Introduction

We had the good fortune, along with seven other homeopaths from the United States, Europe, and New Zealand, to attend a three and a half week intensive course in January in Bombay with Rajan Sankaran and his colleagues. The format was a three to four hour clinical session with one of the doctors each day plus a two-hour video/lecture presentation each afternoon. We also spent six days of intensive lectures with excellent video cases at a seaside resort called Manoribel.

The main teachers were Rajan Sankaran, Jayesh Shah, Sunil Anand, Nandita Shah, Rajan's wife Divya Chhabra, Sujit Chaterjee, and Sudhir Baldota. The reason we mention their names is so that you can recognize them when you read their articles in Homeopathic Links, a journal published in Switzerland. Each of these teachers is a brilliant homeopath in his or her own right. The majority have been consulting together on cases for ten years, which is a feat since all are in their late twenties and early thirties. Their goal, very explicitly, was to teach us the methods they have found, through much trial and error, to be effective. None of them received any money for the teaching. The tuition fee went to their foundation in hopes of setting up a teaching facility in the near future. None of them was trying to prove what a good homeopath he was. They repeated over and over to us that what is most important is to understand the patient and her STATE and to have the skills to FIND the best remedy, even if you have never heard of it before.

This was the most inspiring and concentrated homeopathic learning experience we have ever experienced .Because our trip occurred only three months ago, we are still in an intensive process of integrating the material. We spend approximately half an hour outside of of scheduled patients to study each case which is not clear to us or not responding well to the remedy which we have prescribed. We are understanding our patients much better and consistently prescribing remedies which would have never occurred to us before our Bombay experience. So many people have asked us to share some of what we learned. We are just beginning to refine what we learned, we are taking the leap to share with you now rather than wait until next year. Hopefully you can glean some of what we found so inspiring.

We thought about what would be a good way to share with you how our approach has changed. Rather than giving you a case of a small remedy, of which we have many since Bombay, we decided to share "a before case and after case". These are cases of two women who have benefitted from the same remedy. We want to show you how we are understanding the person and the remedy on a deeper level.

Case I: Laurel, 27 years old.

11/16/93

"My health has been frustrating over the past three years. First I was diagnosed with endometriosis then ulcerative colitis. I tried various hormones for endometriosis. Nothing really works.

I'm a high stress individual (2). It goes straight to my stomach and GI system. My work psychologist suggested I try an alternative therapy. I want to have some control over the situation (2). I work for a high pressure ad agency. I do a whole myriad of duties. It's a very deadline-driven job. It's hard to maintain a reasonable workload. When I relax, there are two sides of me: gregarious and reserved. I have lots of friends, but I also enjoy alone time and doing crafts.