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 StoerFull moonand a wind from the North

little sleep tonight

up at fourwalking alonga silent shore

trying to translateinto a tongue that’s knowna poem writin 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.