The pain from childhood days is still acute: a case of Staphysagria
by Jayesh Shah, Devang Shah
The 72-year-old patient attended our clinic for an initial consultation on 11 April 2012. His main complaint was urinary incontinence, from which he had suffered since a surgical prostate resection. He also complained of markedly fluctuating blood sugar levels, despite being on medication for type II diabetes. The man expressed the wish to have these two complaints treated and to prevent future problems.
Our first impression was of a sensitive and mild‑mannered person. The man spoke softly and kindly, yet at the same time radiated a certain dignity. He told us that he was very disappointed with the surgeon who had operated on him, because the surgeon had not adequately informed him about the potential consequences of such a procedure. The patient particularly mentioned the urinary incontinence and the negative impact on his sex life (his pronounced interest in sexuality was notable).
He is married for the second time. After divorcing his first wife he lived alone for nine years and during that time increasingly turned to spirituality.
He describes himself as calm and well balanced, but also tells us that injustice and dishonesty make him angry. He works as a self‑employed businessman; his profession gives him the opportunity to express himself creatively. He is very popular among his friends and particularly values receiving recognition for his work.
The patient worries a great deal. He tells us that he often thinks about his childhood and his father. The father had been very strict and dominant; as a child he had feared his father’s outbursts of anger. The father was also extremely frugal and money often caused arguments in the family. On one occasion the patient had to witness his father beating his elder brother because he had allegedly spent too much money. The situation had terrified the patient. The fear of his father was so great that, despite his extraordinary talent – he had even reached champion level – he gave up a sporting career as a badminton player and, at his father’s wish, became self‑employed as an entrepreneur.
The patient often felt humiliated by his father’s strict demands. He told us, for example, how as an adult he had been forced by his father in front of work colleagues to wear short trousers. He describes his father as a tyrant.
He describes his mother as a gentle, loving and tender woman who gave him all the love he needed as a child. She was the counterpart to his difficult father. During the initial consultation the patient spoke at length about how different his parents were.
The patient has a great fear of hospitals and is very sensitive to the suffering of others.
As a child he was extremely sensitive and often reacted very sharply to the smallest joke when playing with his cousins. If he lost a game or was teased he would start to cry every time.
The patient is highly claustrophobic. He told us about an incident on an aircraft: the planned departure had to be delayed because the patient suffered a severe panic attack and had to be taken off the plane. He still remembers desperately trying to get back into the open air. Crowds also make him anxious.
The patient also described two strange dreams he can remember: in the first dream he stood on a beach. A high wall rose behind him and he was swept over by a large wave. In this dream he felt a terror of death that woke him with a start. In the second dream he and his five brothers were sleeping in a room. When he woke, all his brothers were dead and only he was still alive. When we asked him how the dream had felt, the patient described it as ‘very strange’.
Case analysis
The focus here rests on the patient’s difficult childhood, which was marked by an excessively strict father. This is the striking and characteristic feature of the case. The patient himself is a gentle person and could hardly endure the paternal strictness. The father had been very stingy and could not stand his children spending money. The children were often reprimanded by him for that. The patient spoke at length and in detail about his father being a tyrant, while his mother had been gentle and tender.
Here we have a 72-year-old man who still deals with his childhood issue. It was clear to us that this had to be his principal concern. The memories of the childhood trauma triggered by the strict father are still fresh. The patient spent considerably more time talking about this theme than he did reporting his physical complaints. It is evident that he is still sensitised by what happened to him as a child. Particularly noteworthy is his sensitivity to harsh punishments and humiliations from his father. If we try to link the patient’s anxieties and claustrophobia with his situation as a child, it is interesting to note that his current fears are very likely comparable to the fear he felt towards his father. Often our patients do not directly link their innermost feelings to specific situations. These feelings usually surface indirectly through anxieties, dreams, personal interests and hobbies. In most cases there are several situations or windows that give us insight into the patient’s experience and allow us to recognise on which level that experience takes place.
In this patient his childhood experiences have led to a strong sense of justice. He rebels against any form of injustice.
Alongside his sensitive and mild nature we could also detect a certain dignity. We are therefore dealing with a person who radiates dignity and at the same time is sensitive to being hurt.
The patient describes himself as creative in his work, is well liked among friends and appreciates recognition. Two polar aspects, criticism and recognition, become apparent. We therefore searched for a remedy in which both aspects are represented and which also covers the physical aspects of his postoperative complaints.
The following rubrics were used for repertorisation:
In Phatak’s ‘Homoeopathic Materia Medica’(1) we find the following description for Staphysagria:
Nervous complaints associated with trembling form a pronounced aspect of this remedy. … It produces excessive and perverse sexual desire and inclination to masturbation … (the remedy has a strong relation to sexuality).
The remedy acts on … the URINARY TRACT; the connective tissues; … pathologically oversensitive; the slightest word that appears unjust to them wounds them greatly;
Sphincters: torn, overstretched. TISSUE LACERATIONS; perineal tears etc. Stitching pains (surgical side‑stitches) that remain after operations. Bad consequences of: anger or vexation; suppressed, restrained anger; injuries, e.g. from a fall; smooth puncture wounds, e.g. after operations; sexual excesses;
(Injury to the bladder sphincter as a result of a surgical procedure was the main complaint of our patient).
