Sensation from Rajan Sankaran

I do not believe for a second the possibility of pure practice. Of a practice without a theory, whether it is implicit or explicit. And since a theoretical dimension is always present, I prefer it explicit and clearly expressed.

I propose here to show how my theoretical conceptualization of homeopathy helps to clarify and make much more intelligible the clinical approach of Dr. Rajan Sankaran, approach called method of "vital sensation".

With this work I will:

• → Make the method of sensation much more understandable, medically, biologically and scientifically.
• → Reformulate it, in modern terms and acceptable to all, whether it be the various currents of homeopathy or allopathic doctors, biologists and other scientists.
• → Correct some errors, inevitable, that made Rajan Sankaran while "conceptualizing" in spite of everything, (recourse to the notion of "miasmas", "vital sensation," other song ") his method.

It would be absurd to blame Rajan Sankaran for failing to do this theorizing work properly. Her primary motivation was to advance the practice of homeopathy, to "codify" it and to systematize it. What he masterfully accomplished.

Having no logical, rational and / or scientific framework to "link" his progress in the case and the choice of remedies, our colleague has, understandably, formulated them as he could. In a way, quite "effective" at the practical level, that is to say if one is a homeopathic doctor and that one "returns" in its logic but which is, unfortunately, neither adapted, nor "Effective" to address the entire medical and scientific community.

However, Dr. Rajan Sankaran's advances greatly expand the scope of our therapeutic possibilities, and it is very unfortunate that they are not presented in a more rigorous and capable way to make the whole of the medical and medical community understand. scientific, the interest of homeopathy.

I propose, therefore, to offer, here, to the homeopathic community the concepts to make our practice clear and shareable with all our fellow doctors, including allopaths. I would like the reader to realize that any real progress in the homeopathic field is always, in the final analysis, though in a total misunderstanding, on taking into account its phenomenological dimension and on the study of the patient. as a living individual.

Rajan Sankaran's first "discovery" and breakthrough was his situational medical material and central illusion concept that proved to be particularly operative. The very terms of situation and delusion indicate that it is a question of accessing an intimate and singular experience of the patient, of "understanding", or rather of locating, what he "lives" unconsciously.

Rajan Sankaran has thus brought to light the fact, essential and neglected until now, that, placed in a situation, whatever it may be, none of us has an objective perception of it. Each, on the contrary, perceives it "in its own way", each one in a certain way, its own "reading", in a word, perceives it in a singular way.

It seems to me that the formulation of a central delusion is not very adequate because, to speak of delusion amounts, in fact, to suggesting that the perception of the patient is "erroneous" by its distance from a perception that it could be objective and conform to reality. So I think it would be more appropriate to simply talk about the "singular vital perception" of the patient.

The adjective "vital" does not, here, any reference to the notion of energy or vital force but simply, but precisely, indicating that we are in the "vital field", ie in the field of life, the experience of the patient. The singular vital perception of the patient is how he sees things, how he perceives the situations in which he is.

By proposing to take into account, in order to prescribe, the singular vital perception of the patient, Rajan Sankaran has undoubtedly offered the homeopathic community an additional means of individualizing his prescriptions. `

But there is more. By reformulating its idea of ​​central delusion ", we can, by the idea of ​​singular (vital) perception, open the dialogue and the discussion with our confreres allopaths, biologists and the whole scientific community because who could dispute that no objective perception of the real is possible and that each of us always perceives (and "interprets") what he experiences in a very singular way.

The idea of "vital sensation" is undoubtedly the most important concept brought by Rajan Sankaran who dedicated a book of more than 700 pages to him "The sensation in homeopathy" (after having already presented it in the 1000 pages of the two first volumes of "An insight into plants"). This is also the idea behind his original method of interviewing and "taking" these clinical cases. In short, the basis of a new way of prescribing in homeopathy.

The fundamental question to be elucidated here is whether this taking into account the sensations to found the homeopathic prescription is likely to be presented in a way that is understandable by all, that is to say as well outside the homeopathic world. And to answer this question supposes to decline it in several others. For example : What is meant by the idea of ​​sensation according to Rajan Sankaran (RS)? By taking this vital feeling into account, is RS straying into an intuitive and non-rigorous field or does it offer medicine to open up to an essential medical dimension, hitherto little known? Finally, what biological and scientific foundations to give it? But let's start at the beginning.

