by Dr.Harald Wiesendanger– Klartext
We are social beings from our first breath to our last, included in systems of people and groups in which every part influences every other, directly or indirectly. Isn’t it evident that these connections are causally important when we fall ill – and must be considered to restore health? That’s why my Ways Out Charity is “systemic.”
Ten points on a piece of paper. No matter how they are arranged, no matter how far apart they are, we can connect anyone to all the rest with a pen.
And if nine of those points represented the most important people in our lives, the tenth for ourselves? Then we would have to connect each one to ours – if that’s the way we want to show that we are in interrelationships with them graphically.
These relationships can be characterized by dependency, conflict, guilt, obligation, power and powerlessness, indifference, contempt, manipulation and violence, fear, hate, and envy, but also by understanding, affection, friendship, desire, love, admiration, gratitude, caring and many other things that positively connect people to each other. Even if individual relationships break down – because of arguments, separation, or death – they continue to have an effect: on us. It goes without saying, right?
Humankind owes that historical epoch, which is called “modern times,” to such impressive achievements as the atomic bomb, the Big Mac, industrialized mass murder, the condom with strawberry flavor, cloned sheep – and medicine that prefers to rely on mathematical and scientific knowledge gain after the model of physics relies on the wealth of knowledge of centuries-old healing traditions, on the personal experience and intuition of users. Common sense is disdained, and to the amusement of students, professors are accustomed to peppering their lectures with a plethora of examples where this disregard is apparent: cases where supposed “common sense” has been grossly off the mark, thankfully rectified by inquisitive, ideology-free inquiry.
But wherever contempt becomes generalized, it overshoots the mark: this phenomenon can be admired, for example, in the history of modern psychiatry and psychotherapy. It took these disciplines around a century to come close to a realization that common sense has always had: the banal fact that none of us lives on our own planet. From our first breath to our last, we are social beings: included in systems (1) in which every part influences every other, directly or indirectly. Whatever we do or don’t do, we affect them, and they affect us.
Isn’t it evident that these connections could play a causal role when we fall ill – and must not be ignored if health is to be restored? Shouldn’t they always be considered when anamnesis is taken, and therapy plans are drawn up? I don’t blame my doctors for plugging my cavity or splinting my broken arm without questioning my relationship with my mom. But the more psychological components an illness has, the more urgent it becomes to understand and include the social system in which it arose. In this respect, there is nothing to avoid a “systemic” approach – especially for children, but also for adults. And that’s why it’s part of the concept of our “Way Out” camps. We attach great importance to the fact that relatives do not “deliver” a patient to us but stay there; we would like to advise you and treat you as well. And this increases the care effort considerably and the chance of recovery.
What is happening widely in our healthcare system: is the complete opposite. What happens once someone becomes a patient? He has to go to the practice or the clinic; he is prescribed medication; he has to undergo therapeutic measures; relatives accompany him, rarely more than one, and this is mainly to assuage his boredom and anxiety while he waits in the waiting room for his appointment. In other words, he is artificially isolated from his social system. And so it is inevitable that what he suffers from will neither be fully understood nor optimally treated.
It took modern psychiatry and psychotherapy a century to arrive at the banal insight:
None of us lives on our own planet
Why Abraham became an ADHD child
Take ADHD, for example, the behavioral disorder in which attention deficits go hand in hand with hyperactivity. Whether psychotherapy or pharmaceutical sedatives such as Ritalin are used, treatment focuses on the affected children and adolescents.
How much more could be achieved with a “systemic” approach has been shown for years in our therapy camps: out of 30 minors brought there by their parents with the ADHD diagnosis, 28 were completely symptom-free in the end, and one was essentially free of symptoms. Why? ADHD sufferers need even more than other children: time, Patience, loving care, a lot of exercise; a harmonious, conflict-free environment; clear rules – and their consistent implementation; and severely restricted access to consumer electronics. Her primary system would have to take care of that: her own family. During a camp, our therapists become the caregivers who ensure all of this. From their approach, mothers and fathers learn to change their parenting behavior. An entire system becomes “healed,” and the symptoms disappear – even if only for a short time if it falls back into old patterns.
