Dreams, Symbols, and Homeopathy

From the Book

Dreams, Symbols, and Homeopathy will fascinate those interested in homeopathy and psychology alike - including analytical psychologists intrigued by how homeopathy can be integrated with Jungian theory.

Jane Cicchetti shows how C.G. Jung's concepts of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, the shadow, and the soul's journey towards individuation can be applied to healing. She describes how dreams can aid the homeopath, often using her own dreams as example.

Cicchetti describes Jung's typology of psychological classification, and furnishes a Jungian-style symbolic materia medica of homeopathic remedies. She brings new focus to unusual remedies from trees, vines, the seven alchemical metals, and milks.

In this satisfying new work, Cicchetti shows how important the unconscious is in bringing the body back to health. Jane Cicchetti has made a brilliant integration of homeopathy, Jungian psychotherapy, dream analysis, and alchemical symbolism. She picks up where Edward C. Whitmont (The Alchemy of Healing) left off.

Her book is eminently useful for homeopaths and others interested in the relationship between the psyche and healing.
V. Walter Odajnyk
Jungian analyst
co-editor of Quadrant:
Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology

Jane Cicchetti's new book is one of the first to bring homeopathy in line with modern psychology and with Jungian psychology in particular. It brings much clarity to the subjects and helps us to understand their complementary nature
Jan Scholten, M.D.
author,
Homeopathy and the Elements

Jane Cicchetti touches the unconscious symbolic world of the reader. This book enriched not only my conscious awareness of the healing process but also enlivened my unconscious world.

My dream world started to awaken; I began to understand more about my dreams. The meaning of even very old dreams that I had previously not understood became clear.
Alize Timmerman
International Teacher of Homeopathy
Director of the Hahnemann Instituut
The Hague

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Details

By describing how dreams can aid the homeopath, often using her dreams as examples, Cicchetti teaches Jung's typology of psychological classification, and furnishes a Jungian-style symbolic materia medica of homeopathic remedies.

By bringing our attention to remedies like the seven alchemical metals, Cicchetti shows how important the unconscious is in returning the body to health.

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Author

Jane Cicchetti RSHom(NA), CCH, has been a consultant and teacher of homeopathy for twenty years.

She is Director of the Five Elements School of Homeopathy in New Jersey, and teaches regularly on dreams and symbols in homeopathy to medical professionals in the U.S. and Holland.

Her most recent course, Dreams, Symbols, and the Healing Process, integrates Jung's work on dream symbolism and alchemy into classical homeopathy.Ms. Cicchetti has had a life-long interest in meditation and transpersonal psychology.

She is a student of Zen meditation and has studied Jungian psychology under the mentorship of a Jungian analyst for the last ten years.

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Reviews

Dreams, Symbols and Homeopathy:
Archetypal Dimensions of Healing

By Jane Cicchetti, RSHom(NA), CCH

Reprinted with the permission of the
American Institute of Homeopathy
American Journal of Homeopathy
Volume 97 Number 2 Summer 2004

Reviewed by Nicholas Nossaman, MD, DHt

Jane Cicchetti, a consultant and teacher of homeopathy for twenty years, integrates principles of depth (Jungian) psychology into her work in the US and Holland.

This is her first book, and it speaks to the incorporation of both disciplines "to help homeopaths and others interested in the relationship between the psyche and healing to use dreams and symbols in their work."

Ms. Cicchetti is well-grounded in sound sources of Jungian concepts, referring liberally to material from Jung himself, as well as from Marie-Louise von Franz and Edward Edinger, the latter two of whom are true to the principles and understanding elucidated by Jung.

Edward Whitmont has been the most articulate spokesman for the natural kinship between homeopathy and Jungian psychology, and devoted a good segment of the latter part of his life to conveying this information to homeopaths and Jungians alike.

Ms. Cicchetti, one of the next generation of that same hybrid, carries on the work and does an admirable job in this engaging volume.

The book is well-indexed and contains a chapter-by chapter bibliography as well as a separate list of references pertaining to Jungian psychology, homeopathy and mythology, symbolism and spirituality.

It also contains a glossary of Jungian and alchemical terms which I would have liked to contain more concepts such as "identification" and "projection," both of which she does explain to some degree in the text.

--o--

In the first notes of this opus, Ms. Cicchetti portrays the theme of emergence and coexistence of opposites, both in the world's approach to healing (rationalist and empiricist medicine) and as existing in the individual patient (the myths which alienate us from our true selves), and supports the usefulness of dreams in advancing the reconciliation of the opposites.

She describes a series of her own dreams in which the mythical archetype of Mercurius emerges, leading her to the personal confirmation of the alchemical principle of transformation of the practitioner in the search for the healing principle which will aid him or her in their work.

Throughout the volume, she liberally refers to alchemical concepts, images and symbols, weaving them into her discussion of homeopathy and its relationship with depth psychology.

Following a short discussion of the principles of homeopathy, the author addresses mind-body issues, including a wonderful anecdote about Jung which echoes Hahnemann's entreaties about being unprejudiced observers.

She emphasizes here, and elsewhere in the book - and backs it up with well-reasoned justification-the importance of the psychological work of the caregiver on him or herself. This is again in tune with the richness of what alchemy has to teach us.

