Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Ignatia amara (Ign.)

Ignatia amara (Ign.) appears in the repertory in 2,303 rubrics. Of these, 123 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 218 are small rubrics with no more than two other remedies. The emphasis lies on Fear, Grief, Sighing, Delusions, Ailments from external causes, Colors, Anxiety, and Weeping. Together they yield the picture of a person whom a loss, a humiliation, or a fright throws off balance and who at first keeps the suffering to herself, until it discharges in sighing, weeping, and contradictory impulses.

Loss of composure

The core lies in the collapse of bearing. The king-pin symptom is "Beside oneself, confused"; it also stands among the small rubrics. The accompanying commentary reads it as a state in which the person loses balance and bearing, gives up after long, futile effort, and declares with a certain indignation that she can go on no longer. Composure here also means facade, and the repertory knows this contrast explicitly: beside a rubric on the discrepancy between outer and inner state stands the single-remedy rubric "Sensitive – contrast between sensitivity and outward strength". Whoever stays composed outwardly carries inside a vulnerability that shows itself only when the bearing collapses.

Grief, fright, and humiliation

The complaints almost always have a trigger. The repertory lists ailments from grief, from recent grief, from fright, also in combination with grief, from disappointment, acute as well as chronic, from humiliation and mortification accompanied by indignation, from wounded honor, and from disappointed ambition. The grief reaches deep into the body: it causes chorea, pneumonia, amenorrhea, aphonia, and weakness of memory, and suppressed it can trigger convulsions, as in the rubric "Grief – epilepsy, causing – suppressed grief causes". Fright has a group of its own: clenching the fists afterward, self-contemplation, taciturnity, anxiety in pregnancy, hysteria after fright. The grief is often silent; it shuts in, makes introverted, and keeps the person from speaking about her suffering; it sets in after anger and can intensify before the menses.

Sighing and weeping

Sighing, with 19 entries, is the leading symptom among the specific rubrics: without cause, in hysteria, in old age, with empty stomach, whistling on inspiration, after epileptic convulsions, with wounded sense of honor, at certain hours of the night and of the forenoon. It can be read as the expression of a suffering that finds no language. Weeping includes weeping over disappointments, from excitement, obstinate and controlled weeping, and a single-remedy rubric records the opposite: "Weeping – avoid, desire to avoid weeping". The tearful mood worsens with consolation, and company is avoided when the weeping cannot be held back. Laughing also belongs here: it occurs with grief and from grief, ends in sadness, and alternates as spasmodic laughing with weeping.

Fear and anxiety

The fear (102 rubrics) seems erratic and often concerns the person's own body. Listed are the fear of becoming an invalid and of impending disease, at the mere thought of which the person trembles, the fear of never sleeping again, of death on waking from the afternoon nap, and of going out alone, fear in anorexia, and a fear that suddenly turns into grief. The anxiety has its places and hours: at home it ameliorates, away from home and outdoors it worsens; in fever it comes between two and five o'clock with sleeplessness. Added are anxiety of conscience with grief, the anxiety of being involved in a quarrel or a lawsuit, and anxiety in children after the loss of a friend.

Delusions and visions

The delusions, with 18 specific rubrics, are less numerous but characteristic. At the center stands what is lost: "Delusions – lost, he/she is – everything is lost". Corresponding to this are a body that falls to pieces or whose stomach is eaten away by an ulcer, and the idea of breaking a vow. Two single-remedy rubrics concern marriage: being married and, after the menses, being pregnant. On falling asleep and on waking, monsters and apparitions appear. Peculiar is the single-remedy rubric "Stage – as if on a"; the person experiences herself as if in a play, and the gaze searches around the bed as if something had to be found. Opposed to this are rubrics such as blindness to reality and the feeling of having no firm ground.

Relationship, longing, and adaptation

In love, dependence becomes visible. The repertory knows the hopeless relationship, the inability to have a happy one, and the relationship as the sole content of life: "Relationship – content of life, as sole". Added are longing for the ideal woman or the ideal man, hunger for love, desire for attention, ingratiating, adapting to the world of men, and the tendency to revolve around another. Ailments from disappointed love express themselves in amenorrhea, epilepsy, dyspnea, anger with incoherent talking, and insanity. A suicidal disposition by drowning is listed after the menses. Where the relationship carries so much, its loss strikes the whole of existence.

Anger, remorse, and self-reproach

Against the silent grief stands anger (48 rubrics) as its counterpole. It arises from contradiction and reproach, from suppressed hemorrhage, and from objects not lying in their proper place. The raving is directed at one's own mistakes. The remedy is quick in acting, hasty and prone to mistakes, especially in speaking and writing; writing in particular does not go as fast as it should. Remorse follows, even late and after the menses, with repenting one's own actions, blaming others, and reproaching oneself. A single-remedy rubric portrays the attitude of endurance: "Mildness – complain, bears suffering, even violence, without". Forbearance and sudden flaring up, up to quickly freaking out, mirror the state of mind between restraint and discharge.

Hysteria, menses, and colors

Hysteria is listed several times: since childbirth, after fright, over trifles, with scanty or absent menses. Many rubrics belong to the time of the menses and of childbirth, from starting to hurry. To be mentioned especially is the block of colors: blue, green, red, and black ameliorate, lemon yellow is desired by women, gray and dark brown are rejected, and dark green or purple aggravate irritability. Color appears as an effect on mood, not as a mere preference.

Summary

In the repertory Ignatia amara shows a mind that does not respond to loss and humiliation with a single answer: it is silent and sighs, it weeps or fends off the weeping, it laughs and flares up, it clings and withdraws. The king-pin symptom, being beside oneself, gives the whole its place. All the contradictions belong to one person whose bearing does not withstand the impact and who then can no longer compose herself between sensitivity, indignation, and despair.

A reference work for professionals; it does not replace diagnosis or treatment.