Intertextual relations on the potentisation theme

Notions of transformation weave through this chapter with implications for patient, homeopath, researcher and reader. Influenced by critical theory (Fay, 1987), critical reflection has been framed as an emancipatory practice (6.2.4). Emancipatory interests involve critical awareness and questioning social norms, which in turn create possibilities for communication and social action (Habermas, 1971) and promote a sense of liberation through increased self-knowledge (Fay, 1987). These views are tempered by a Foucauldian perspective which holds that Enlightenment notions of liberty and emancipation are only relative terms, and any sense of autonomy is constructed through subjectivities available in particular discourses (Bleakley, 1999). CAM practices participate in changing discourses around health and illness that articulate “personal, social and political change” (Scott, 1998, p.197). Our embodied sense of ourselves can have more effect on action than changing ideas (Habermas, 1971) or can inhibit change (Fay, 1987). May be the embodied experience of ill-health and recovery is influential in bringing change through other levels of consciousness? In the next section we consider parallels with Jungian psychotherapy.

To add potency of this discussion let us draw analogies between the succussion of the remedy and postmodern ideas. It could be argued that, having not taken up the modernist cause, homeopathy is coming into its own in a postmodern era? Frank (1995) characterised contemporary experience of illness as dominated by the biomedical view of illness. He suggests that being able to tell the story of your illness experience, without reference to the medical narrative, for example in a CAM consultation, represents a crossing from modernist to the postmodern experience.

12.4.2 Feminist liberation?

Feminism is one of the taken for granted conditions of this inquiry and shapes how I perceive the transformatory potential of therapeutic encounters and research. I take this opportunity to reflexively engage with two women researchers, Rosalind Coward and Ann Scott, representing different academic discourses, whose textual contributions have been significant on this research journey.

Cultural historian Coward’s critique of CAM (1989) is significant as her work informed my undergraduate studies and the era is contemporaneous with my entry into the homeopathy profession. I participated in 1980s feminist campaigns where women’s health was being redefined by liberationist politics highlighting the neglect of women’s autonomy in the male dominated state system of medicine. Coward argues that CAM promotes a form of personal responsibility that co-exists with, rather than challenges existing social structures. The personal is perceived to be a preoccupation with the body and health, as a luxury of a high standard of living and the absence of threats from epidemic diseases. The text articulates socialist feminist discourse that prioritises mass social change and challenges the feminist principle that the ‘personal is political’. The context of Coward’s argument is the rhetoric of the 1980s Conservative Government that promoted individual responsibility in the face of retraction of social welfare provision. This is revamped today as Prime Minister Cameron’s ‘big society’. Arguably by pursuing a career predominantly located in private healthcare, I have endorsed individual transformation and ignored the wider public good. Whilst actively providing homeopathic care within the public sector (GP surgeries, universities and community based projects), this has enhanced the legitimacy of practice and experimented with integrated models of care, but not made significant inroads into health inequalities. However this may be too harsher a judgement as possibly the media profile of homeopathy sceptics’ discourse, could be interpreted as a backlash to CAM encroaching into the domain of biomedicine.

Within sociology discourse, Scott perceives that ‘homeopathic medical treatment can act to catalyse wider personal and social change’ (Scott, 1998, p.192). She draws attention to the intention of the practitioner in choice of prescription. This can empower the patient, but equally there is potential for moralistic and normative motivations to be reflected in this choice (p.204). For example my interpretation of what needs to be ‘cured’ for two female patients who both present with depression, may for one be a lack of confidence in making her own life choices, leading to prescription of Pulsatilla; whilst for another it may be her ambivalence about her pregnancy and lack of maternal feeling leading to a prescription of Sepia. I sometimes reflect that I am able to perceive a male case more clearly, as my perceptions are less clouded by my own reactions. I am less prone to make assumptions, and more inquisitive in seeking to make sense of his health and illness narratives.

Reconnecting with my motivations for becoming a homeopath is illuminating. The transformatory potential is unavoidably shaped by personal experiences and values. I leave dangling this thread of personal and social transformation, and we will stitch this back into the weave later in the thesis.

12.4.3 Alchemical transformation

The alchemical purification of matter to enhance medicinal effect is perceived in terms of the transformation of both the healer and the recipient. I draw parallels between homeopathic potentisation and alchemy to explore the notion of transformation. I understand alchemical

practices to be pluralistic and metamorphosing in different historical, religious and cultural contexts.

