I have chosen a variety of examples, non-malignant cases, malignant cases, trying that each of the cases more precisely illustrates a notion or an aspect of the method.

       In this first case I am presenting you, I will not tell the whole story because I chose it to testify of the urgency, which sometimes shows. The patient is a woman aged about 45, who was just operated on for a small tumour of about one centimetre in the breast. One only excised the tumour because one was persuaded, based on the preliminary examinations, that the tumour was non-malignant. And one reassured her saying there would be no consequences. Some days later though, a telephone call from the hospital makes her panic : the microscopic analysis showed that it was a cancer. A, very probably, total removal of the breast was foreseen for the next week including of course the axillary ganglions. Next, a radiotherapy and, if affected ganglions were found, a chemotherapy. In short : the classical therapeutic scheme.

I see her a few days before the date foreseen for the start of the gear. Unfortunately, I had only one hour, what was much too short to explain an approach unknown to her and to make up a complete diagnosis : was it a reparation tumour and, in that case, after having evaluated the conflict, was it still going to grow? Because, if the second phase was not ended yet, the proliferation was going to start again. Or, on the contrary, was it a contemporary tumour of the conflictual phase and, in that case, what was the stage of the conflict? So I have chosen just to try to postpone the operation, as there was only urgency as to the choice, but a choice heavy with consequences. I gave her enough explanations and arguments to accept at least to postpone an eventual operation, after a diagnosis that would permit her to take her decision more calmly and with more lucidity.

At the end of the consultation, the patient agreed but embarrassed she said that the opinion of her husband was indispensable. The next day, it was my turn to go through an examination, giving the same discourse to the couple. After the repetition, I was glad to notice that the woman was already more reassured and confident. But the husband having almost not spoken a word, I could not refrain from asking why he had insisted that much to see me. He answered me : “When my wife told me about the conversation she had with you, I wanted to know whether she had seen a doctor or a madman!” Seizing the opportunity, I asked him what his diagnosis was : it was in my favour. You are laughing with the anecdote, but I wanted to keep it to evoke a very frequent situation : the solitude felt by a lot of patients when choosing an approach often criticised by their familiars … not to talk about the classical medical opinion where the term “criticism” is more than a euphemism.

Notwithstanding her persisting anxiety for “metastases”, the important pressure of her familiars, and the severe warning of the surgeon who confirmed that the ablation had to be total, I could make up the diagnostic work with that woman. It was long and difficult because during the years preceding her tumour, she had lived four conflicts. A first one was rapidly discarded because it was linked to her profession and that the problematic linked to the breast is affective. A second one too because it was too far away and did not really involve a shock. I was not able to distinguish which of the two latter ones was at the origin of the tumour, but what I was sure of is that they were solved and that, even if it most probably concerned a reparation tumour, the second phase was close to its end. This certitude was based on several conversation hours and I explained my conclusions to her : a tumour had been removed leaving only a cicatrise, a harmless sequel ; nor relapse, nor of course, metastases to fear. And I pleaded in favour of “not doing anything” – or, more exactly, of doing nothing more – to take up the example cited in the beginning of this lecture. The operation and its consequences risked provoking a mutilation, a de-valorisation, fear, etc. conflict. But I did have to examine and reassure her during at least one year. The initial confidence progressively turned into a conviction before the evidence of the facts. And during the years that followed, she never regretted … having kept her breast!

2. ECZEMAS

       Now let me tell you two stories about eczema. I put them together because in one I had assembled all the conditions to make a good diagnosis, but I made a mistake, while in the other, with a minimum of information, the diagnosis was particularly precise. This double example illustrates the difficulties to establish a good anamnesis i.e. the questioning of the patient.