This accomplishment of inner work on the part of the caregiver is crucial as it relates to transference and counter-transference with the patient and in life in general and is addressed more fully later in the book. This is an element of learning which is to a large degree neglected in medical school as well as in homeopathic training.

The author does a concise but rich explication of the concept of archetypes, relating them to the symbolic content of dreams and visions. Throughout the volume she refers liberally to the mythology of many cultures.

As the volume progresses, she describes other Jungian concepts, including typology and the elements of the unconscious. She further asserts the crucial modern need of integrating awareness of the archetypal realms with scientific explorations.

Ms. Cicchetti addresses the concepts of shadow, anima and animus-all of which are necessary to understand what Jung was saying-and illustrates their practical value in understanding patients, with examples of homeopathic cases.

A nice quote in her chapter on the shadow speaks to the notion of the patient being responsible for the cause of his or her own disease:

"To accuse an individual of creating disease is misguided and insulting. What is being discussed here is an interior state that exists previous to thought and is not under control of the conscious mind."

In her chapter on wholeness, the author traces the parallels in the progress of a woman patient with the evolution of her dream content Later she describes the history of dreams and how they have been regarded by various cultures.

She then describes the process of dream analysis, before integrating it with the homeopathic approach. The initial theme of emergence and coexistence of opposites is revisited, with the integration of dream analysis and homeopathy as potent ingredients in pursuit of the goal of reunion of the opposites.

Her perspective on dreams in relation to the dream section of the Repertory (Le., the appearance of dreams in provings) is interesting, resonating in many respects with the opinions of Whitmont in the emphasis on their personal nature and requiring information about the associations they evoke in the individual.

--o--

The latter part of the book is mostly devoted to an ambitious explication entitled "Symbolic Materia Medica:"

A chapter on trees, including the results of the author's conduction of a proving of a tree from the rainforests of Costa Rica, Ecuador and Colombia, Brosimum utile, touches on many fascinating areas of the symbolism of trees, connections with other tree provings, and relation of trees with various mythologies.

Vines and various milk remedies are also addressed, followed by the homeopathic links with the seven minerals of the alchemist. This is also spiced liberally with symbolic and mythological references. I found it to be welcome as a concrete integration of alchemical and homeopathic views of the same substances.

In such description of "essences" it seems that what is gained is a poetic connection of pictures of our medicines-sometimes speculative, unfortunately - with material and symbolic attributes of the substances in question.

And what is lost is the awareness of the breadth of individual applications of these medicines where there is no essence but only a small focused set of general and specific symptoms which indicate the remedy.

Despite this observation, the section is exceedingly rich in mythological and alchemical correlations with homeopathy and has to my knowledge never been undertaken in such detail and breadth. (Twentyman and Whitmont have written somewhat similar treatises regarding individual minerals.)

--o--

The final chapter, regarding the Internal Saboteur and some remedies for it, seemed somewhat out of step with the rest of the book in that it seems that the author had previously made a good case for the existence of the internal saboteur in the unconscious of each of us.

Therefore it seems questionable that the need for reconciliation of opposites, which is addressed by homeopathic and depth psychological activities, isn't confined to a limited set of remedies.

In summary, this book is a generally sound, unique and comprehensive explication of the fruitful marriage of homeopathy and depth psychology. It is thick with understanding and imagery, is written in a very readable style and is a valuable trailbreaker for the understanding of human health and disease.

One of Dr. Whitmont's dreams was to educate the Jungian and homeopathic communities about each other's disciplines. Ms. Cicchetti has succeeded nicely in advancing this cause.

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Contents

Preface -- vii
Introduction by Alize Timmerman -- ix

Part I
Emergence of the Opposites -- 1-36
1. Archetypal Dimensions of Healing:
     A New Paradigm for Medicine -- 3-19
2. Homeopathy: Mind-Body Medicine -- 20-28
3. Psyche and Soma: Exploring the Mystery of the Mind-Body Relationship -- 29-36

Part II
The Mercurial Fountain:
The Inner World of the Psyche -- 37-86
4. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious -- 39-53
5. The Shadow: The Guard at the Door -- 54-64
6. Anima/Animus: Male and Female -- 65-73
7. Wholeness: The Archetype of the Self -- 74-86

Part III
Descent into the Bath:
Moving Toward the Union of Opposites -- 87-136
8. Dreams and the Mind-Body Relationship:
     The Use of Dreams in Homeopathic Practice -- 89-103
9. Case Taking: Perceiving What Needs to Be Healed -- 104-119
10. Communicating with the Psyche:
     The Subtle Technique of Dream Analysis -- 120-36

Part IV
Symbolic Materia Medica -- 137-222
11. Trees: The Archetypal Tree -- 139-156
12. Vines: Healing Entanglements -- 157-167
13. Milk Symbolism: First Food -- 168-180
14. The Seven Metals of the Alchemist -- 181-202
15. The Internal Saboteur -- 203-222
16. Remedies Made From Trees -- 223-224

Endnotes -- 225-231
Glossary of Jungian and Alchemical Terms -- 232-236
Bibliography -- 237-240
Index -- 241-260
About the Author -- 261

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