Benefits of Illness Ann Jerome
Homeopathy Today Online » July/August 2000 » The Thought Behind the Action - The benefits
of illness
The Thought Behind the Action - The
benefits of illness
[Note: Except where specified, this column refers mainly to illness of the acute, self-limiting
kind.]
Your seven-year-old son has just gotten over the flu, and you've missed three days of work to
care for him. Last night you felt very tired and had to go to bed early, and this morning you've
woken up with a headache, which you remember with alarm was your son's first symptom a
week ago. Your throat is a bit scratchy, you didn't feel at all like getting up, and you have that
overall dragged-out feeling of coming down with something. You're facing a project deadline
two days from now, and what with the work you missed last week, you're already looking at two
long days and nights at the office to have any hope of meeting it. To top it all off, your brother
and sister-in-law are coming to visit this weekend, and she keeps the neatest house in the family.
You know you could take a homeopathic remedy and in a couple of hours you'd be as good as
new. You've done it before to avert colds and flu and even that troublesome stiffness you get
after you play too many rounds of golf. Then again, you didn't give your son a remedy last week
because you wanted to give his immune system the chance to fight the flu on its own. He has
bounced back beautifully, and what's more, he seems to be able to stay dry at night now, a
puzzling but welcome new circumstance. Now you have to make a decision for yourself. What
will you do?
A host of considerations parades through your mind. Voices from your childhood, your
homeopathic study group, TV and movies, your doctor, your boss, your sister-in-law, and your
own deepest instincts all blend in a contentious cacophony. Let the illness run its course, says
one voice; don't let it get you down, says another. You're tired and you need to rest, says one;
meet that deadline or kiss your promotion goodbye, says another. Everyone gets the flu now and
then, says one; the working mother has to be bulletproof, says another. It's up to you to sort out
all these voices, so stop for a moment and consider the source and the real meaning of each one.
"Illness is suffering."
This is our contemporary culture talking. In fact, the modern world has a lot more than this to say
about illness. Through television, films, magazines, and everyday customs, our culture teaches us
"common sense." We learn that illness is unnecessary and bothersome, that it means only
pointless suffering, that it results from some foreign influence penetrating our armor at a moment
of weakness. We hear that colds and flu make us look and feel pathetic, and, far worse, that they
hinder our productivity at work and at home. Illness, we are told, is an annoying roadblock to an
1
otherwise perfect life, and the sooner we can remove this bothersome obstruction, the happier we
will be.
I remember an old TV commercial for a certain brand of aspirin. It began with a blank screen
and a steady dull pounding noise, like a rubber mallet beating on a block of wood. A woman's
agonized face filled the screen and a voice-over asked, "Do you have a headache?" More
pounding, and the male voice proceeded to explain how effective this aspirin would be in
removing the pain. The commercial ended with the woman's face sinking into a visible sigh of
relief.
Scholars who study the hidden messages in advertising have identified several points conveyed
in such an ad. They note, for instance, that advertisements generally depict women as sufferers
and men as their rescuers; most often, the confident and knowledgeable voice that provides the
solution for the woman's problem is male. In the depiction of illness, this pattern accords with
literary convention: from their inception in the seventeenth century until quite recently, novels
commonly emphasized the frailty of women, and the figure of the invalid spinster or widow
became a literary commonplace in the nineteenth century. The point here is not so much the
association of women with illness as it is that of illness with frailty; illness is perceived as the
result of weakness, and those who become ill are seen as lacking in some kind of internal power.
With your impending flu, therefore, you might be feeling helpless. You might worry that your
boss—and oh yes, your sister-in-law—will see you as being weak and vulnerable if you stay
home with the flu. And they know you study homeopathy—"isn't that stuff supposed to make
you stronger so you never get sick?" These ideas are coming from our "common sense"
perception of illness as something that happens only to those who are vulnerable. Winners, this
line of thinking goes, don't get sick.
Another message we hear in our culture is that illness is unnecessary in the modern world. There
are vaccines, antibiotics, and all sorts of other drugs available; with all of this technology at our
fingertips, we are told, we need never get sick. In the aspirin commercial, the headache sufferer
can choose to give up suffering once she is informed about the latest painkiller. Similarly, we
expect workers to return quickly to productivity with the help of medicines that reduce the
discomfort of their illness. It is no coincidence that this expectation has arisen in the same
century in which death has been removed from the home to the hospital. Avoidance of illness
and suffering has become a principle of modern industrialized society.
"Illness is exercise."
This is the voice you heeded last week when you decided not to give your son a remedy for his
flu. It suggests metaphorically that the immune system needs exercise in order to stay healthy,
and that illness is actually an opportunity to gain a stronger immune system. Ever since medical
science identified antibodies that develop from exposure to viruses and bacteria, it has been
generally accepted that a full-blown case of certain contagious illnesses provides full-blown
immunity to those illnesses as a result. Antibodies are seen as the "muscle" that follows from
vigorous exercise of the immune system.
