A Jealous Boy

by Dr. Jamie Oskin

This is the case of an 11-year-old male who I have successfully treated for ADHD over the past 5 years.

 

He has most consistently responded to Lycopodium and now does quite well in school. He is raised by a single mother who continues his homœopathic treatment to maintain the good results. In August 2014 they moved to Colorado (into their own home) as the mother pursued a serious relationship, the romantic nature of which (due to her modest religious values) she only gradually revealed to the boy.

 

February 2015

 

The mother reported that the boy was starting to have temper tantrums. For example, one night he was trying to control things. The mother’s boyfriend was visiting and helping work on home projects. The boy was stalling going to bed because the boyfriend was still visiting, making lots of excuses for staying up. He kept “pushing and pushing and pushing.” He came in and told his mother to “Go to bed!” in a bossy tone. Earlier he had told the boyfriend to leave – the boyfriend asked if they could talk about it, but the boy replied, “I just don’t want you here!”

 

The mother described the boy’s emotions as being like unrequited love. It was as if the child was trying to fill the role of his mother’s boyfriend. He was “acting like I dumped him.” He will cry and say, “Mom, I feel like I’m losing you.” He told the boyfriend that if they got married, the mother will pick the boyfriend over him, and he’s afraid this man would take his mother away from him – that the boy would be replaced. He’s always been affectionate with his mother, but now it went to a new level of intensity. He has been asking his mother to lie in his lap so as to play with her hair. The mother felt uncomfortable as if the boy was trying to fill the role of her boyfriend so that she wouldn’t need her actual boyfriend. The mother reported, “It feels like romantic jealousy.”

 

Here is the repertorisation using the computerized version of Bönninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocketbook, through its most accurate English translation, TBR¹

 

Symptoms that correspond from Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases, theoretical part:²

 

“Among the mishaps which disturb the treatment only in a temporary way, I enumerate:… unsuccessful love with quiet grief (by Ignatia); unhappy love with jealousy (by hyoscyamus); … (p.224)

 

But during the treatment of chronic diseases by antipsoric remedies we often need the other non-antipsoric store of medicines in cases where epidemic diseases or intermediate diseases (morbi intercurrentes) arising usually from meteoric and telluric causes attack our chronic patients, and so not only temporarily disturb the treatment, but even interrupt it for a longer time. Here the other homoeopathic remedies will have to be used, …” (p.225)

 

Symptoms that correspond from Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura:³

 

• 547. The first day extremely lively and very crotchety, the second cross and much disposed to scold. [Lr.]
• 552. Jealousy.
• 553. Abusive talk, scolding, noise. [Grünewald, l.c. (III).]
• 554. Quarreling.
• 555. Quarreling. [Grunewald, l.c.]
• 556. Quarreling and abusive talk. [Schulze, l.c.]
• 561. Incontrollable frenzy. [Costa, l.c.]
• 578. He reproaches others and complains of injustice that he imagines has been done him.

 

Rx: Hyoscyamus 30c, 3 pellets SL per day.

 

March 2015

 

The boy has had no further meltdowns. He has been talking about the boyfriend with a more positive tone. Has been less upset when talking about the relationship. A couple of times he’s said things like, “If XXX’s going to be my Dad…” He has had no more jealousy. If anything, he’s started suggesting that his mother not be alone and that she should have a romantic relationship. The intercurrent prescription of Hyoscyamus, in this case, illustrates the accuracy and efficiency of TBR2 even in cases that solely contain mental/emotional symptoms.

 

We later resumed Lycopodium for treatment of his chronic ADHD when those symptoms slightly returned and he has continued to do well in school.

 

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¹ Dimitriadis G.: The Bönninghausen Repertory, Therapeutic Pocketbook Method, Second Edition, The most accurate English re-translation of Bönninghausen’s Therapeutisches Taschenbuch carefully corrected with reference to his original manuscript [TBR2]. Sydney: Hahnemann Institute; 2010.

 

² Hahnemann S. The Chronic Disease, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homœopathic Cure, translated from the second enlarged German edition of 1835, by L.H. Tafel, Philadelphia, 1904, Theoretical Part.

 

³ Hahnemann S. Materia Medica Pura, RA translation by R.E.Dudgeon, 1880, Indian reprint, B.Jain, Delhi, 1990.