Abraham* showed us how unreasonable parents can prevent ADHD therapy successes from continuing when he took part in a “way out” camp in the Black Forest in August 2012, when he was eight years old, accompanied by his mum, dad, and his two-year-old younger sister. The bright, outgoing boy “finds it extremely difficult to concentrate. He’s easily distracted; his attention is constantly jumping from one person to another,” his mother told us in advance. “As soon as he starts something, he needs something new again.” This bad habit caused him considerable problems at school: teachers complained about his extremely slow pace of work; for homework that classmates do in a quarter of an hour, he sometimes needed three to four. In general, “he doesn’t accept any rules,” complained the parents. In early 2012, a psychotherapist took care of the boy, diagnosed ADHD – and immediately handed the mother a pill box containing methylphenidate, which is marketed under the trade name Ritalin as a chemical panacea for chronically inattentive, hyperactive children. From the camp, Abraham’s parents hoped for an alternative without side effects.
From the first day of camp, they marveled at Abraham’s “miraculous,” almost instantaneous transformation: he suddenly seemed balanced, highly focused, spending hours on end completing tasks set for him by our nannies and playing with other children. No more traces of behavioral problems.
But as soon as the family was back home, everything was back to normal with Abraham – looking back, the camp didn’t do anything, apart from a few nice vacation days,” the parents complained afterward. What they misjudged: their own fatal behavioral patterns stayed with the old ones. They emigrated to Germany from Kazakhstan in the 1990s. The father had sacrificed a remarkable career for a better future in the supposedly golden west: in his old homeland, he had completed university studies in business administration and law; in police departments, he had risen to the rank of first lieutenant, with up to thirty subordinates; He also had training as a masseur. But “in Germany, I suddenly became nothing”: His degrees were not recognized here; he struggled with the difficult language and prolonged unemployment – until he hired himself out for a few euros as a wellness masseur in a brothel. All of this gnawed at his confidence and made him chronically dissatisfied, irritable, and aggressive; more often, he reached for vodka, eventually for drugs. He usually only took time for Abraham to yell at the boy, to declare him a failure, to give orders, and sometimes to punish him physically. His wife mainly cared for the family’s livelihood as a geriatric nurse in a retirement home. Overwhelmed with educational tasks, Abraham’s parents used to “calm down” him with entertainment electronics of all kinds: They equipped his room with a large-screen TV, Playstation, and Gameboy – and the boy spent almost every free minute with it. Nothing changed after the camp stay. The supposed ADHD symptoms have worsened since then. Neither repeating a class nor changing schools nor further psychotherapy helped.
Four of 30 ADHD children have been completely free of their symptoms since 2007 in the therapy camp of the Auswege Foundation.
Whom does Erwin want to cough something?
Example of respiratory diseases: One of the youngest participants in two “Ways Out” therapy camps in 2013/14, two-year-old Erwin*, had been suffering from recurring bronchitis for over a year. After two camp stays, it has all but subsided. Doctors had previously prescribed the little one useless antibiotics – a still common but foolish measure in such cases because almost all respiratory infections are caused by viruses, while antibiotics only help against bacteria.
Our camp team may have found the key to success in seeing the symptom as a signal and the illness as meaning. What do the bronchi “say” when they are “hyperreactive,” as stated in a report on Erwin? “The lungs have to do with grief,” is how our camp doctor, Dr. Horst Schöll, her “organ language.” Little Erwin “reacts very sensitively to the mental stress of the single mother,” who strangely enough also had to do with lung problems, just like her father, Erwin’s grandfather. She “needs a healthy environment in which all family members form a trusting unit and she is allowed to be what suits her. Then she becomes strong, no longer needs to be sad, can deal with Erwin the way he needs it – and neither of them has to ‘cough’ anyone anymore.”