1^st case

The mother, a regular patient already, brings her little daughter aged about ten. The child showed a very small eczema at one armpit, the size of a pound coin. I will ask you here to remember the dates, as it are important clues to make the correct cross-sections. I see this child around half October. Even before the mother spoke, I knew that the little girl has solved a separation conflict as the eczema is in its second phase. Always starting with the medical history of the symptoms, I ask the mother since when her daughter shows this eczema : maximum one week. The point was to discover the kind of conflict and especially its duration since eczema, as I told you, may last a week or five years. It is only the mother that I will have to question as the little girl, always smiling, answers that she had had no problem. I ask her : “What could have disturbed your daughter the weeks, and even the months having preceded and especially in an affective field?” I most often put rather general questions at first, in order to try not to influence the answers and to let the patient spontaneously express his conflict : it makes him better understand the approach. Ant that, even if I have to pass, as it is the case here, through an intermediate.

The mother rather quickly explains the following interesting story. Her daughter cried in the beginning of October as the female school teacher she had in September, and that she adored, was replaced by a male teacher she did not like at all. I say to myself that this “sticks” perfectly. The separation conflict from this female teacher starts on October 1^st and its solution dated from a week already. The conflict, as far as I am concerned, did only last about one week. I explain my reasoning to the mother and tell her that within eight days, we would not talk about it anymore. A treatment was not even necessary.

Ten days later, I receive a telephone call from the mother : “Doctor, do you remember my daughter? You said the eczema would disappear within one week. Now, her eczema has become much more important, she has both armpits covered with purulent eczema, the size of an adult hand palm.” I immediately realise the double mistake I made : firstly, I wrongly evaluated the importance of the conflict that I thought to be unique and, secondly, I missed the second conflict. It was also a separation conflict but in an entirely different field as the other armpit was affected. What is more, it entered solution after our first conversation. Before the dawning concern of the mother, the symptoms having become painful for the child, and willing to repair an incomplete work, I see them on the same day.

After having explained the lacks in my diagnosis, I start questioning the mother again, in search of the second conflict. It was harsher at this point and I had to insist on the fact that something else must surely have happened. Finally, a little embarrassed, the mother remembers : “Half September, she cried when we told her that we were going on holidays until the end of the month. We were astonished as it was not the first time we left without the children, and it had never been a problem before.” Never been a problem that was for the preceding holidays, but the tears of the child testified that these vacations – for one reason of another – had been experienced very differently!

This supplement of information enabled a complete “reconstitution” and diagnosis. A first separation conflict with the parents, having lasted about ten days, is solved early October, with a first eczema the importance of the underlying conflict I had underestimated. The eczema I took for the solution of the female teacher problem, was the solution of the separation conflict with the parents. It is only afterwards, what is much more logical, that the solution of the conflict with the female teacher interfered, when the little girl finally accepted the idea not to have her anymore that the other eczema has started to develop. The consequence was as coherent as the corrected diagnosis : both eczema’s disappeared one after another within a six weeks delay, leaving no trace. A homeopathic treatment was added to relieve the child.

(Note : I spoke of a diagnostic “mistake” in this example and I would like to rapidly take up this reality. When handling the biological laws, one may make multiple mistakes. One of the most consistent ones would be to reassure a patient, talking about a reparation tumour that is going to stop, while the affected tissue proliferates in its first phase, and especially if one has not understood that this conflict is still active! But most of the mistakes are to be relativised, as they result from an insufficient collection of information, especially on the evaluation of the conflict. But this collection is the result of the indispensable collaboration and confidence between the doctor and his patient. Remember the difficulty of an implication with the patient, I evoked in the introduction : he might have forgotten a key element of his life experience, or judge it too innocuous to talk about it, or be embarrassed to express it. Whereas the doctor, he can not enough lend a listening ear for a whole series of details, but which may prove to be essential : a hesitation, a silence, and an emotion on the face, in the voice or even the choice of a word. Now is the opportunity to cite one of Dr. Hamer’s principal pieces of advice : “Before being a doctor, first be a detective and treat the patient with all the respect he deserves, as if he were a friend.”).

2^nd case

Both parents come with their little boy, also aged about 10. The eczema lasted ten days already, was clearly marked at arms and legs, and itched a lot. But here, the anamnesis looked very unpromising : the few usual questions to know what disturbed the child did not have the slightest effect. In short: useless to start talking about the biological laws, the conflicts, etc. Besides, the parents that I was seeing for the first time only wanted to try homeopathy. But, as in the former case, I wanted to know how long the child would be suffering … and without being able to explain to the parents how long “homeopathy would have to be tried”. Then, I tried an indirect way, cautiously putting two kinds of questions.

