Verbal First Aid and Classical Homeopathy: How the Right Words Can Help The Right Remedy

 

Verbal First Aid and Homeopathy

"There are very few things...silence and words."

 From the film by Isabel Coixet, The Secret Life of Words

We are surrounded by words and pummeled by suggestion. We are moved by media, swayed by sales events, hammered by billboards. We are motivated in every conceivable way-consciously and unconsciously-by words.

Words impact us at every level-from the advertisement that tells us to go to our local hardware store to buy a drill on sale to the terrifying jolt of the sound of "Fire!" to the more subtle, yet profound reach the words "I love you and I've got you" have on a small child who just got hurt. antisocial personality disorder test

Words, like knives, can be used for ill or for good.

Whether you are a practitioner or a patient, a parent caring for a child or a child caring for a parent, a spouse or a friend, you are using words to move people around you, to either inspire some behavior or stop it, to initiate a train of thought or change its tracks.

Verbal First Aid is a language of healing. It is a way of utilizing words to directly impact autonomic response so that a calm, healing state is facilitated in a crisis. I have been teaching therapeutic communication since 1994 and working with trauma since 1982. I have seen what words can do-both to harm and to heal. Verbal First Aid is for all of us-regardless of training.

Verbal First Aid Principles

The protocol is very simple and is based on three ideas:

1. Stress Induces A Trance State:

Everyone who is in crisis (large or small) goes into a slight (or substantial) altered state. Ordinarily clinicians call this state "dissociative". We prefer to call it the "healing zone" precisely because of dissociation and the opportunities it provides. In it we are far more suggestible than we are in ordinary, waking consciousness, which means what we hear said to us-or around us-gets absorbed and translated into biochemistry more quickly. online marriage counseling

2. Rapport Forms the Basis For Healing:

Rapport is a fundamental to any therapeutic relationship-whether that's a one-hour clinical session, a life-long love for a sick family member, or a short-term emergency meeting (e.g., a paramedic). With it, whatever we say (even if it's not entirely well thought out) is taken to best effect. Without it, Murphy's Law rules. Tullie Ruderman, LCSW, a brilliant hypnotherapist and teacher, used to say that "rapport is the track on which all future communication runs." With it, our words are interpreted in the most positive manner. Without it, we are interpreted negatively.

The quickest way to understand this is by looking at the ways in which we can say-and hear-"relax." A simple word with an apparently simple meaning, no? No. Psychotherapy

How many people have unwittingly angered their already simmering spouse by muttering, "Oh, just relax!"

How different it is to say, "You can relax. I've got it handled. I promise."

A perfect example of this is the story of a little boy who had terrible abdominal pains. He was taken to the hospital and left alone in a room. Given no information and little direct guidance, rapport was left undeveloped. So, when he heard the doctor tell his father that he had "gas," he erupted in terror. The father ran into the room, "What is it?" The little boy answered, crying, "I'm going to explode. There's gas in me!!!!!" marriage counseling near me

When we are afraid, sick, or in shock, and we have no guidance, we will see things in the worst possible way. It is only natural.

3. Suggestion Has More Power in a Crisis:

A suggestion, positive or negative, is much more likely to be received when we are in a stressful or frightening situation. By our natures we are social or pack animals. When we don't know what to do we look to an authority to tell us how to proceed, both behaviorally and emotionally. What is said to us and/or around us sticks to us and IN us in a different way. Verbal First Aid proposes that what we say be as therapeutic as possible.

Here are a couple of examples:

A small boy is playing Spiderman and in a moment of delight tries to climb the wall and finds out that gravity is a far more formidable foe than he had imagined. He bangs himself against a table. Bleeding, he runs to his father who kneels next to him and says, "I see. Spiderman was surprised by how sticky the floor was, huh?" marriage counseling

His son sniffles but then laughs a little.

"Well, if you help me clean it out you can pick out the Band aid you want on it to stop the bleeding right away. Okay?"

He stops crying and becomes very interested in his new task: choosing the coolest band-aid from the pack. When dad lifts the towel, the bleeding has stopped and the healing has begun.

What could have been a minor crisis turned chaotic became, instead, an opportunity for a child and a parent to participate together in the healing process. the marriage counselor

But, as we said before, words can have just the opposite impact and not only complicate the current situation but have long-term effects. diversity training

One patient with a prominent right-sided tic recalled a fall he'd taken when he was quite young. He had disobeyed his father's instructions by climbing on a jungle gym. He was six-years old and threw himself into swinging from bar to bar with gusto. As he took a particularly long leap, his father stepped out of the house and onto the porch, took one look at him and yelled, "Damn it, Sam! I told you to stay off that thing..." As he fell to the ground, he landed on his wrist, shattering it. As dad drove to the hospital, frustrated and frightened, he reminded him more than once of how he had disobeyed him and that the broken wrist was the consequence.