On the way to such unity, we experienced mother, grandma, and grandpa, who had traveled together with Erwin during their first stay with us; under the impression of the ubiquitous camp harmony and many intensive counseling sessions, open to a new, more profound understanding of the background to Erwin’s stress, inspired by their own health improvements, Erwin’s most essential reference persons became more relaxed and confident, put down fears, found mutual acceptance and trust. And no later than at his second escape camp, at the beginning of May 2014, “this boy stopped being a patient,” as our camp doctor finally stated, “His bronchitis has apparently largely subsided.” During the seven days of the camp, the fifteen team members did not observe a single attack of coughing or shortness of breath. According to the mother, Erwin coughs “only in the morning after waking up,” much less violently than before. Did the camp doctor’s prognosis come true? This time Erwin’s mother had brought her new partner with her; she seemed newly in love, carefree, and happy – which gave her boy just that harmonious environment to the lack of which he could have reacted psychosomatically.
Can family tensions be discharged in epileptic seizures?
Example epilepsy: The youngest participant of our escape camp at the end of July 2013, the then two-year-old Bernd*, had disappeared entirely for months afterward. If he had previously had violent convulsions six times a day, the number of seizures fell to four by four weeks after the end of the camp and to one the following week. From October, the little one was seizure-free. But around Easter 2014, epilepsy returned. Why? Just at this point in time, the parents, whose serious relationship crisis we had already felt during the camp, sealed their separation – Bernd apparently reacted sensitively to this, which incidentally indicates that epilepsy should by no means be viewed in isolation from psychological stress. Around Pentecost 2014, the separation was halfway amicable, the family situation clarified, and peace returned to some extent in Bernd’s home environment – his seizures promptly disappeared again.
Autism: systemically contingent?
Up until the 1960s, experts believed that autism was the result of emotional coldness on the mother’s side (“refrigerator mother”), an unloving upbringing, a lack of attention, or psychological trauma. Since subsequent studies have shown this assumption to be unfounded, research has largely ignored systemic connections – and concentrated on possible causes in the affected child; genetic abnormalities, brain damage, biochemical peculiarities such as increased dopamine, adrenaline or testosterone levels were suspected; “Emotion blindness,” “attention tunnel” and other cognitive deficits. Benny* and Martin*, among others, have shown us that the primary social system – the family – should not be neglected in anamnesis and therapy, even with this clinical picture.
Seven autistic Kids whose symptoms subsided significantly in the Auswege therapy camp; some even disappeared completely.
He was a quiet, easy-care baby from birth, reports Benny’s mother, Doreen*. However, while breastfeeding, she noticed that he always looked away; he always lay on the floor, never laughed, and showed no motivation to crawl. It wasn’t until he was 17 months old that he could walk unassisted. He didn’t utter a sound until he was two years old – and to this day, no understandable words. “He wants to speak but can’t,” his parents believe. Benny doesn’t maintain constant eye contact or respond when his name is called. If you want to play with him, he turns away. He doesn’t like to sit on his lap. When he was first introduced to child psychiatrists at a university clinic in October 2012 at the age of four, they “were unable to judge to what extent the boy was awake, conscious and oriented”; they saw the criteria for the diagnosis “autism” met. His gross and fine motor skills are also affected. A special education report from April 2014 assumes “muscular hypotonia.”
During an escape camp in August 2014, the medical director, Dr. Horst Schöll, did not notice any significant improvement in Benny’s symptoms. At least the mother noticed that her boy “voiced more from time to time.” In her opinion, his mental state at least improved considerably: He seemed more relaxed to her, which the camp doctor attributed to the fact that “Benny has more freedom of movement here than at home, had made him seem more peaceful.” Doubts were raised in the team about the autism diagnosis: “In the sessions with me,” reported a healer, “he let me hug him and snuggled up to me. He makes physical contact with people he knows.” Our camp doctor also questioned the “muscular hypotonia,” which he saw as more of a coordination disorder.
On the other hand, the two parents made remarkable progress, as the doctor noticed: “The tensions between them decreased as a result of numerous discussions, and her son apparently found it pleasant.” Parents clarify their relationship as soon as possible”. They already started doing this during the camp days: Benny’s mom finally explained that she now feels less “lost” in her marriage than before; she sees more clearly and feels relieved that she has been shown ways out. She experienced her husband Alexander* in the camp as “softer – he started to feel himself.”
