Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Thuja occidentalis (Thuj.)

Thuja occidentalis (Thuj.) appears in 1,329 rubrics in the Repertorium. Of these, 80 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 100 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on Children (138) and Delusions (127), plus Fear, Anxiety, Thoughts, Irritability, and Sadness. They yield the picture of a person who does not feel secure in his body, experiences it as fragile, foreign, or separated from the mind, conceals much, is afraid of being exposed, and in whose perception the boundary between self and world becomes blurred.

King-pin symptom

A king-pin symptom is recorded for the remedy: dullness with the state of not knowing where one is. This means a state in which perception is clouded and the person does not exactly grasp what is happening to her and what her condition is; she is unable to recognize reality and does not know where she stands in relation to her illness. The many rubrics on confusion, evasive answers, and feelings of unreality can be read as a fanning out of this basic experience.

The glass, thin body

The most pronounced group of delusions concerns the body. Recorded are the idea of being made of glass, that the legs are made of glass, that the body is delicate, sensitive, thin, or immaterial, that the skin is very thin, and that he is in danger of falling to pieces or of dissolving and becoming hollowed out. Consistent with this are the feeling of being brittle, emaciated, and softened inside, the fear of osteoporosis, of weak joints, and that the body will rot. Counter-images are lightness and floating: the feeling of being carried on wings when walking, of barely touching the ground, of wanting to fly out of one's own skin, and the impression of being light when walking. The absence of firm ground under the feet and the feeling of being cut off from life complete the picture. Here the body does not appear as a reliable place.

Separated from oneself

On the level of thinking this continues: mind and body are separated, so runs a persistent idea in two rubrics. Someone else thinks at the person's side, the thoughts seem to come from the abdomen, and voices are heard in the abdomen. The person feels possessed by something foreign, stalked, watched, and believes someone is present or beside her. In the abdomen there are animals that crawl, and at night something alive crawls into the vagina. To this belong the ideas of having been turned around, of moving back and forth, and that the armchairs are standing in the bed. The self is broken up into body, mind, and something third that intrudes.

Concealing and exposure

A characteristic trait is hiding. Recorded are fear of being seen through, anxiety about exposure and being shown up, the desire to conceal symptoms under clothing, concealed behavior, secretiveness that makes a mystery of everything, allusions, evasive, vague, and unclear answers, and the feeling of having doubts about everything oneself. A single-remedy rubric records that the person cannot say what is wrong, another that she shields herself. Opposite this stands lying that arises from perplexity: false statements about oneself because it is unclear what to say next. Also recorded are fear of sins, the feeling of being soiled, fear of dirt, and fastidiousness about cleanliness. Bigotry and religious piety with mental dullness are added. Moral purity and bodily impurity stand in tension with each other.

Sexuality, childbirth, and family

The remedy shows a distinct emphasis in the relation to sexuality and family. Recorded are sexual fancies when lying down, conflict about one's own sexuality, confusion about sexual identity, indifference toward the opposite sex, and the tendency to masturbation, also in children. A single-remedy rubric names the feeling of forbidden liberation, another the desire to be treated hard and strictly, as well as the compulsive desire for a strict psychiatric institution in order to banish the fixed idea of what is wrong. Complaints after abuse in childhood are also recorded. Around childbirth are found answers unrelated to the question, quiet manner, mistakes in calculating, torment and anxiety after childbirth, jumping out of the window in childbed, and aversion to company. In family life appear quarrelsomeness with the mother, aversion to the mother, abusing the husband, and irritability toward loved ones.

Vaccination and development

In children the Repertorium records retarded development and mental retardation after vaccination, anxiety after vaccination, fear of the dark with the feeling that someone is standing behind the child, anxiety on the way home, constant weeping in newborns, weeping when spoken to kindly, and behavior disorders that occur only at home. Sensitiveness to music appears in children as in adults, above all toward church and organ music; trembling of the feet from music is also recorded.

Speech and answers

A striking group concerns speech and answers: mumbling, swallowing words, especially the last ones of the sentence, speaking with absent persons, missing the point of answers that are irrelevant or unrelated to the question, and rigid thinking. Loss of speech occurs with heaviness of the whole body. Acquaintances are not recognized, and in the morning after waking the person cannot form a thought for an hour.

Summary

In the Repertorium, Thuja occidentalis appears as a remedy of the disturbed self-boundary. The body is experienced as glass, thin, or immaterial, mind and body feel separated, something foreign intrudes, and the person conceals her complaints and fears being seen through. The king-pin symptom, not knowing where one is, bundles this uncertainty. Shame, sin, severe self-punishment, and an unsettled relation to sexuality form the moral background against which the perception of reality becomes fragile.

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