As he told the story, his wrist began to throb and tic activity increased. All those years later and his father's words still hurt. From a treatment perspective, words (and the bio-emotional response they initiated) still laid claim to the pathology that brought the patient into my office. So, instead of focusing solely on the tic, we now could see the deeper problem under the rubric of "Mind: mortification, ailments from." family therapy

Words-Like Remedies-Are Vibrations

Verbal First Aid works by speaking directly to the body. It is not solely about making someone feel better emotionally-although that is obviously good. What is different in Verbal First Aid is that the words we say to someone in crisis are being translated instantaneously into physiologic responses. What we say affects the autonomic system and literally transforms us biochemically.

This is not conjecture. The science abounds on this matter. ( For more detailed information, see The Worst is Over (2002) and Verbal First Aid (2010).)

You already know it viscerally by the way your body responds when someone humiliates you or praises you or angers you. Think of the last time someone told you your zipper was open or blouse fell unbuttoned in public and you can recall (if not relive) the autonomic cascade of chemistry that turned your face red, increased your heart rate and made you feel the urge to run to the bathroom. family therapy near me

Words have this capacity with adults, as science has shown over and over. But it is even more effective with children, who are far more connected to their bodies and their instinctive responses than adults. As adults we have been conditioned to deny and modify the way our bodies respond. Children have not yet acquired those defenses and the effects of our words are readily apparent in their faces and their body language.

Their imaginations are also far more active and freer than those of adults. They are less likely to let their conscious mind interrupt a great story with logic than we are. They suspend disbelief more easily. As a result, with proper guidance from us they are able to generate images that can have a powerful and positive impact on their immunity, their breathing, their heart rate, and their inflammatory response. Depression treatment

Janet Maddow, a classical homeopath from Monroe, NY, described the vibratory essence of homeopathy this way:

"What is required-with words or presence-as part of the homeopathic prescription is to reflect back to the patient the soul of the his suffering. Healing begins at that moment. This is the resonance of like curing like. It occurs on the vibratory level and is then  merely take symptoms and give the patient a homeopathic remedy, even if the prescription is correct, without reflecting anything back to the patient is most unfortunate. For in all the years of suffering, the patient usually has not understood his own pathology, neither the cause nor the consequences. And surely they don't know how to stop it. With Verbal First Aid used in this manner, the patient may feel seen for the very first time in his life. This is healing."

The Remedy and The Placebo

But some homeopaths are highly sensitive to this  know the power of the placebo and I have known some who refuse to give any feedback in an interview at all. They reveal nothing-not the remedy, not their thoughts on the case, nothing.

And they have good reason for that. They want to see what the remedy will do with no interference from them.

However, by being in the room, we have already interfered.

By shaking a patient's hand and welcoming them into our office with a smile or a frown, we have interfered.

By offering love or a cold, clinical shoulder, we have interfered.

It is not whether we interfere. It is how.

We are using words-even if we are using them sparingly. Sometimes, practitioners are so afraid of giving false hope, that instead they give false despair, not aware of the power of the "nocebo," which is negative suggestion.

Remedies, as we described, are vibrations. They are no different than words. And they work because we are vibratory at our essence. We-the practitioner, the parent, the caretaker-are part of the remedy, like it or not. existential psychotherapy

A while back we had a terribly frightening episode with one of our dogs. I gave him a really large femur bone (he's a smaller dog) so he couldn't chomp off a shard. So, what did he do? He glommed a piece of cartilage and it got lodged in his esophagus. At first we didn't know what was  just kept salivating and coughing. We brought him to the vet first thing in the morning and found out not only that a large piece was stuck but that the surgery would be highly risky. At the time, he was 13.

Needless to say, I was absolutely horrified that I might have had some part in hurting him. I wept and wept and couldn't stop weeping. Finally, I called my homeopath. All he had to do was say, "Do you have any cyclamen (a remedy highly indicated for 'terrors of conscience')?" Before I could get the remedy in me, it had already started working. antisocial personality disorder test

(Update on the dog: He lived through the surgery and we called our beloved homeopathic vet, Dr. Stephen Tobin, in CT., who prescribed silica 200c based on the symptoms he had upon release. He has been like a puppy since.)

Specific Suggestions

So, how shall we use words? How can we use Verbal First Aid in an interview without corrupting or unduly provoking a placebo effect?

There are some simple techniques that can be useful to you whether you're a parent giving your child a remedy, a practitioner treating a patient, or you're alone and giving one to yourself.

I Know A Guy Who...

We all need hope. And we all love a good story. Stories are an important way to let ourselves know that a process has worked for someone else and can work for us, too.