Five weeks later, we received an exuberant email from Doreen*: “So much has changed. Benny never slept well – better than many autistic kids- but it was an endless nightmare for us. Every day he got up between 5 and 6 a.m., no matter when he went to bed. But since the camp, Benny has been getting up after 7:15 a.m. daily. Every day! And he sleeps through the night. Before the camp, Alexander had taken on Benny’s early shift for a year – and that made me feel bad. Now that we can both sleep and recharge our batteries, we both have the strength to get through the day and give Benny love and rest.
The second point is also significant: Benny has never played alone. He always had to have someone with him; if we had to cook or do anything else, it was hell. Since camp, Benny has regularly played alone on the carpet. It sounds endless, which was also rare in the past. He plays and lutes and lutes and plays. In his case, playing means rolling on the floor and building with Lego and Duplo blocks, but still!!! This relief is worth more than you can possibly imagine.
Third point: Benny is just more ‘present.’ He’s so awake; he’s standing up straight and is different than before. He is more mentally present. Toby, his brother, now notices him for the first time, as if noticing, “Oh, there’s someone!” It’s so different!!!!”
What is behind Benny’s change? Doreen is certain: “Our new calm and peace will positively affect him.” Because “the relationship between Alexander and me has changed a lot. We used the tools you gave us at camp and rediscovered the calm and joy that was ours. Our family dynamic has changed – towards family. Alexander smiles more. He has become a happy person. He used to never smile for the camera when I photographed him – now he does it without being asked. He and I are finally a team again. Before that, I always thought I had to leave him to free my soul and live my dreams. But since the camp, everything in me has become calmer and happier.”
“Oh – one more thing,” notes Doreen: “I’ve been battling an eating disorder for 25 years. Food has always been my addiction. I stuff and stuff and stuff myself with food, and I always feel bad afterward. But since camp, I only feel like eating when I’m hungry; and when I’m full, I don’t want to eat anymore. I haven’t experienced that since I was a kid. What a miracle!”
A shy person is labeled as “autistic.”
In the spring of 2014, 14-year-old Martin* came to a therapy camp run by the Auswege Foundation with psychologically confirmed “autism.” At first, he turned out to be extremely shy, insecure, withdrawn, and quiet, but as the camp progressed, he blossomed and sought social contacts – no trace of pathological behavioral problems. In earlier camps, similar cases of “autism” had caused our therapists to shake their heads in disbelief at the supposedly “scientifically based” psych testing and premature conclusions. In the worst case, such labels missed by “experts” who believe in psychometry become fatal prophecies that fulfill themselves.
At the age of ten, the boy was diagnosed with an “emotional disorder” by a children’s clinic in the Allgäu, from which he was diagnosed with “autism” in February 2014. No fewer than six different psychological tests had shown “conspicuous results,” as three doctors and a psychologist explained in their joint report: among other things, a “severe impairment of mutual social interaction, the imposition of routines, rituals, and interests, speech and language abnormalities, non-verbal communication problems and motor clumsiness.” All in all, there is “a profound developmental disorder.” The mother was advised to apply for a disability card for her son.
As soon as Martin arrived at the camp, he really wanted to leave. But the very next day, “the knot burst,” as his mother recorded in her diary. Martin’s behavior during the healing week prompted all therapists who took care of him to unanimously doubt the autism diagnosis: the allegedly severely disturbed person smiled more and more often at other people, kept eye contact with them, hugged them, joked with them, let himself up engaged in longer conversations, listened carefully; our child care worker heard him “talk like a waterfall” one evening. His mother was amazed at how “open-hearted” he was: Here, he “opened up more than before, and his shyness towards strangers improved significantly. He even found joy in dancing with others, which would have been unthinkable before. He was there everywhere without isolating himself.”
Behavior that psychologists had labeled as “autistic” was evaluated by the medical director of the escape camp as “shyness, low self-confidence, and strong mother-relatedness” – but “in the camp, Martin slowly thawed out.” Anyone who classifies this form of “being different” as requiring therapy apparently fails to recognize that in the broad spectrum of personality traits that people develop differently for different reasons, the “deviation from the norm” is more the norm than the exception.
