Utility of rubric “Grief” from complete Repertory and its importance in homoeopathic prescription in adults

Abstract

We all grieve. It’s part of life. The fact that it is a universal experience raises the question of whether or not we should consider grieving to be normal and, if not, when is it not normal? In other words, when would it require treatment? That question, in turn, raises fundamental questions about the purpose of homeopathic treatment. After all, why would we want to treat normal life? 

Let’s begin by addressing that. The first principle of homeopathy is the treatment of like with like. Every remedy is described in the standard materia medica which collate the information from sources such as proving’s and clinical experience. These remedy descriptions are like stories or patterns. Homeopathic treatment involves selecting the remedy whose description best matches the stories or the life patterns of the patient. In orthodox medical practice we treat pathology disturbances which we call diseases or illnesses. 

Homeopathy can treat shock, trauma and grief very effectively. We all know that severe physical pain can cause an emotional response, and our system can also respond in reverse. When we experience strong emotions such as overwhelming fear or grief, our system can respond rapidly and biochemically to express or ‘discharge’ the intensity of that emotion by feeling faint, nauseous or weak. In the longer term, acute emotional pain can also lead in some cases to chronic physical illness. As a homeopath, we often treat patients suffering years of chronic illness which began after a traumatic event such as a divorce, death of a loved one, or a severe fright. Sometimes it can even begin after something that seemed relatively simple at the time such as a house move, new school or a child’s best friend moving away. I am keen to let you know that treating acute emotional distress is very important as it helps prevent an individual internalizing their emotions and co-expressing it on other levels leading to health problems. 

Complete repertory is most complete work on Kent’s repertory published in 1996 by Dr. Roger Van Zandvoort and assisted by Kunzli group’ institute of research Netherlands. Initially it came as database file for use with MAC repertory, Kent Homoeopathic Association, Hompath, Radar computer software’s. 

Keyword

Grief, complete repertory, homoeopathic remedies.

Introduction 

GRIEF IS THE END OF ALL EMOTIONS- 

Today’s world is full of emotions and Grief is one of the major emotion of 

Daily work, personal affairs and business. 

The words Sadness, Sorrow, Grieve, and Bereavement are the emotions 

Which ends up within the GRIEF. 

SO, GRIEF IS THE END OF ALL EMOTIONS.” 

As per WHO, Grief comes under Bereavement. So Bereavement is defined as, a process of loss, grief and recovery, usually associated with death.1 

As per Psychology, Definition of Grief is the emotional or affective response to the loss. Certain phases are observed often enough to be recognized as, after the Death of Husband, Wife, Parents or Children. 

The first reaction is Disbelief, even denial of reality for a time. After a few days numbness turns into intense sufferings and physical symptoms are like weakness, Sleep disturbances, Loss of appetite, Headache, Back pain, Indigestion, Shortness of breath, Heart palpitations and even Occasional Dizziness and Nausea. 

Repertory is a systematically and logically arranged index to the homoeopathic materia medica, which is full of information collected from toxicology, drug proving and clinical experience. The repertory helps us to find out the required symptoms, together with medicine or group of medicines having different grades. It is connecting link between the materia medica and the disease. The Mind section is one of the largest and perhaps is the most important section of the Repertory.4

The Mind section contains all of the mental and emotional symptoms. In the past, homeopathic cases were frequently solved by focusing on physical symptoms. As suppression has increased in relation to allopathic drugging, immunizations, and other suppressive therapies, symptoms have been suppressed deeper and deeper into the organism. This has resulted in the increasing importance of mental and emotional symptoms in helping to find the right remedy.5

The mind has three parts as said by DR. KENT, those are Will, Intellect and Emotions. In these parts of mind the so called modern world has more of Will and tones of intellect with lacking in emotions which are the very much important parts of Mind. In this emotions one much important emotion is the GRIEF without leaving. But each and every one will either tries to hide or neglect it or leaves it with complaints.6

Complete repertory is the most complete work on Kent’s repertory published in 1996 by Dr. Roger Van Zandvoort. Initially it came as database file for use with Kent Homoeopathic Association, MAC, Hompath, Radar software’s. The Rubric ‘Grief’ comes under Mind section and contains 132 remedies, 46 sub-Rubrics and 8 Cross references.7 