First pretexting that an eczema could sometimes follow a state of irritability, I asked the parents if they had not noticed an unusual modification in his attitude lately : at school, at home, anywhere ; thus a very vague question, without alluding to a psychic problem. It is the father who answers : “The teacher convened us because his school results were clearly going down as where usually they were very good.” I learn this way that this decline has started about two months, to end up in a last normal school report and that this was two or three weeks ago. But the eczema had started ten days ago! I satisfy myself with this information, since I have nothing more. It was simply testifying that the child had been in a conflict, but which one?

Second, more “risky” question as it concerned the parents too : “Did something different happen in your everyday life, at home, in your rhythm of life, in the events?” Now, it is the mother who answers : “Well I went working as an interim.” I then learn that this woman usually does not work outside and that she had to go out in the evening when the child came back from school. You will have guessed the last question : from when and till when this unusual interim? By a couple of days, the period corresponded to the bad school results!

The separation conflict with the mother having lasted two months, I could play sorcerer and seer. I prescribed a first homeopathic treatment of 40 days, saying that the eczema might not be completely finished, but would have very much improved. And if some of it was remaining, I would prescribe a second treatment and there, it would all be over. Six weeks later, the parents show me their child, enchanted with the result : 80 % of the eczema had disappeared. I prescribed another month’s treatment asking just to see the child if he developed eczema again and precising that this affection is not chronic at all. I have not seen him again and, personally, I was not enchanted, as were the parents. I regretted not having been able to explain them why their son developed that eczema, and to let them believe that I cured him with homeopathy. To me, each consultation is the opportunity to start or to deepen the patient’s knowledge of the biological laws.

3. BRONCHIAL CANCER metastasising IN THE BRAIN

This third example is sad and dramatic. I have chosen it because it highlights a problem I am often confronted with, i.e. a fortuitous discovery of a cancer, most probably during a screening. And also because it shows the tragic mistakes arising from the sole consideration of the physical lesions without taking into account the history of the patient and often even, as it is the case here, the evolution of these lesions.

It is during the month of May that this sixty-year-old woman comes to consult me. Her extreme weakness, her greyish complexion and her wig make me guess the kind of diagnosis. She explains that she has a lung cancer metastasised in the brain, and her despair of having learned that she had only six months to live. The discovery dated from January and here, I lost some time putting her immediately a whole series of questions on her clinical state at that time : “Did you cough at that time? Did you expectorate? Were you oppressed? Did it hurt? Did you loose weight? Were you tired? Did you loose appetite? etc.” Each time the answer was negative : in fact, this woman was in top condition, leading an athletic, social and leisured life. I had better first asked the question : “How was this cancer discovered?” She then shows me the lung X-ray and the cerebral scanning made in January. On the X-ray one sees an important mass with a diameter of 3-4 cm right in the middle of the inferior lobe of the right lung and, on the scanning, a small whity mass with a diameter of about 5-7 mm at the left frontal lobe. Then she starts her rather hallucinating story.

It happened at the end of last year. “I felt so good, Doctor, since years, but seeing my age, I wanted to have an esthetical operation done, a face lift.” But the face lift being an operation, it meant : blood sampling, electrocardiogram and an X-ray of the thorax, three examinations I do not at all contest as they are useful to the surgeon and the anaesthetist. The blood sample? Nothing special. The electrocardiogram? They said she had an excellent heart. She goes on : “But they told me that the face lift had to be given up or postponed because they, unfortunately, discovered a lung cancer on the X-ray.” That is where the whole machinery starts. If you say cancer, you say generalisation check-up i.e. a whole series of examinations to see if there are no metastases elsewhere. The small spot on the scanning is interpreted as a metastasis, what excludes the operation of the bronchial tumour. Next, one makes her husband believe she has only six months, maybe a little more, to live. She quickly learns about it and considers herself condemned. They start an intensive chemotherapy treatment, but with little hope for success.