Apparently, no clinical psychologist Martin dealt with had ever considered that the testing procedures used could have produced her troubling finding in the first place. How do we determine what personality is in a young person at the beginning of puberty who is apparently quieter, more insecure, more cautious, more anxious, and more reserved than others? Should we force him to spend hours in an unfamiliar environment, in a cool, functional hospital room, under the eyes of white-coated, scientifically distanced physicians, with dubious empathy ticking off items on questionnaires – or to be “interviewed” by these physicians, whereby their gaze changes aimed more often at the documents in which they record the testee’s utterances than at the testee himself? The Ways Out team prefers to provide him with an environment in which he feels kindness, acceptance, encouragement, patience, and loving care: an environment that supports his mental health at home – in the family, at school, in the community circle of friends and acquaintances – would be helpful. If, within such a framework, his behavioral problems decrease significantly or even disappear completely: Isn’t his living situation more “in need of treatment” than he himself?
In its report, the children’s hospital mentioned “broken family relationships after the parents’ divorce, strong disharmony between the adults.” At Martin’s request, since the end of 2012, there has been no contact with the father, with whom he already had a strained relationship. Although both parents share custody of Martin, they have broken off all contact with each other. Understandably, such conditions alone can make a highly sensitive child extremely insecure and psychologically stressful.
In the grip of maternal care
In October 2014, three participants in our 17th therapy camp near Göttingen illustrated the fatal “systemic” background of illnesses: two siblings, Kevin* (14) and Lara* (23), and their worried mother, Marianne*. That Kevin suffers from Asperger’s syndrome – a mild form of autism – was beyond doubt for the mother after reading the specialist literature, even if no doctor had previously confirmed her lay diagnosis; After an appointment with an autism counseling center, she felt that her suspicion was sufficiently confirmed. Those affected show weaknesses in social interaction and communication, their interests are severely limited, their activities are often stereotypical, and they appear “strange” and clumsy.
All of this seemed to apply to her about Kevin: “From an early age, he played mostly alone, was very quiet, retreated into his world for hours, spent days and weeks just preoccupied with a specific topic (wooden toys, Lego, cars, turtles, later chess, recently archery),” the mother described to us in advance. He always acted “very clumsy and clumsy.” For a while, she thought he was hard of hearing, but then realized that he “just tunes everything out.” He has “no sense of time at all and no real sensitivity to cold” and “absolutely needs structured daily routines.” His teachers described him as “quiet and unobtrusive.” For hours “he talks about his special topics and doesn’t notice that the person opposite hasn’t been listening for a long time.” Like many autistic people, Kevin amazes with his distinctive, unique talents: Once he has heard a story, “he can reproduce it one-to-one”; when painting, building, handicrafts he is “very creative.”
And what was up with Kevin’s older sister Lara*? Strangely often, the young woman felt “tired, exhausted, exhausted” – partly due to hay fever, which has plagued her since she was nine years old, but also in times without pollen count.” For over a year, she has had skin problems at times: “on the face, neck, neck, upper arms, all over the back.” Then “it burns and itches.” No dermatologist had found a remedy for it. The young woman stated “thyroid problems” as further health problems – a naturopath claims to have diagnosed Hashimoto’s thyroiditis – as well as “chronically inflamed tonsils, body aches, sweating, sleep disorders.” In a detailed letter accompanying her registration, Lara described her life story, which was characterized by tension, being overwhelmed, fear, and a lack of self-confidence. She changed schools several times because she felt “stressed and bullied by teachers.” She repeatedly failed final exams. She described her mental state as follows: “No more self-confidence; constant fear of failure; without the confidence to fight back; have always swallowed everything; I find it difficult to say or speak certain things; tend to be quiet and reserved to avoid trouble.”
