Natrum muriaticum [Nat-m]:

- Jan Scholten

Natrum muriaticum is one of the best-known remedies, and a classic one for love-sickness. I will not go in too deeply with a sample case, but I would like to mention a few details, because it is possible to give a more accurate picture of the essence of Nat-m.

Concepts

Natrum Muriaticum



Sadness and depression Self-pity

Closed, alone Care

Restriction Nurturing

Denial, forbidden Mother

Sensitive Attention

Holding on Self-awareness

Group analysis

Let us first have a look at the essence of Nat-m according to the group analysis. We get the idea then, that there is no mother and no care. It is interesting that we find the same symptom in the synthetic repertory (Barthel, 1984, page 363). In the proving done by Hahnemann (1985, Vol. 2, page 1078) the symptom 'delusion his mother is dead' already came up.

There is another side to this too, which is that it is forbidden to nurture and to mother too much. Nat-m could be needed for mothers who are strict and cold, who feel that it is bad to spoil their children. It is not permissible to nurture them. They are the ones who leave the children alone with their grief, leave them to cry. The children shut themselves off from the outside world, and so these children will get in to a Nat-m state as well.

In this sense Nat-m could be called a remedy for the whole culture. It is only a few decades ago that it was considered to be good to be strict with your children. Being soft would only spoil them. Crying was not allowed, and definitely not in public. You had to control yourself and bear your grief in silence.

A few years ago some tests were done with young monkeys, who grew up without a mother. They could choose between a hairy artificial mother and a metal artificial mother with bottled milk. They choose the hairy mother and only briefly went to the metal mother to drink. These monkeys got into a Nat-m. state, which became obvious when they themselves became mothers: they all rejected their young, they could not 'be a mother'.

A situation in which I have often used Nat-m. is that of the child in an incubator. The incubator creates a typical Nat-m situation. The mother is absent. There is physical care present, but it lacks warmth and love. The child is totally left to his own emotional fate.

Another situation in which I have given Nat-m with great success was in the case of someone with dreams about a concentration camp. Whether it also works with general concentration camp syndromes, I am not sure, but it certainly seems possible, as this is also a situation of being left to one's own fate. And here the lack of nurturing is not only emotional, but also physical. There is little to eat and no warmth.

The standard situation of Nat-m is that of bereavement. It is the theme of being alone in the world. They don't feel secure and nurtured anymore on this earth.

Another variation on the theme is the idea that they cannot be a mother. This could lead to infertility, or it could be a result of that. In any case, unwanted infertility can often be cured with Nat-m. In India, some homoeopaths even use Nat-m to achieve the opposite: they prescribe it as an anti-conception remedy!.