-Jan Scholten
‘You are not allowed to say that I am naughty’
Calcarea bromata is not mentioned very often in the literature. Boericke (1927, page 148) has written a few lines, in which he describes nervous and irritable children.
Concepts Calcarea Bromata
What do others think Guilt
Sensitive to criticism Restless, escape
Insecurity Passion, instinct
Shyness Psychotic
Fears
Protection
Withdrawal
Group analysis
From the group analysis we get the theme: the delusion that others will think they are guilty. They quickly have the feeling that they are making mistakes. They feel that others are always observing them. One patient had the delusion that there were eyes staring at her from all sides. They feel accused, rightly or wrongly. A variation on the theme is the feeling that others will think that they are aggressive. They feel wrongly accused, which makes them extremely angry. The expression of their anger completes the circle, because of their fear of what others will think of this anger. In extreme cases they are afraid that others will think they are mad.
Another variation is that they feel that others will think they are too selfish. The mistakes they make are, in their own eyes, often due to negligence. They are too preoccupied with themselves, they follow their own instincts and passions to such a degree that they forget to think of others.
Case
An eight year old girl comes with a whole series of complaints. The main complaint is chronic bronchial asthma. She has sore eyes and she sneezes a lot, but she does not have much dyspnoea. Leeks, chocolate, strawberries, wool and animal fur all cause allergic reactions.
She also has a lot of headaches, combined with stomach aches. The pain is in her forehead and temples. She gets it every day, it can start at any time, but usually at night. Worse from running fast and reading, better from lying on the stomach, or having a hot water bottle, or lying on the left side with the right leg drawn up.
Her thyroid is also swollen. The specialists think she has Hashimoto. The swelling is variable in size and painful to touch. She has gained a lot of weight.
She gets tired very quickly. She is tall and growing very fast. She sometimes has pain in her right eye, as from a hammer.
Her past history reveals some serious problems. When she was 4 she had an inflammation in the sinuses on the left side, with fever and much pain. The inflammation subsided under treatment with antibiotics, but then she developed a pain in the left side of her chest. This was accompanied by fever which wouldn’t go down. When breathing became difficult she was taken to hospital, where it was discovered that she had an abscess in the lung. She spent 8 weeks in hospital. They even considered taking out her left lung.
After this episode she started wetting the bed at night.
When her mother was pregnant with her, she gained a lot of weight. The mother also had a strong craving for chocolate drinks. After the birth, the mother couldn’t breastfeed her for very long, because of an inflammation in her breasts, together with fissures around the nipples.
When she was 18 months old she had cystitis.
General characteristics:
Temperature: she feels suffocated in foggy weather; likes being outside.
Perspiration: copious on arms; back and head, mostly at night.
Time: () fresh air, (>) sea (3).
Time: (