What was behind the symptoms of the two? How was it to help them? No team member who cared for the boy during camp could confirm Kevin’s suspected Asperger’s Syndrome. Initially extremely shy and taciturn, he opened up more with each camp day, became trusting, talked, and played with others. “Kevin is a highly sensitive boy with a high level of comprehension and many talents,” our camp doctor concluded, “less autistic than introverted.” What is Kevin retreating inside from?
Rather casually, Lara had stated “family stress” when registering without going into detail – which is precisely where we suspected the root of the problem. No doctor or naturopath to whom Marianne had taken her children before had ever dealt with the parental home in detail, especially with Marianne herself, who had also come to us with severe health problems. Instead of focusing on her symptoms, we first questioned her life story, which turned out to be most unfortunate and troubled:
The parents, who ran a company together, had neglected Marianne from the start; her father was “often very short-tempered,” she recalled – “when I was eight he wanted to shoot me”; her mother “couldn’t show any feelings, she never hugged me and comforted me, she never read me a book or played with me.” Her parents called her “stupid” because of poor school performance, which was mainly due to dyslexia. A childhood day when she found a severely depressed aunt, who “spent most of her life in clinics” covered in blood and unconscious in the shared apartment after a failed suicide attempt, is burned indelibly into her memory. Marianne suffered from severe sore throats and peritonitis during her childhood for years. She broke off an apprenticeship as a decorator after a year, partly for health reasons and partly because of a bullying boss who was always drunk. She then began training as a medical assistant until she met a self-employed emergency doctor who became her husband and father of their eight (!) children, whom she bore between 1985 and 2003. “Life with him followed the same pattern that I had experienced in my parents’ house: It was characterized by humiliation and mental anguish, later there were massive existential fears,” when the man was threatened with imprisonment for tax evasion. On top of that, two grandmothers and the father died within four years, of whom she also “has positive memories: In difficult situations, he was the only one there for me.”
All of these stresses were not without health effects: “I had migraines all the time – with vomiting, vision, and word-finding disorders -chronic sinusitis, stomach ulcers, an (unoperated) herniated disc, hay fever, massive allergies. At six feet tall, I never weighed more than 100 pounds.” In the fall of 2009, “I had a complete breakdown with anxiety and depression.” Soon after, she finally separated from her husband – “Almost all illnesses disappeared by themselves, even hay fever. What remains is gluten intolerance and my massive sleep disorders.” Two psychologists are said to have helped her with behavioral and trauma therapy. But “somehow I can’t get out of the mess; my life is by no means calm.” Furthermore, Marianne feels chronically exhausted.
Each day of the camp became more apparent to us: the children’s mysterious illnesses are closely related to Marianne’s inability to process her “mess.” Our camp doctor experienced Lara as “incredibly sensitive, completely dependent on her mother, with no self-confidence and self-esteem. Despite her 23 years, she does not dare to live her own life. I tried to get her to understand that all of her symptoms are just pent-up aggression from not being outgoing and being far too humble. If she thrives on that, the symptoms will go away.”
In his opinion, the delicate family constellation is characterized by a “very dominant” mother who “knows everything – better! The image she has of her children is stamped on their foreheads. They accept maternal superiority but suffer greatly from it: Lara does this with discouragement, inferiority, and a feeling of weakness. (In fact, she suffered a fainting spell on the penultimate day of camp.) And just like her little brother, her mental stress is expressed “in exactly the same symptoms: Both of them can’t manage school, fail exams, don’t trust themselves, are courageous and powerless.” Lara “understood this through discussions with several therapists and began to present her own ideas to her mother. Lara will go her own way and leave home as soon as possible.”
We were also confident about Kevin: “As soon as the difficulties in this family structure disappear, the boy will become completely ‘normal,'” said healer Dr. André Peter ahead. Our camp doctor concluded: “Kevin is still too young to develop enough self-confidence to stand up to mom. We encouraged him in that.”