2
In a more general sense, too, it is easy to observe a certain benefit that follows an acute illness.
Your son's improved bladder control at night could well be the result of his reaching a new
developmental stage after his flu. Often small children make a leap forward in vocabulary or
learning after an illness. You yourself may have experienced a sense of well-being for a few days
after an illness resolves. It is as if not only the immune system is exercising while we are ill; the
entire organism is energized.
Childhood illnesses such as measles and chicken pox are a case in point. Evolutionary biologists
note that childhood illnesses serve a function: they help the immune system to mature. In a sense,
they provide a preparation for a healthy life. This is one reason that most homeopaths opposed
vaccination when it was invented in the late nineteenth century and that many do not recommend
it today. Noting that childhood illnesses are not dangerous as long as they are carefully tended
and that most of them manifest themselves relatively benignly, as for instance in the skin,
homeopaths have argued that these illnesses should be allowed, carefully tended of course, to
serve their purpose for children's developing immune systems. Most important to homeopaths is
the argument that vaccination can suppress the body's natural reactions and therefore push illness
into deeper and more serious manifestations.
"Illness is healing."
This is the voice to which you respond, "Say what?!" It is the one that comes from your own
deepest instincts, beneath and behind all of the other voices that speak to you from without. If
you can hear it even faintly, listen closely.
Not all illness provides the opportunity for healing, but a significant amount of it does—much
more than we might think. This can happen in a variety of ways, and as you become attuned to it,
you will perceive it at times that might surprise you.
One way in which illness can be healing is when, faced with serious, chronic, or terminal illness,
a person responds by listening to aspects of their being that they had pushed aside. For example,
when a person who has received a diagnosis of end-stage cancer reaches out to estranged family
members for reconciliation, the illness in the physical body has inspired healing at the emotional
level. Similarly, such a person might experience a spiritual awakening as a result of
contemplating the implications of their diagnosis. We need to expand our understanding of
health and illness to acknowledge that they encompass mind, heart, and spirit as well as body.
Physical illness can coexist with a leap toward health on another level.
It is also common for acute illness to be a wake-up call. Perhaps you have been working too hard
and worrying too much, ignoring your body's need for rest and good nutrition; perhaps, then,
your oncoming flu is your body's way of slowing you down. Taking a remedy rather than making
the lifestyle changes you need could be detrimental to your health in the longer run. Illness can
also manifest and relieve difficult emotions, as when a cold or flu follows the death of a loved
one. I know someone with a well-kept family secret, and whenever the extended family gets
together, he comes down with a sore throat; at times he even loses his voice. A metaphor for the
3
silence that the old secret has forced on him, this recurrent "acute" illness is a physical signpost
to the emotional work he needs to do in order to reach a higher level of health overall.
Health is the ability to respond appropriately to stimuli; far from being a rigid, unchanging state,
health is flexible and constantly adapts to circumstances. One kind of stimulus that a healthy
organism responds to is infectious disease; it may, in fact, be healthier to develop a runny nose
when exposed to a cold germ than it is to remain dry as a bone. In treating patients for serious
mental illnesses, Hahnemann noted that these patients had less physical disease than the general
population, and that as their mental health improved, they became more susceptible to bodily
ailments. Far from being a sign of weakness, then, occasional acute illness can be a sign of
strength.
Another kind of "healing illness" that is familiar to homeopaths is variously known as the "return
of old symptoms" or "healing crisis" that sometimes occurs after a remedy. This has as many
different expressions as there are patients, and it can appear to be exactly like an acute illness,
but its function is very different. With the correct constitutional remedy, the vital force is aroused
to throw off indwelling disease, and symptoms of "illness" may appear while this process is
happening. If a remedy or other treatment interferes with this process, it becomes more difficult
if not impossible for the vital force to complete it. Training and experience allow homeopaths to
discern healing crises from true illness and to act according to the needs of the vital force. In this
case, what looks like illness really is evidence of healing.
Given all these considerations, it's clear that illness is not as simple a proposition as that old
aspirin commercial implied. There is a difference between serious illness and discomfort, and
though our society has become intolerant of discomfort of just about any kind, it's not necessarily
such a bad thing in itself. Each illness needs to be assessed in terms of its lifestyle context and
health implications, but more often than we're accustomed to thinking, illness that is merely
discomfort can have some wonderful side effects of its own. Today it is up to you to decide
about your own encounter with the flu, to choose whether to eradicate it at the start or to embrace
it as a meaningful facet of your healthy life.
About the author:
Ann Jerome Croce, PhD, CCH, is a Research Professor of American Studies at Stetson
University, having earned her BA at Yale and MA/PhD at Brown University. She is a
homeopathic assistant to Joya Schoen, MD, in Orlando, Florida, a board member of the Council
for Homeopathic Certification, and a faculty member of The School of Homeopathy, New York.
She has authored numerous articles for homeopathic and other scholarly journals.
4