4.9.1 Cobaltum phosphoricum, Case 1A 31 year old woman has red cheeks, with an open and friendly but slightly tense face. She suffers from high blood pressure, 140 over 110. She feels as if there is cotton wool in her head and her fingers are swollen and tingling in the morning. Also headache in the occiput on getting up in the morning, disappearing during the day, or moving to above the eyes. This last symptom is particularly bad when she sets herself all sorts of tasks to achieve and when she feels rushed. She also suffers from palpitations.
The problems started when there was some redistribution of tasks within the university where she worked. Her function as secretary of the department was going to be shared by a so called overseer. Until then she had done this job to everyone’s satisfaction and she was asked initially to carry on in her function together with this new person. All this happened when she was on pregnancy leave. But when she came back it appeared that they wanted one person to do the job and that this had to be someone with a degree. Her proposal to do a management training course was not considered to be enough.
She was very upset: ‘They have lied to me all this time when they were telling me I was doing the job well. And now they tell me to quit, after all that work I have done!’
All her self confidence was gone in one single moment. She did not want to accept another, minor post, with the same salary. Now she works in another department in a similar position, but she misses the diversity of her first job.
She describes herself as someone who gets worked up about all sorts of trifling details. She has a friend whose mother is very ill at the moment and she is very concerned for her. ‘There is nothing that can be done anymore’. She is also concerned about her children, but at the same time she thinks it important that as a mother she should carry on working and studying. She loves studying, but when she was at university a few years ago she gave up half way through to give her husband a chance to finish his studies, while she got a job to take care of their income. She was a hard worker because she tended to feel that she had never done enough to pass her exams (which wasn’t true). She was afraid that everybody would know she had failed and would think: ‘I always knew you weren’t clever enough’. She recognises the same feeling when her little son is unable to do something and people notice this. It makes her feel awful on his behalf. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.
AnalysisBased on her fear of failure, particularly related to study, she was given
Cobaltum phosphoricum. The sympathetic side and her feeling for other people shows the Phosphor element, in this case combined with failure or not being able to put things right anymore.
Her problems started when it became clear that she lost her position because she had ‘failed’ to finish her university studies.
ReactionAfter
Cobaltum phosphoricum there was an initial aggravation, but then the complaints disappeared one by one, her blood pressure became normal again and she felt much calmer.