When I give a remedy to a patient I don't have to tell them what this particular remedy is going to do for them. And the truth is, I never know exactly how their organism will respond. But I can tell them about other patients I treated with similar situations and how well they fared. I can tell them that even though everyone is unique and not everyone gets the same remedy (even for the same "disease"), we are all part of the human race and we share certain things in common. One of them is the possibility of recovery and my experience with people who have "responded beautifully to the proper remedy in surprisingly good ways." online marriage counseling

The Yes Set:

The "yes set" is a way of gathering positive momentum. A simple example is: "It's a beautiful day. The sun is out. And we're having such a great time. Let's stay." Essentially, it's three or more obvious "yes" statements which accurately pace the situation and one lead statement ("let's stay"). The principle behind this is that once people get into the unconscious rhythm of a "yes" they tend to stay with it (if it's truthful and you have a trusting rapport).

So, when giving or taking a homeopathic remedy, we might say:

"You've taken a remedy before. And it helped you. And you felt better. And you can do that again..."

Another way of doing this is:

"You have a headache at 3, an aversion to noise, and light makes it worse...which makes this remedy a good choice to help you heal..." Psychotherapy

As you/ you can...

People are going to have thoughts and speak to themselves no matter how carefully we conduct ourselves. Many people bring a lot of negativity to the picture. An act of Will can antidote (or prevent the action of) a remedy as much as coffee or marijuana can.

We can help them with that via a simple suggestion:

"Marcy, every time you take the remedy, you can think/remember/picture...a time when you are better and clearer..." When using this sort of suggestion, it's always good to utilize the patient's (or child's) own ideas or words about what is better.

In fact, one of the most important questions I ask is: "When you're better, what's different?" I write the answers verbatim. And when people answer in the negative (I won't have a headache, I won't be poor...) I just probe further: "When you don't have a headache, how are you feeling?" And so on...I want the positive images to the extent they can without pushing too hard. marriage counseling near me

Truisms

Truisms can be used in many ways. Typically in Verbal First Aid, truisms are used to bring an element of authority or fact-based information to a person's awareness. "Everyone knows..." or "Dr. Candace Pert found..." or "Samuel Hahnemann said..."

We can use these statements without telling a person exactly what to expect or what will happen as a result of the remedy. Truisms are particularly good for homeopaths because they draw our attention to bigger ideas:

"Interestingly, I just read a proving of this remedy in Kent and the very symptoms that you are demonstrating are the ones he discussed in greatest detail..."

Truisms are also a wonderful vehicle for education, which is terribly important in homeopathy. Even when we get patients who are homeopaths themselves, they may need to be reminded of Hering's Law when they're suffering from aggravations. Briefly, Hering's Law states that a cure moves from top down, from in out, and backwards in time. So when we see a rash that was suppressed by cortisone, we are delighted, even though the patient may be quite annoyed.

So, we could say: "Everyone knows that aggravations are an annoying reminder that the remedy is working in a curative manner..."

"You Can Notice..."

This is a simple and very therapeutic suggestion no matter what we're doing-treating patients, children or trying to calm ourselves down after a bad day. Increasing awareness is one of the most beautiful by-products of homeopathic treatment. Even when remedies aren't full-on bulls-eyes, this technique can help open doors to healthy self-realization. marriage counseling

I always ask my patients to think of their vision as if it suddenly became  if suddenly they can see more and notice themselves in an entirely new and interesting way. I tell them I don't know exactly what they're going to discover but whatever it is, it will be important to their growth and to our understanding of the case.

"Notice...notice what changes occur in your body, in your mind, in your sleep, in your environment. Notice as you experience any movement over the next few days. If you feel like it you can even write it down..."

Future Pacing

This is a wonderful vehicle for hope. Far too many people come to me beaten down and hopeless after years in the "system." Because of what they've been through often just the expressed belief in the possibility of recovery or even some amelioration is a Godsend to them.

You can say, then, "I don't know what you'll notice when you notice the changes you're hoping  you can let me know what you notice and think of the day when you feel the way you want to feel."

And, personally, I love saying, "Everyone notices something different and everyone responds , when you see the changes you want to see, you can take an extra delight in knowing that you've defied the odds and see the looks of surprise and disbelief in all the people who didn't believe..." Most people love thinking of it that way, too.

Verbal First Aid Options

In essence, no matter what we do, we have only a few options: we can say nothing (and trust that our "nothing" does not come across as aloof or uncaring), we can say something that obviously harms, or we can say something that helps. Personally and professionally, I think the last option is the best one. And when I don't know what the best words are, I let my presence be as healing, as warm, and as comforting as possible. Setting the course for healing begins with the relationship of healing. the marriage counselor

For me that relationship is based on hope, love, respect, and trust. My responsibility is to come to it with as much homeopathic and therapeutic skill as I possibly can, a true belief in the efficacy of homeopathy, and a solid faith that healing is possible.

The late, great hypnotherapist, Dr. Milton Erickson, used to say, "If iatrogenic illness [physician-induced] is possible, then is not iatrogenic health also possible?"

Surrounded by information the way we are today, our minds are processing data furiously and constantly. By becoming more aware of the way words and thoughts impact us, we can give ourselves, our clients and our loved ones every possible opportunity for good health.

by

Judith Acosta, LISW