There's only really two things I want to know when I sit with a client...

Working in a teaching clinic recently has been fascinating for me for several reasons, one of them being kind of observing what I do myself (as well as being observed), rather than just doing it which perhaps I've just done for a long time without examining it.

It's made me clarify things for myself, reflect more and been a very positive exercise. It's made me look at who my main influences are in my case work, appreciate them even more (thanks to Jeremy Sherr, Jan Scholten, Annette Sneevliet and the wonderful trio who taught the Joshi's work to me, alongside the Joshis themselves).

One thing it's made me reflect on is that there's really only ever two things I want to know. What is bringing someone to sit with me in clinic and who are they.

These areas are of course expanded upon and much more details are shared to get to understand them fully, but at the basic level this is really all there is.

Understanding someone's pattern in the world, their program (Annette Sneevliet's term), their non human song (Rajan Sankaran's term) or the lens they view the world through (my take) allows us to match that to one of our approximate 6,500 remedies in our homeopathic pharmacopeia and likewise understanding their symptoms, the dis-ease expression helps us the same. Some of my cases I reach through one, some through the other, and I particularly love it where both combine.

Of course, when I ask someone to describe themselves, they don't come straight out with telling me what the lens is like that they see the world through, we build up a picture through conversation, finding out about how they deal with challenges, what hobbies they have, what interests them, what work they're drawn to, films they like, dreams, fears and lots more.

Likewise, with symptoms, we often see clients who are used to a very medicalised view of the world, sharing perhaps just a disease label, headache, IBS, ulcerative collitis. We want so much more to make it useful in the world of homeopathy, to know how they experience it, their symptoms, what is unique to them, what it's better for, worse for, when it started.

There's a brilliant short video here of Dr Julie Geraghty, a homeopathic GP, who talks about how when she was a GP people would tell her things that weren't any use, now it's all relevant.

It's all relevant.

Words are our way of communicating that across, and there can be a lot of them shared, so perhaps my title simplifies it too much, but really, that is all there is. What are you experiencing, how are you experiencing it and who are you, are at the core of what I want to know.

Once I can get a sense of that, then starts the matching process with which I'm grateful for a few different tools in my kit, different approaches to work with. Some cases I understand through one approach, some another, and I never know how it's going to be until I sit with someone, and sometimes until I go away to work on the case.

I'll share more on that in another blog, let's keep it simple for today :)