Mind and disposition: Imagined insults. Great indignation over deeds done by others or by oneself; frets over the consequences.
Complaints from restrained unwillingness. Very sensitive to what others say about them. Bad consequences of scoldings or punishments in children.
Prescription: Staphysagria LM3
Comment on potency choice
The patient has a chronically progressive diabetes that is treated with medication but can no longer be adequately controlled. The blood sugar values fluctuate widely and vital organs such as the kidneys, eyes, nerves and heart are increasingly affected. From this we can see that it is a chronic and progressive disease. Taking the patient’s progressive pathology into account, an LM potency was chosen to allow the remedy to be administered in repeated doses. Furthermore, it was clear that the patient’s complaints were mainly playing out on levels 1, 2 or 3. Even when the patient told us about his father, his emotional experience was not at the forefront. One had the impression that the patient wanted to be in control, which is typical for Staphysagria. In addition, the main complaint was clearly localised. The LM3 potency is a safe choice here because it is possible to go higher if necessary.
Follow‑up on 02.11.2012: The patient responded immediately to the remedy. His urinary incontinence improved markedly within four weeks. Three months later bladder function had been restored to 80%, and six months later to 95%. The patient’s blood sugar levels also stabilised and are now well controlled with allopathic treatment. His current value for glycosylated haemoglobin is 7.6 (before the start of homoeopathic treatment it was 8). His fasting blood sugar fell from 170 to 120.
He is also better emotionally—he says he has become calmer and can face life’s challenges with equanimity. He can now cope with minor annoyances without difficulty, which was not the case before.
This time the patient also tells us about a disagreement with his daughter, from which they fell out for professional reasons. He had not spoken about this during the initial consultation. About his daughter he says: “I can understand her now and it is OK as it is.” Here one can observe a positive and very healing change in his disposition. The ability to take things as they are has made him more serene and calmer. He says that he has learned not to impose himself on his daughter and can now accept that she has different views from him.
It is clear here that the patient is not only better physically and in relation to his disease, but that a change has also taken place on the mental and emotional level which makes the patient more balanced and better able to cope with life’s burdens. That is the beauty of homoeopathy: it not only heals physical complaints but brings well‑being and emotional balance that can enable healing on a deeper level. This profoundly holistic mode of action makes homoeopathy one of the best and most effective methods of healing overall.
Case management
After three months of Staphysagria LM3 the potency was increased to LM4 because the patient’s blood sugar level was still fluctuating from time to time. After that this problem also disappeared.
Comment
The feeling of being confined and the resulting claustrophobia are not usually associated with Staphysagria. In the present case, however, these fears of the patient were also cured.
The second very striking aspect was the patient’s tendency to worry about everything. Even trifles upset him: he worried about his illness, about money, about his relationships, about himself—indeed about everything. This trait is not known for Staphysagria. I considered whether this might be a less well known aspect of the remedy. As I reflected on the whole matter, however, I noticed that it was not the worry itself but the subject of the patient’s worry. When he, for example, thought about his father, it was the fear of being shouted at or scolded. When he worried about money, it was likewise about his father and the fear that he would show his disapproval. And his worries about his hospital stay essentially revolved around his pronounced sensitivity to the suffering of others—he could not bear to see people in hospital. What we have here is a deep sensitivity. This pronounced sensitivity belongs to the plant kingdom, and more specifically in this case to the Ranunculaceae.
Another important aspect is the patient’s experience in his dreams, in which he is overwhelmed by something huge. In one of his dreams he is engulfed by a wave; in the second dream a great misfortune occurs—he finds all his brothers dead. Neither of these dreams recurred. The patient told us about his dreams only when explicitly asked, and for this reason they play a subordinate role in the case analysis. However, from this case example we can learn that the feeling of impending danger or impending death must be an important aspect of this remedy, because our patient was cured with this remedy. The fear of illness and of dying is a significant aspect of the Ranunculaceae family, as we already know from Aconitum. Perhaps the fear of dying is an important theme for many Staphysagria patients. The fear of being pursued, as if a danger lurks in the background—e.g. the delusion that someone is behind him—is very similar to the idea of the ‘fear of one’s own shadow’. The theme of danger coming from behind is something I have already observed in several of my cases.
Because this patient responded so well to Staphysagria, we can certainly derive some aspects for our clinical work: brooding, many worries about dying and death; great fear that a danger will come from behind and overwhelm him.
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S.R. Phatak, “Staphysagria”, Homoeopathic Materia Medica, ReferenceWorks Pro 4.2.1.1
This case example was originally published on http://theothersong.wordpress.com/ in the newsletter ‘Voice’.
Category: Cases
Keywords: urinary incontinence; type II diabetes mellitus; anger against a strict father; anger from humiliation; sensitive to reproach
Remedy: Staphysagria