When examining the documents made in January, but taking into consideration the biological laws, I understand the mistake. On the lung X-ray, one observes that the tumour, evidently a bronchial tumour, is perfectly defined : the limit between the tumour and the rest of the pulmonary tissue is very well marked off. That is what Dr. Hamer calls an “old cuckoo”, i.e. a completely finished and stabilised lesion, remnant of a solved conflict and of a completed second phase. Remember the scheme of the bronchial affection, I described when going through the third law, and its two phases : the second entails a constriction of the pulmonary area which not ventilated any longer, considering the proliferation of the bronchial mucous, since it ends up obstructing the bronchi. At the end of the second phase only a non-functional part of the lung subsists, which is, however, unimportant and symptom-free. One has to keep one’s good sense : why worry – and a fortiori operate – a simple sequel, even if it has the size of an orange when someone can live with one single lung?

The brain “metastasis” evenso testified of its ancienty. It was only visible on the clichés after the injection of the contrast liquid, especially evidencing the glial proliferations of the brain. Not a slightest sign of oedema was visible around that small whity mass : proof of a cerebral centre the reparation of which was ended and only leaving here a harmless trace. But concerning this scanning I made a diagnostic error. At that time I did not know the map of the brain very well and I switched sides. I thought that the spot corresponded to the pulmonary lesion. But the bronchial relay is situated in the right fronto-lateral position and its glial cicatrise being at the same level, but at the left side, must have related to an ancient affection of the thyroid or the larynx. The patient informed me that she had had other cancers in her life, but I only took care of her pulmonary cancer. That is thus another type of a possible error : in the lecture of the scanning. It, fortunately, was without any consequence, because it did not change anything to the fact that the bronchial tumour and the tumour at the brain were ancient histories.

She had also handed me the rest of the examinations meant to control the effect of the treatment : three other lung X-rays, made at a one month interval and a second brain scanning performed in April. When cautiously comparing them, I noticed what could perfectly be foreseen : nothing had changed. Thanks to these documents, I start giving her the first explanations : why she could feel in such a good health with a lung cancer metastasised in the brain, why chemotherapy could not alter her “tumours”, this therapy only acting on cells in the process of multiplication and not on ordinary cicatrises, be they atelectatic, glial or of any other nature.

I then search for the conflict that could date six months as well as 10 years. She tells me about an important professional conflict she had some years ago and that lasted a little less than one year. She had solved it completely by putting the affair in the hands of a lawyer. Afterwards she had been very tired, but she does not remember if she coughed or expectorated a lot. She thinks she had some respiratory symptoms, what I would ascribe to the fact that the tumour was very peripheral. The cross section between the conflict and its lesions being done, I end my explanations : one accidentally discovered the traces of an ancient problem, she does not suffer an evolutive cancer and there is no danger. As to the treatment weakening her a lot, I repeat its uselessness. The patient, and her husband, who was accompanying her, seemed to have well understood and we took leave after this first conversation.

The next week, she calls me and confirms that she has obviously understood and remembered everything : “You remember, I lengthily consulted you last week. You explained me that there was nothing serious, that my cancer was ancient history, that it was cured, that the metastasis at my brain was not a metastasis, but a cicatrise at the brain, etc.” Then she goes on : “Listen Doctor, I would really like to believe you. What you say is reassuring and very hopeful, but I do not succeed doing so! I have seen several cancerologists before consulting you. I did not tell you but I did not only consult in the hospital that takes care of me and they were all unanimous to say that I had a lung cancer metastasising in the brain and that I only had a few months left to live and that the only thing I could do to prolong my life was chemotherapy. So, you understand…” She hung up very politely, leaving me with a feeling of sadness and powerlessness, I will not hide from you. I have never seen this patient again.