The Complete Repertory is a standard reference source, being one of the two principle modern repertories in daily use by homeopaths all over the world, and has been translated into several languages. Based on Kent’s Repertory, it has been extensively revised, corrected and updated through several editions and incorporating material from materia medica and many other repertories. In its latest 2018 edition it contains more than 2.6 million remedy additions in over 231,294 rubrics. The new Complete Repertory features the changes to the remedy grading system that were introduced in the Repertorium Universale, and benefits from the extensive revision and increase in number of cross-references between rubrics undertaken for the introduction of this repertory.8

Epidemiology

The best estimate for the prevalence rate of complicated grief is about 7% of people who have ever lost someone they consider important and about 60% of the overall population reports having had such a loss. This means that more than 10 million people are likely suffering from complicated grief in the south Asia alone. Some people are more at risk for complicated grief than others. Risk may be related to characteristics of the person, the circumstances of the death or things that happen after the death. It is worth remembering that anyone can develop complicated grief and that most people are resilient.3 Prevalence within the general population was 4.8%. Current grief was reported by 1089 participants, and of these 277 (25.4%) were diagnosed with complicated grief. Inflated anxiety and depression rates were documented in people with complicated grief, but the vast majority remained free from co-morbidity. 

Review Of Literature: – 

Grief is the emotional or affective response to the loss.9 

Crying is a normal and natural part of grieving. It has also been found, however, that crying and talking about the loss is not the only healthy response and, if forced or excessive, can be harmful. Responses or actions in the affected person, called “coping ugly” by researcher George Bonanno, may seem counter-intuitive or even appear dysfunctional, e.g., celebratory responses, laughter, or self-serving bias in interpreting events. Lack of crying is also a natural, healthy reaction, potentially protective of the individual, and may also be seen as a sign of resilience. Science has found that some healthy people who are grieving do not spontaneously talk about the loss. Pressing people to cry or retell the experience of a loss can be harmful. Genuine laughter is healthy.10 11 12 

Psychology – 

Five identities of Grief (Grievers)- 

BERGER identifies five ways of grieving which are as follows, 

1. NOMADS – Nomads have not yet resolved their grief and not seem to understand the loss that has affected their lives. 
2. MEMORIALISTS – this identity is committed to preserving the memory of the loved one that they are lost. 
3. NORMALIZERS – this identity is committed to re-creating a sense of family and community. 
4. ACTIVISTS – this identity focuses on helping other people who are dealing with the same issues that caused their loved one’s death. 
5. SEEKERS – this identity will adopt religious, philosophical, or spiritual beliefs to create meaning in their lives.14 

Five stages theory of GRIEF – 

The KUBLER-ROSS model, commonly known as the five stages of Grief, Is a theory first introduced by ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS in her 1969 book, ON DEATH AND DYING. She actually applied the stages to persons who were dying, not persons who were grieving. Her studies involved work with the terminally ill and it was not until much later in her career did she give into the notion that it could be applied to those grieving. 

She once remarked that it’s hard to deny that a loved one has died, but easier to deny that you, in fact, are terminally ill. The popular but largely untested theory describes in five later stages how people deal with grief and tragedy. Such events might include being diagnosed with a terminal illness or enduring a catastrophic loss.9 

The five stages are, 

1. Denial 
2. Anger 
3. Bargaining 
4. Depression 
5. Acceptance 

Homoeopathic point of view related grief- 

As per Dr. Hahnemann – 

Aphorism 221 – 

If, however, insanity or mania (caused by fright, vexation, the abuse of spirituous liquors, etc.) have suddenly broken out as an acute disease in the patient’s ordinary calm state, although it almost always arises from internal psora, like a flame bursting forth from it, yet when it occurs in this acute manner it should not be immediately treated with Antipsoric, but in the first place with remedies indicated for it out of the order class of proved medicaments (e.g., aconite, belladonna, Stramonium, Hyoscyamus, mercury, etc.) in highly potentised, minute, homoeopathic doses, in order to subdue it so far that the Psora shall for the time revert to its former latent state, wherein the patient appears as if quite well.16 

As per Bob Leckridge – 

The grieving process – 

Grief is well recognized to be a condition, or a process even, with several dif-ferent aspects. It’s often described as having distinct phases. The best-known description of phases came from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (as per described above). Most people now agree that this description helps us to understand that grief can have many different forms and that as time passes these forms can change. However, it’s also now widely accepted that not everyone who experiences grief goes through all of these stages, and that those who do experience all of these stages don’t necessarily do so in that sequence.

