects are real, until she has touched them.

Absent minded; unobserving, starts when spoken to.

Amusement; averse to.

Anger; himself with.

Anxiety conscience, as if guilty of a crime.

Busy.

Confidence; want of self.

Confusion of mind.

Despair.

Discontented, displeased, dissatisfied.

Doubtful; recovery of soul’s welfare, of.

Dullness, sluggishness, difficulty of thinking and comprehending, torpor.

Embittered, exasperated.

Emptiness; sensation of.

Fear, apprehension, dread.

Hurry, haste.

Idleness.

Impatience.

Inconsolable.

Indifference, apathy.

Irresolution, indecision.

Irritability.

Jesting; aversion to.

Looked at; cannot bear to be.

Mood; alternating.

Morose cross, fretful, ill-humor, peevish.

Prostration of mind, mental exhaustion, brain fag.

Restlessness.

Sadness despondency, dejection, mental depression, gloom, melancholy.

Sighing.

Starting, startled; spoken to, when.

Timidity.

Unfortunate; feels.

Will; loss of.


These symptoms illustrate the state of a person where a fundamental break has occurred in relationship to them being themselves. How someone feels, when to some extent they have ceased being who they are. It appears to me this is what psora is, a state of separation from self. It is a non-acceptance of self. Put into words, it is like; ‘I do not accept myself for who I am because I think myself to be unworthy’. In the context of psora the ‘crime’ the person feels they have committed is that of not accepting themselves. Psora becomes like a constant state of needing to prove to yourself and everyone around you that you are a worthy human being.
We can see that suffering becomes at least two very related processes. The first being the non-acceptance of ourselves and the second being the non-integration of the feelings that are part of our self.
Catherine Coulter in her essay on Psorinum (Portraits of Homoeopathic Medicines, vol 2, 1988, ISBN 1-55643-036-1, North Atlantic books) describes the raw state of non-acceptance of self.
Once we have, to an extent, entered this state of non-acceptance of self there is an awareness of this and naturally a wanting to return to the place of integrity of self. When we enter into suffering we want more than anything else, more than wanting to become the person we want to be, more than wanting to do what we most want to do, and more than wanting to recover our health (although people want to do these), more than all these things we most desire to return to who we are. This is unmistakably what a certain study of the different miasms reveals.
Each miasm represents a different stage of psora. The most important characteristic of each miasm is the attitude the person has about their ability to return to being themselves. This ability is also characterized by perceived obstacles they have in doing this. Each different disposition perhaps creates a definite form of stress and constitutional susceptibility to the major disease of the miasm. In the descriptions of each miasm identified I will follow closely the work of Dr Sankaran.


David Quinn
davidquinn@paradise.net.nz