I would like to end this example by taking up the screening. If you decide to go through one, do not forget this very important advice : if one day they find something, no matter where, make sure to know whether it is evolutive or not. What is the use of operating, mutilating someone whom had a conflict five or ten years ago and who keeps the traces of it inside his body ? If one made someone aged 50 or 60 go through a scanner or through magnetic resonance, from the roots of his hair to the top of his toes, you can be sure that, with everyone, an abnormality would be discovered. Who, at that age in his life, has never lived at least one conflict, lasting some weeks or months, but sufficient to “mark” him physically? And who does not house within his body a polyp, a cyst or any other kind of tumour, micro-calcification, antibodies, etc.? These accidental discoveries may be considered suspect, and the patient may be plunged into anxiety and incisive treatments. I have seen too many lives, peaceful before screening, topple over in a nightmare, such as the one I just presented to you. In front of such “double or quits”, the biological laws are precious, because the scrupulously careful analysis of a complete diagnosis will allow to take a decision with full knowledge of the facts.

4. LUMBAGO

The person whose case I am going to develop is in the audience. But knowing her very well and seeing her glance, I think I may keep this fourth example. I will, though, remain discreet. This woman aged about forty came to consult me for a back pain lasting for some days. After the usual examinations of the symptoms, I question her on what happened, and she tells me about a physical effort she did during a yoga session. I then ask her if she is making a fool of me!

Why such a lack of tact from my side? In fact, I put this question gently, as giving a wink, evoking a very recent past. I had seen her already some months before to complete a very alarming diagnosis : relapse of a kidney cancer, which was removed though, with various metastases. Besides the very comprehensible anxiety, she felt good and had refused chemotherapy. She just came to understand. Some hours of mutual work, where the collaboration was excellent, allowed me to make a totally reassuring establishment : all her conflicts were solved. The only one that we could fear still was a conflict of fearing to die resulting from the resentment of the diagnosis. Before consulting me, though, she had several times consulted a psychologist who was acquainted with Dr. Hamer’s work and who had helped her a lot already. Our conversations had ended up defusing what I consider as being one of the worst “time bombs» : a diagnosis of a very severe affection. This reason, being all the experience she had acquired, made me put this small impertinent question.

I make a fresh attempt, discarding this history of physical effort. She tells me about a rather harsh quarrel with one of her children. Not receiving any other track, I had to know why a lumbago and evaluate its duration according to the conflict. The lumbago was explained by her life-experience : she felt humiliated, diminished, not acknowledged ; the devalorisation conflict was evident. To determine its importance, she gave me all the elements. The quarrel took place about ten days before the start of the pain. The conflict had been solved with the help of her husband who had talked to their child. The next day, her awakening was extremely painful! The consultation came to an end : I announce her a rapid relief, she has confidence in me and refuses a treatment, since her pain is bearable and it will finish within a few days…

A fortnight later, her husband comes to consult me. Before coming to his case, I ask him about his wife’s health. “She is in a very bad state, Doctor. She does not leave her bed at the moment. She has a lot of pain and is not even able to come and see you.” I did not find anything else to say than : “I must have made a mistake in the diagnosis. I must not have considered the whole of the problem. Tell your wife that I am very sorry, that she can call me and visit me as soon as she is in a better state.” One month later, she accompanies her husband to the consultation. Embarrassed, I first talk to her for a while, telling her that her husband informed me that the little lumbago I had predicted and for which I did not prescribe any treatment, had finally lasted five to six weeks, that she had endured terrible pain, etc. She interrupted me with a big smile and her reaction completely astonished me : “But it is not your fault, Doctor. After our conversation, I reflected a long time on what you had said, devalorisation conflict, the back and all that. I found that I not only solved the conflict we talked about, but that within two or three days, I solved four devalorisation conflicts, the largest of which having lasted about six weeks.” She exposes precisely the four conflicts and then she adds : “I did not want to disturb you because I understood that I would have pain for a much longer period and I wangled to get out of it.” I congratulated her for having done the work all by herself … and I could have kissed her. Patients like that are not seen very often.

(Afterwards, she told me she had had a lot of fun listening to me telling her story and the way I did it. She spoke about it herself, as well as about her generalised cancer, to persons she tried to help by means of her testimony.)

