Magnesium phosphoricum CaseA man, aged 28, comes with mental problems. He feels very insecure, is afraid of people. He feels that everyone is always observing him. He has a strong inferiority complex, cannot make decisions. He would rather stay at home. In his dreams he often has confrontations with other people.
When he feels insecure and nervous he feels a tightening in his diaphragm. It is in a spot exactly between his xyphoid and his navel. The pain is < breathing deeply. Sometimes it is accompanied by nausea.
His nervousness also shows in other ways. He has a severe nystagmus,he cannot look straight at you for a single moment. He speaks haltingly. He has had one or two severe bouts of hiccoughs, which were very difficult to stop. He also smiles continuously, as if he wants to please you all the time.
His sense of smell is very poor. He has pain in the throat < strong, dry wind.
He often has a headache right behind his eyes, < heat and sunlight.
His neck and shoulders are stiff.
Itching legs below the knee.
Nagging pain in kidney region, with the sensation as if his kidneys are being pushed out.
Sometimes pain in testes.
General characteristics:
Temperature: cold, cold hands and feet. < heat and sun.
< strong, dry wind. -> sea.
Perspiration: copious.
Time: < 3 pm.
Desires: spicy, bitter. He is a vegetarian.
Aversion: sour, sauerkraut, sprouts, meat, fish, eggs, milk.
Sleep: not relaxed; sleeps on his side.
Childhood: His parents are divorced. They were always quarrelling. They were not a good match for each other. After his father had left his mother was always speaking ill of him. During his secondary school years he went to live with his father. When his father found a new girlfriend the boy was kicked out.
Mind: He is very vulnerable and unsure of himself, as described above.
He is rather apathetic. He feels as if everything is grey and flat, as if he can’t get into contact with real feelings anymore. He thinks that he is too serious, he can’t laugh anymore.
He is very sensitive and vulnerable. He feels unappreciated. In the past his ideas were often challenged. He was declared unfit for military service because of his nystagmus.
He is really an individualist who wants to carry out his own ideas. He can be very forceful in this,when everything has to be done quickly. He gets very annoyed if his friends want to push him in a certain direction. It makes him afraid of getting trapped, of being imprisoned.
He had a relationship in the past, but this did not last. Now he is afraid of starting a new one, in case he can’t express himself freely anymore.
He likes playing games, just for the sake of playing. He hates it if things gets too serious. His father always pushed him to study 'otherwise you will be swamped by the big, threatening world'. He is a good learner, studied law and English, but did not finish it. In the end he couldn’t absorb anything anymore. He now does part-time administrative work.
AnalysisHis biggest problem is his fear of people. He has difficulty making contact with them. This leads us to the
Phosphoricums. Other symptoms which confirm this are: < alone, exhausted from studying, very sensitive, -> spicy food, <- fish. The Magnesium side is less obviously present. The quarrelling and divorced parents make us think of Magnesium muriaticum in the first instance, but this can apply to all Magnesiums. We do find a few more symptoms of Magnesium: <- sour, milk and meat, <- confrontations. There are two very characteristic symptoms of Mag-p: he wants to carry through his own ideas and, in contrast to this, he is very afraid of his ideas being challenged. We also find Mag-p in the physical symptom of nystagmus.
ReactionOne month after he was given Mag-p 1M he had become a little more sure of himself. In the following 6 months he received Mag-p 1M three more times. Slowly but surely he improved. His fear of people became less. He could feel emotions again and he felt more secure and stable inside.