Dear jshah,

When we give a remedy, it's with the hope that we're curing--we may find out later that we only palliated because the person did not improve in general, just locally.

But we look at what's the worst thing--what's the most limiting thing for the person; where is all the patient's time, energy and attention going? If he's consumed with the pain in his shoulder, then we have to prescribe for that, and not worry so much about his personality and such.

Zanna's topic, about her grandmother with nerve pain is an example of this, of what has to be treated; we can worry later about what kind of person she is.

Other times people will come in and say that their chief complaint is their warts--because they're on the surface and so ugly; but after talking at length to them, we may see that this is the least of their problems, that their most limiting problem is on the mental/emotional plane and we tell them that when we give the remedy, the warts will be the last to go.

We have this prevailing idea in homeopathy that everything, no matter what it is, can be cured by prescribing for the mentals. Sometimes this is true, and it may even turn out to be true for Zanna's grand mother; but sometimes the person really does have a physical problem with no mentals, such as the gum abscess I just treated myself for-- with Silica, which is now completely healed, and there are some who would say, "Oh, you only palliated, you didn't treat the whole person; well, this was a physical problem with nothing on the mental plane. If you had taken a full case, you might have prescribed Causticum or Carcinosin or Pulsatilla for me and failed! The key to this case was in the Mouth chapter of the Repertory.

I hope this may have helped you,

Snoopy