There are two ways to define a sensation :

→ On the one hand, this is, for the Larousse dictionary, a phenomenon which translates, internally in an individual, a stimulation of one of its receptive organs. For example, visual sensations.

→ And on the other hand, it is a psychological state resulting from the impressions received predominantly affective or physiological. For example, a feeling of well-being.

It must be understood that the vital sensation according to RS is not a sensation like any other. It is not a "pure" sensory perception, like that of a sound, a tactile perception, or an "internal" perception, like that of an emptiness in the stomach or an acceleration of the heartbeat.

From this point of view, it is much closer to the second sense than to the first and designates a state, not only psychological, but very vital, in the phenomenological sense of the term, that is to say which concerns the way in which the subject perceives his ability to live.

The vital sensation is not purely bodily, nor purely sensory. It is deeply woven with all of the patient's life dynamics and expresses or "embodies" the entire patient experience.

Rajan Sankaran's concept refers to the experience embodied in the patient, to the sensations that color his whole life, through which all the coherence of his experience, all his emotions, thoughts and sensations, is expressed. This experience is very largely unconscious, singular and underlying the entire life of the patient.

This very singular experience, because the patient is not even aware of it, more often than not, can not, most often also, be evoked only with the subtle help of the practitioner. This fundamental experience expresses how life, ie living concretely, on a daily basis, makes us feel, in ourselves, or in front of the world. For example, “stuck, blocked, locked up, lost, attacked, threatened, etc." It therefore represents what the patient feels most deeply each time he encounters a life difficulty.

The search for this vital sensation which will undoubtedly seem strange, even far-fetched, to allopathic doctors, is a clinical reality and constitutes a precious breadcrumb in the taking of many cases in homeopathy. To access it, it is not a question of asking the patient to say what he thinks of his experience (which would be a simple interpretation of the patient in relation to what he feels) but to make him express, the more precisely possible, concerning the disorder from which he suffers, what he feels mentally, emotionally, but above all, when possible, in his body, in his ability to live, in his vital "dynamics".

The goal is not to dwell on any sensation, but to locate the one that comes up most constantly, regardless of what affects the patient. Let him talk about his migraines, but also about his professional concerns or his marital concerns. In short, it is a question of identifying the fundamental experience which is, there, underlying all the patient's experience. As pointed out and brought to light by RS, an excellent indication allowing to affirm that the patient's experience refers well to his "vital", or fundamental experience, is that by expressing it, it comes alive, moves, makes gestures, notably of the hands, and clearly lives in his body "something".

Finally, in order to be able to speak of the underlying fundamental experience, it is therefore appropriate, as we have seen, that it "return" and express itself, in a recurring manner, each time. The best sign that we have successfully identified this fundamental experience is that everything is connected, everything converges towards it (which is logical given the phenomena of biological integration that govern human beings).

I ask these two questions because Rajan Sankaran, continues to qualify this one. He insists, thus, on the dimension of "non sense", of "non human specific" of this vital sensation. And we can understand such a denomination when a patient feels "fallen in crumbs", has "the impression of being trapped in a bubble", "feels his members scatter around him" or "wants to jump on his colleague to scratch him deadly". But, let us repeat, it is less a feeling than an experience which seems, it is true, to escape all logic, all rationality. But is it, however, so absurd, so insane ? Can we not find a biological and scientific basis for it ?

This idea also refers, but metaphorically, to the idea that human life is rooted in archaic biological structures and functioning. It thus reminds us that the "cortical" intelligence that leads us to seek understandings and rational logical solutions to our life difficulties, "coexists" with an unconscious and archaic logic of functioning.

Although thinking of living in a purely rational and logical sphere (in the sense of the Greek logos), the human being appears largely driven and animated by an archaic unconscious perception of the world and itself. Which obviously does not go without many contradictions and antagonisms, nor without conflicts. In this sense, it is obvious that homeopathy gives access to a new dimension of the notion of unconscious.