Unfortunately, we couldn’t do more for Kevin and Lara – because during the camp days, their mother proved to be completely “resistant to treatment”: Marianne designed her therapy sessions as monologues, talking “without a period or comma, like a machine gun” (according to one therapist), stubbornly avoided any suggestion that she might have contributed to her children’s symptoms. “At some point, I gave up,” resigned a naturopath from our team after three days, “she knows everything better anyway.” After an exhausting two-and-a-half-hour appointment with her, a healer felt: “She lives her illness and uses her children as a protective shield; she doesn’t want to let go.” Our camp doctor gave her credit for the fact that “her life certainly wasn’t easy,”; but “it will never be because she constantly worries and takes care of the children – and doesn’t find any time for herself.” On the other hand, “it’s also perfect for her to have to and be allowed to take care of them. So she is distracted from herself and does not need to change anything about herself. When the big kids are out of the house, the little ones will get their full load of ‘grief.’ Oh, the poor!’
Under a pretext, Marianne left in a hurry two days before the end of the camp, along with Kevin and Lara. Did she flee from uncomfortable truths?
Ominously entangled
And in adult patients? They too often suffer from an unhealthy social system, and advances in treatment require dealing with this situation. They often only become aware of these connections in our camps: Dorothea* and Gerald*, for example, a couple who visited a “way out” camp three times in 2013/14. Dorothea (54) brought chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to us, accompanied by coughing, increased phlegm, and shortness of breath when exerted. “I’m constantly dependent on a ventilator,” she wrote on her registration form. Her husband Gerald, an administrative employee six years older than her, has been suffering from high blood pressure since 2000 – “well controlled with medication,” as he says, but with frequent nosebleeds. He is also plagued by knee pain and muscle cramps that make it difficult for him to walk; neither various painkillers – tablets, and ointments – nor physiotherapy brought relief.
During and after her camp stays, Dorothea’s complaints took a strange course: each time, her shortness of breath improved more or less significantly, and at times she even managed to do without an oxygen device – especially, as we noticed, in moments when she thought she was not being observed or was distracted. But soon after her return, everything was back to normal: “Why don’t I feel better when I meditate and work on myself every day?” Dorothea asked us. “Then comes the fear, and with the fear comes the shortness of breath.”
We observed the same ups and downs with Gerald: in our case, his hypertension decreased significantly, the pain largely subsided – and he quickly returned home.
What was behind it only becomes apparent from a psychosomatic and “systemic” perspective. The two tubes in Dorothea’s nose, through which she can be artificially ventilated, seemed to our camp doctor to be “mere placebos”: “They would be superfluous if the patient learned to breathe normally all the time”, as she managed to do in special moments. Her obsessive sense of being on the ventilator may stem from subjective gains from the illness, according to several team members: she fears the losses her recovery may bring – to the worst that her husband might abandon her – and “fear to step into life on one’s own responsibility,” as our senior camp doctor finally stated. Knowing her, Gerald’s loyalty and a sense of duty compel him to stand by her while she suffers; he couldn’t bring himself to abandon a seriously ill woman. In addition, “she may need this illness to fill a void in her soul: if she were healthy, she would have to take care of herself again – and her husband would no longer have to spoil her. But she doesn’t want that.”
Conversely, Gerald’s complaints were obviously related to Dorothea’s state of health. Our camp doctor assessed him as “not seriously ill”: “His high blood pressure reflects the high pressure that results from caring for his seriously ill wife. When he sees her regaining courage, it gives him a great deal of relief.”
Healing also remains a long way off as long as patients see themselves as powerless victims of their most essential reference systems and struggle with it. Our message is: change it, leave it, or love it. Try to change the system that makes you sick – your partnership, for example, or your workplace. If you can’t, leave. If that doesn’t work: learn to accept it; Don’t just quarrel with its downsides, but make yourself aware of the pleasant aspects and advantages it has for you. We are firmly convinced that a healthcare system in which helpers and those seeking help learn to think and act systemically will be more effective.
Remarks
1 Sociologists distinguish between primary and secondary systems. The former are the social groups whose members have an active relationship with one another, e.g., B. the family. “Secondary” means organizations such as companies, clubs, associations, parties, authorities, and schools, characterized by purpose-oriented structures and functions.
(Harald Wiesendanger)
This article comes from the book by Harald Wiesendanger: Auswege – helping the sick differently (2015).
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