The next case will be very brief. It only concerns the outline of a diagnosis. I have chosen it among the numerous examples of the kind for two reasons. Patients often ask questions on relatives during their own consultation. In this demand, the conversation is forcedly very short and does bring but a few informations. But the handling of the biological laws allows then selecting some essential questions, being sufficient for the first comprehension.

A patient tells me at the end of our consultations : “It is bizarre though, I never understood why my mother died two years after her breast cancer, following lung metastases, when she felt so well during those two years.” I was writing my papers, but since it concerned her mother and since this demand for comprehension necessitated only two questions, I somewhat lengthened the consultation. I first explained her there are no metastases and that the pulmonary affection was due to a new conflict, two years after the one having provoked the breast cancer.

First question : Did the doctors speak about one single metastasis or of several? This first distinction is based on the 3^rd law : if the lesions were multiple, the alveolar tissue had been affected and the conflict was the fear to die ; if the “metastasis” was unique, and seeing its importance for the woman died of it, it was a bronchial affection, and the conflict was the threat of the territory. With this information, I could more rapidly search for the conflict. Answer : “They told me that her entire lungs were invaded.”

Second question : during the weeks or months having preceded the metastasis diagnosis, what had her mother feared so much? The patient thinks and says : “Yes, I see one thing. Some months before, my brother had a very serious car accident. He was in a coma for weeks before dying, and my mother worried herself sick about him.” I explain then that that drama lies at the origin of the alveolar lesions at the lung, and precise that her mother has had a conflict of fear to die by association.

This case brings me to evoke another characteristic of the conflict : it may occur in an association process to what another person is living. But then, of course, it implies that the other person has such an importance for us, that we identify ourselves to that person. A parent, for example, may feel himself a failure or a humiliation problem of his child and develop himself a devalorisation conflict. And this, independent of the child’s own experience which may entail the same or another conflict … or none if this experience was not conflictual at all.

(Note : This kind of “express diagnosis” is of course very limited and only as often ends up in putting forward hypotheses, in giving only search tracks by indicating the type of conflict. But it is not to be neglected as it allows the patient questioning himself on the disease of others, to further enlarge his field of verification of the biological laws. It adds up to the pedagogic interest of the examples I often use during the conversations I have in order to complete the explanations. The results corroborate it because I now more and more hear reflections such as : “I now understand why my husband developed that hepatitis while I had nothing.” “I said to myself that there must have been a link between my colleague’s cancer and the accusations that made him be fired.” “I asked my daughter what happened before her tracheitis. She confirmed that she had very badly lived this type of situation.” Etc.

6. POLYARTHRITIS

The next example will once again demonstrate the difficulty and the rigour necessary to an in-depth analysis. I would entitle it : “the missing link”. It concerns a woman aged about 35, who is affected with polyarthritis : an inflammation affecting several articulations.

I see her in July, here again, remember the dates. The disease started in March, in the middle of the holidays, where she felt well and had an excellent mood. After two months of worsening and in spite of the antalgic and anti-inflammatory drugs, in June, she painfully walked with two crutches, suffering from the upper limbs and the back as well. More elaborate examinations ended up in the pessimistic diagnosis of chronic evolutive polyarthritis and a treatment of high-dose cortisone was prescribed, what had very rapidly and remarkably relieved her pain. She consulted me six weeks after the start of this treatment because the doses having been largely reduced, the pain tended to come back. After the history of the symptoms, I come to the one of the conflict. The aim being, as ever, to understand together and to know how long she would have to be treated.

Without telling her that polyarthritis is the second phase of a hindrance conflict, felt in a more or less generalised manner, I put the usual questions on what could have disturbed her before her affection. But there was nothing special, however before my insistence, she explains me she feels choked up with her children : she can almost do nothing anymore, it is difficult to go out without having to appeal to a baby-sitter, the liberty of their couple is very much restricted, etc. It all had started with the birth of her oldest child three ago and it continued with the birth of her second child two years later. She tells me a hindrance situation in which I do not see anything conflictual, though, nor a striking shock. It is though the field she speaks about and stresses her feeling of constraint. I say to myself that there might be a link and that first this single track should be explored.