About Repertory in Homoeopathy: 

According to Dr. C. M. Boger, 

Repertory is essentially an index and may be used with advantage as such for discovering particular symptoms containing similar combinations in their pathogenesis.4 

Repertories have helped conscientious homoeopaths in their search for the correct remedy as long as homoeopathy has existed. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, took the first step in structuring information into some kind of repertory. However, it was his immediate disciple and collaborator Clemens von Boeninghausen, who is credited with creating the first usable repertory in 1832. Different authors expanded on versions of this repertory, e.g. Allen, Jahr, von Lippe some created completely new structures, as did gentry and Knerr it was Kent, however, who published a repertory with a structure and a hierarchical logic that would stand the test of time.4

About Complete Repertory: 

   Complete repertory is the most complete work on Kent’s repertory published in 1996 by Dr. Roger Van Zandvoort and assisted by Kunzli group, institute for research, homoeopathic information and symptomatology, Leidscheridom, the Netherlands. Initially it came as a database file for use with Kent Homoeopathic association, MAC repertory and HOMOEOPATH Software. 

The source information used to create this repertory came from 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th American edition of Kent’s repertory. To this added and corrected mainly from the following books, 

1. Homoeopathic journals 
2. Schmidt’s and Chand’s final general Repertory 
3. Kunzli’s Repertorium generale 
4. Sivaraman’s additions to Kent’s Repertory 
5. CCRH’s (Dr.Rastogi’s) corrections to Boger Boenninghausen’s Repertory. 
6. Boerike’s Matetia medica and repertory 
7. Phatak’s additions, 
8. Boenninghausen’s Repertory and Boenninghausen’s unique private additions.

 Special Features Of Complete Repertory – 

1. The Complete Repertory has 41 chapters mainly based on Kent’s scheme of order of arrangement. It has a few new chapters like – Head pain, Smell, Taste, Speech and Voice, Extremity pain. All the chapters mentioned in Kent under Urinary Organs are separate chapters in Complete Repertory. 

2. It contains information from all the existing repertories and correction from various sources. 

3. Most of the problems faced by Kent’s repertory have been solved by changes incorporated in The Complete Repertory: 
4. The most important word in rubric is brought in the beginning. For example, during urination was changed to urination, during. 

1. Older terminology is replaced by more modern terminology. For example, miscarriage – abortions; micturition – urination. 

1. Remedy abbreviations have been examined and revised. 

1. Grades of remedies are revised. 

1. Reorganizing rubrics in mind and other chapters.

4. Main rubric always includes all the remedies found in their sub rubrics. 

5. A number of new rubrics, cross-rubrics and references are added. 

6. Four grades of medicines are used (like Synthetic Repertory) 

CAPITAL BOLD – TUB – 4 

CAPITAL – TUB – 3 

Bold italics – tub – 2 

Ordinary roman – tub – 1 

7. There are over 231,294 rubrics, more than 2,540 remedies in the repertory.

Complete repertory came in three versions as follows:- 

1. Complete 4.5 version 
2. The complete Repertory Millennium 
3. The Repertorium Universale.07 

Detailed Study Of Rubric ‘Grief’ From Complete Repertory 

The rubric ‘Grief’ is a true treasure of wisdoms of years of hard work and careful additions. This rubric ‘Grief’ from mind section of complete repertory has 45 sub rubrics starting from ‘Grief, daytime’……up to ‘Grief – wounded feeling from’ and mind section of complete repertory has 34 sub-rubrics of word Grief. Other sections of complete repertory has 52 sub rubrics of word Grief which all are listed below. 

So, total no. of grief rubrics and sub-rubrics in complete repertory are 131. 

In this study each rubric has been elaborated with respect to 

Word meaning & Interpretation.  Remedies covered by respective rubric. 

Homoeopathic Therapeutics- 

1. Ignatia amara – Overstrained, grief, vexation, a frustration in her job, and then there is a breakdown. In a breakdown, she will go into spasms, hysterical, unable to think or talk; pale, breathing deeply, a kind of hysterical collapse; like fainting. Silent grief. Will talk insanely, illogically, at the time of the grief.17 

2. Natrum muriaticum – They develop intense emotional and sentimental attachments for people, but they don’t show their feelings. A daughter may have a deep feeling for her father without anyone else realizing it. Then the father dies. The daughter grieves silently, locking herself in her room and crying in her pillow. To the surprise of everyone around her who did not realize the depth of her affection, she becomes very introverted, desiring only to be alone with her books and her music.17 

3. Phosphoric acid – there is usually a history of grief. This may be grief of a minor nature over a prolonged period of time, or it may be a sudden major grief. In Phosphoric acid, it is not necessary for the grief to be of great intensity, patient suffers the grief in silence.17

4. Staphysagria – A key aspect of the Staphysagria ailments from fief is that they are always in regard to romantic relationships. The long term suffering them experience rarely arises out of such grief as professional setbacks, financial reversals, or even deaths in the family.18

CONCLUSION AND SUMMERY

Grief is the emotional or affective response to the loss. Certain phases are observed often enough to be recognized as, after the Death of Husband, Wife, Parents or Children in which the incidence of grief related psycho-somatic diseases are more. 