Let us first consider transformation in homeopathic pharmacy. Dean argues that whilst there is no evidence that Hahnemann pursued alchemical interests (Dean, 2000), he suggests that Hahnemann used alchemical techniques:

“Serial dilution and potentization appear to be the only elements derived from medieval alchemical medicine, but Hahnemann only accepted them into homeopathy after empirical testing.” (Dean, 2001, p.45)

Hahnemann makes reference to the medicinal use of gold by Islamic alchemists’, but this attribution cannot be verified (Dean, 2001, p.55). Islamic alchemical texts (Martin, 2001) were likely to be part of the influx into Western Europe from the 15th century onwards of Islamic texts and translations of Ancient Greek texts. Trituration of gold by grinding with lactose in a mortar and pestle was a significant development of homeopathic pharmacy as this extended the pharmacopeia to include insoluble sources

(Dean, 2000, p25). Hahnemann referred to trituration as the ‘dynamization’ of matter to produce ‘potencies’ (p.24).

Clear distinctions cannot be made between alchemical and emergent scientific practices in early modern Europe. Bibliographies of mathematicians and scientists, such as Sir Isaac Newton (1642- 1727) responsible for the law of gravity; and polymath John Dee (1527-1608), indicate that activities that have retrospectively been hailed as contributing

to the progress of science, are linked with their mystical and alchemical interests (Martin, 2001). Alchemical practices are recognised as the precursor to chemistry, personified by alchemist and ‘father of chemistry’ Robert Boyle (1627-1691). Laboratory techniques were introduced by alchemists, most notably heating the contents of a flask and observing changes, alcoholic distillation and identification of Phosphorous. Chemistry, Hahnemann’s first profession, provides a link between alchemy and homeopathic pharmacy.

Homeopathy’s strongest link with alchemical tradition is personified by Paracelsus (15th

to 16th century) (9.4.2). Homeopaths, not Hahnemann himself, have assimilated Paracelsian ideas (Dean, 2000), most notably homeopath and Jungian psychologist Edward Whitmont (Whitmont, 1980, 1993). Jungian interpretations of alchemy (Whitmont, 1993) highlight the role of the Paracelsian archeus both in the medicine and in the physician. The archeus was described by Paracelsus as a dynamic self-regulatory life force capable of acting through the medical substance to affect change in the individual’s health (Wood, 1992). The physician has to be

Aside to the reader: Are you wondering why we are straying into such esoteric territory? Does it further undermine the legitimacy of 21st century homeopathic practice? Alchemy is ridiculed as medieval mysticism with charlatans making false promises to turn base metals into gold. If we sidestep this modernist perspective and take a wider temporal view of millennia of alchemical tradition, I aim to deconstruct the way that I interact with transformation potential as practitioner researcher. I leave you to make of this what you will.

made ready by the alchemical process, then the physician acts as archeus. This inner contemplative work of alchemy, as personal transformation, appears in the work of Carl Jung (1875-1961). This resonates with discussion earlier about a sense during the consultation of the homeopath gravitating towards embodying the similimum (see Dialogue on the Similimum chapter 10). The homeopath’s intention to identify the similimum merges with the patient and homeopath ‘tuning into’ the consultation. Later we experiment with understanding this as entanglement in terms of quantum mechanics (12.5.1). Drawing on alchemical notions of preparing the physician, as the inner alchemist, we experiment with the idea of the embodiment of homeopathic values as ‘being more homeopathic’ later (12.6.1).

12.4.4 Practitioner research is transformatory

Practitioner research is about change, to clinical practice and to the practitioner researcher themselves. But what does change mean? How will I know if change is happening?

All practices are fluid, inconsistent and influenced by the changes in the wider context. However self-critical observation creates the potential to take an organised and proactive role in making change more meaningful. As soon as you commit yourself to undertake research, there are changes, as your way of seeing is different. Reflective writing is essential for exploring and monitoring change as it can be difficult to remember how you looked at the situation before. Turning the experience back on itself, creates a different way of looking at the experience. Perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1978) represents significant moments of change, when the a new way of looking as a lasting effect. Implementing change in clinical procedures is easier to track and evaluate, than changes for the practitioner themselves. Our sense of self is produced through a network of relationships and is contextually and historically bound, invalidating any notion of autonomous action (Fay, 1987). This reflexive inquiry has taken place through an inter-play of different discourses, such as academia, science, biomedicine, CAM and homeopathy. I cannot position myself outside these discourses (Bourdieu, 2000) and self- transformation involves re-negotiating the workings of prevailing discourses.

This inquiry has created a more rigorous and critical engagement with the therapeutic framework, and responding more critically to wider contextual issues such as understanding research into placebo effects. Here are two examples. I am more aware of how I co-construct the patient’s narrative and frame the consultation process. Asking open questions and giving minimal direction to the patient’s narrative is not neutral, as soon as my attention is on differentiating between possible prescriptions, I am shaping the narrative and closing off other possibilities. Regarding personal change, I aware of how my professional identity is shaped by my personal history, coalesced in the 1980s and 1990s and has followed a particular trajectory as practitioner researcher and resisted the changing popularity of different methodological approaches.