Cystopteris tennesseensis

3-443.16.13
Case by Pieter Kuiper.Woman, 56 years old, depressions.She originally came for treatment when she was 51.
At that time she had the feeling that her life was dragging on just automatically and that her responsibilities in her work felt heavy. She has the feeling that her life is at a kind of standstill and that everything happens at random. Nevertheless sometimes she makes conscious choices.
But she is despondent that her confidence has not changed or improved.
She feels that she’s holding something back, it becomes easily too tense and exciting. She fears that she might do something wrong and that the responsibility is too much.She was brought up in a family with hard-working parents. Her father was a horticulturist. He was very domineering and her mother adapted to his standards. They had a difficult relationship. Everything had to be like her father wanted to be. It’s never good enough for him.
She has one sister who is two years older and there is some jealousy from the side of her sister with a lot of conflicts in the past, that’s still happening from time to time.
The region where she was born is a kind of closed community of horticulturists where everybody works hard and helps in the family.
When she was 21 she married and she was glad that her partner took her out of that region to a complete different environment. They had one daughter when she was 29 and she divorced her partner at the age of 34. Her husband was a military officer and was away for long periods. His work came first.
In the past she worked in psychiatry (administrative) and as a secretary.
Now she is a homeopath and chose consciously for a course in homeopathy.AnalysisOver the course of years she received remedies of the Silver-series and Iron-series.
The remedies which really acted were the different Ferrum salts like Ferrum muriaticum, Ferrum silicatum and Ferrum sulphuricum, mainly for shoulder pains and weekend-headaches. Also Ulmus rubra, Iron-series, 3-644.64.13, acted well for her. So the idea of Iron-series gives a ‘hint’ for the possibility of a Fern.
Two years previously she kept talking about preferring familiar things and that she feels that issues in the family can’t be dealt with and that a real talk with her parents is difficult, even impossible. Very soon it becomes emotional with angry reactions, which stop any communication and she feels left behind with sadness. Also with Christmas she wonders why it happens to be the same for 50 years!!
And though she decided not to comply like her mother did with her father, she sees that she’s always in the background in pictures. Others are placing themselves in front of her. She feels like a ‘grey mouse’.
Because of the strong Iron-series picture and the idea that her life is mechanically staying in a mode of familiarity I decided at last for a Fern. Two other Ferns before, Pteridium aquilegium and Pellaea rotundifolia, did nothing for her. These ferns have a Phase 7 and Phase 2 quality. At the time I gave these remedies she felt excluded in a long standing friendship within her work at a pharmacy.
But the long existing pattern in her family made me study the phrases of the basic delusions of the different Fern-families. With Aspleniales I read “Delusion I will lose my family if I don’t follow the community rules”. In other words, it is an issue of Silica-series within the Ferns, 3-443.00.00. And because she repeatedly makes many efforts to improve and change the communication in the family which is followed by rejection or misunderstanding it seemed that Subphase 6 might fit better than Subphase 7 (previous Ferns).
Her cynical experiences made me decide for Stage 13: she felt part of her birth family but partly not.
Prescription: 3-443.16.13, Cystopteris tennesseensis C200.Follow upThe striking result was that she made a group-journey to India and experienced herself as strong and natural within the group.
Moreover, her father came to her and apologised about his past choices regarding the favouring he had displayed financially towards her sister. She at last got a fundamental recognition after many years. And on many levels there is a realignment going on in the family which in its roots has been lingering on for a very long time. So a new more harmonious order in the family, also financially was established because of her efforts and the recognition by the father.
The Cystopteris brought about a deep change in her and in the sphere of the family so that she feels she can more easily position herself now towards her parents and her sister.