I first bring to her attention that her situation is similar to that of a lot of women with two young children and that I do not think that this could be at the origin of her disease. I then ask her if, since that constraining change in her life, any unforeseen event took place where she felt evidently more hindered and choked up. The question was now precise and, coming up with the hindrance theme in relation with her pathology, I hoped that the door would open. She thought for a while and says : “Yes, there is something which worried me a lot during at least six months.” And here the story becomes interesting. “Well, at the birth of the second child, when the sudden death tests were performed, they told me his test was positive and that there was a risk. They then gave us a monitor to be installed at home.” By talking lengthily about this monitoring and its consequences, it revealed to be the occasion of the “dragging”. It was no longer a simple “back drop”, the very normal liberty restriction of a woman with young children. It had become a real nightmare, an obsession : the device often beeped without reason, she went up the stairs ten times a day to see how her baby was doing, including the nights which were seriously reduced ; and as far as the outings were concerned, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. During this whole period : not one single symptom at the level of the articulations.

We could have stopped here, the essential elements having been gathered. The conflict was hindrance, indeed. It had lasted six months, having started with the monitoring and solved before her pain started. And, as I saw her in July, the second phase was near to its end, as she was suffering since five months. But I wanted a more complete cross-section between the symptoms and the life-experience, while also checking how the conflict had been solved. At this point, the case becomes even more didactical.

But, before coming to the solution, I would like to come back a moment on this hindrance conflict. You could ask yourself why this woman did not develop a conflict of fear for her child rather than a hindrance conflict, or at least both of them. The explanation resides in the observation of the facts and not in a personal interpretation thereof! First, the reading at the level of the body is evident : she developed a polyarthritis and not another pathology. Next, when listening closely to her resentment, it clearly highlights the predominance of a hindrance feeling. She did, of course, speak of anxiety but it did not last long, only at the announcement of the risk for sudden death. What is more, it was solved by means of the monitoring, and there was no re-stimulation as, during those six arduous months, the child has never been in danger. And, finally, the logical good sense is respected in this analysis : on the one hand, her maternal anxiety was not conflictual because she did everything that was dependable on her to help her child ; on the other hand, the absence of disturbances with the child, did not make her question herself again. It is clearly the monitoring that quickly became “unmanageable” for her.

How the conflict was solved? Two months after the first fatidical test, the child undergoes another one, which proves to be negative. But they do not tell it to the mother. The doctors being of opinion that two successive negative tests are necessary to discard the risk of sudden death, she is told that another test will have to be performed within two months and that the monitoring has to be continued. In January, the third test is negative and the paediatrician completely reassures her : there is no danger anymore, they take back the monitoring and she can sleep on both ears again. Feeling that the diagnosis was going to be more difficult than foreseen, I ask her what she resented : “I was relieved at last, of course.” To what I retort : “Then, something is wrong!» Seeing her surprise, I justify my reasoning : if the conflict were really solved by this good news, she would have started her polyarthritis within the days following it and not two months later, during the March holidays! After coming back from the hospital another problem must have occurred having delayed the real solution. She did not remember, but as I had to see her soon again to readjust her doses of cortisone, I proposed her to discuss the matter with her husband to find the “missing link”.

The next week, I immediately come to the subject and she tells me : “Yes, I forgot to tell you something last time and my husband reminded me of it. I had completely forgotten.” And she gives me the link : after having deposited the monitor in the hospital and as soon as she got back home, she installed a baby-phone between the child’s room and hers and made it function it permanently. We talk about it and she confirms that she was not really reassured when she came back from the hospital. Thus, in fact, the conflict was not solved yet ; the baby-phone took the relay of the monitor. Last question : “When did you store the baby-phone?” New blackout and same advice from me.

The last piece of the puzzle will be for the next consultation : “Before leaving on holidays.” OK. She could now set off the new handicap being her 6-7 months of polyarthritis : she left on holidays reassured … and liberated.