Constitutional medicines are helpful for curing the Grief and also for preventing its recurrences. Medium potencies are more beneficial for treating patients presenting complaints due to specific grief. Constitutional homoeopathic remedies have tremendous results in the cases of Patients presenting complaints due to specific Grief if the totality of symptoms matches.

The effectiveness of mental rubrics like ‘Grief’ in homoeopathic treatment is evaluated by various facts obtained during this study, which were treated according to statistical principles. The evaluation is based on the relief from symptoms, which were recovered on the basis of clinical improvement. The above study provides the evidence to say that there is a convincingly high success rate if the above method is followed. Therefore the treatment is effective. 

After this study we can conclude that the rubric ‘Grief’ of complete repertory is indeed a treasure of generations of homoeopaths. From the old pioneers such as Dr Hahnemann, Dr Boger, Dr Boenninghausen, Dr Kent to modern masters such as Fredrick schroyens, Roger van Zandvoort, George Vithoulkas, Rajan Sankaran etc. has contributed to it.

REFERENCES

1. Agnes Michael, Webster’s new world college dictionary.4th ed. Wiley Dreamtech India (P) Ltd. 2006, p.136,625,1261,1368. 
2. Bailey Philip M., In: Homaoeopathic Psychology, 1st ed, B. Jain publishers pvt. Ltd. 2002. p.28, 60,127,279. 

3. Barthel, H. and Will Klunker, Synthetic Repertory, vol. 1, New Delhi. Indian reprint, B. Jain publisher’s pvt. Ltd. 1992. p.28. 

4. Clarke J.H., “A dictionary to practical materia medica ” Vol -1. Reprint edition 2003, B Jain publishers (P) Ltd. New Delhi, p. 53-58. 

5. Gentry, William D. Concordance Repertory of the More Characteristic Symptoms of the Materia Medica, New Delhi, Indian reprint B. Jain publisher’s pvt. Ltd. 2002. p.21. 

6. Hahnemann Samuel, In: Introduction of organon of medicine, 6th ed., B Jain publisher’s pvt. Ltd. December 1921, p.98, 256. 

7. Kent J.T. In: Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, 8th ed, B. Jain publishers pvt. Ltd. 2010, p.21. 
8. Khanaj Vidyadhar R. In: Reperire,5th ed. Indian Books and Periodicals Publishers, November 2010, p.19,20,21,499. 

9. Roger van Zandvoort In: Complete repertory, 5th ed. Indian Books and Periodicals Publishers, New Delhi, July 2011, p.49, 120,421. 

10. Dr. Shashi Kant Tiwari In: Essentials of repertorisation, 5th ed., B. Jain publisher’s pvt. Ltd. 2010, p.10, 11,442. 

11. Sankaran Rajan. In: Soul of remedies.1st ed, homoeopathic Medical Publisher. January 1997. p.132, 167. 

12. Sarason Irwin, Sarason Barbara. In: Abnormal psychology.11th ed, PHI Learning Private Limited; 2000.p.167, 168. 

Websites- 

13. Bonanno George A. (2004). [Internet] “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psychologist. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief. 

14. British Homeopathic Association, Grief (2009) Available from : https://www.britishhomeopathic.org/charity/how-we-can-help/articles/conditions/g/grief/ 

15. Complete repertory [Internet] Available from: https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-repertory/complete-repertory-2009/ 

16. Dance, Laugh, Drink. Save the Date: It’s a Ghanaian Funeral. [Internet] The New York Times. 12 April 2011. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Grief#cite_note-nytimes1-8. 
17. Grief – Wikipedia [Internet] 

Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief. 

26. Mind section of Kent repertory, Available from: https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-repertory/mind-section-of-kent-repertory/ 

18. New Ways to Think About Grief. [ Internet] Ruth Davis Konigsberg, 29 January, 2011, Time Magazine. Archived June 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief. 

19. When Grief and Sorrow Overwhelm | National Centre for Homeopathy [Internet] Available from, 

https://www.homeopathycenter.org/homeopathy-today/julyaugust-2005/when-grief-and-sorrow-overwhelm