The Suffering of Carcinosin

Control by rigid, almost sadistic parents or spouses is a form of unhappiness often found in these cases. Case K.A., discussed later, is such an example. She describes herself as having been raised by a "Nazi mother" who tolerated nothing short of perfection. Her first husband was an evangelical Christian (he also womanized extensively on the side, and was heavily into pornography) who was even more suffocating. He could not stand to hear people breathe or chew, so that she had to feed the children before he came home. He would never touch a woman, so their "sex life" consisted of her fellating him while he smoked cigarettes sitting in a chair.

Nevertheless, one should not feel that Carcinosin is contraindicated if there is no history of brutalization. Life's ordinary traumas are often sufficient suffering. Even in the face of such extraordinary suffering, however, the Carcinosin patient seems not to resist. In this is a resemblance to Staphisagria. Even as a child, the Carcinosin patient is extremely sensitive to reprimands. It is hard to distinguish between the two. The distinction, it seems to me, is that Staphisagria resists confrontation because the organism is simply too sensitive to tolerate the anger of others and does everything to avoid situations where that might arise. The Staphisagria child will not show the ebullient energy of the Carcinosin child, and the outbursts to which he or she is sometimes prone. Carcinosin, by contrast, remains with the alcoholic husbands out of something resembling, but not entirely identical to, a sense of responsibility. It is rather that if she can somehow keep it together on the home front, it will help stave off the fear of mortality and disorder lurking beyond. We need to return to the Carcinosin patient's anxiety about others and its sympathetic quality. A certain kind of Carcinosin patient will present herself very like a Phosphorus, will sit on the edge of the chair, and lean toward you, and be very much affected by other people. At times the distinction can be very hard to make, because this remedy shows all the sensitivity of Phosphorus, feeling the emotions of others, and also being prone to visions and psychic phenomena. If a distinction can be made it is that this patient is more "solid" or and less amorphous than the Phosphorus patient. One clinician at the Hechtel conference expressed it quite well: "Phosphorus," he said, "is like a chameleon, and has no skin, that is to say, no boundaries." But it is not always an easy distinction to make. More usually, however, there is anxiety about others, and a desire to help, without the loss of boundary between self and other. In such cases, guilt is often part of the complex, again deriving from the patient's feeling somehow responsible and obliged to take care of, and protect all around, from mortality. One patient expressed it quite poignantly: "My middle name is guilt," she said.

This is perhaps as good a place as any to amplify my quick reference to the fact that almost anything said about Carcinosin, though sometimes false, will at other times be true. I have just contrasted the energetic, outgoing, intense, Carcinosin child with the more sensitive and retiring Staphisagria. It is true that this is the more common manifestation of Carcinosin in children. It is also true that the complete opposite is sometimes seen. Carcinosin children can be quiet, shy, depressed, and pathologically sensitive in much the same way as Staphisagria subjects of the same age. Even in this type, however, there will usually be the identifying keynotes: the food cravings, the constipation, the sleeplessness, and the high fevers suggestive of intense energy lurking beneath the tranquil surface. I think of such children as cases where the pathological development has been accelerated so that the implosion or introversion of energy that occurs only later with the more common type is the case from an early age.

Generally speaking, however, the depressed, collapsed stage is seen only later, though not necessarily in a very old person. In taking the history, it will be observed that the patient was once outgoing, energetic, sexually vital. Sometimes, especially in cases of sexual abuse, this is not the case; there will be indifference to sex. I don't believe that I have ever seen true aversion to sex in a Carcinosin patient. Even such women are not truly frigid, and their lack of sexual response is situational; they will sometimes speak of a brief interlude between bad marriages, or a particular relationship, where their sexuality flowered. The typical childhood history is also present. Now she is exceedingly depressed, to the point of attempting suicide. The guilt has become a profound sense of failure. In these individuals, the history of pain and abuse is often marked. Sometimes it is astonishing. There will often be alcoholic parents and a history of sexual abuse. Another patient, a child of dysfunctional alcoholic parents, and a woman who herself struggled with addiction to alcohol and cigarettes, confessed to great feelings of worthlessness, and had suffered bouts of depression in the past. She hit the nail on the head when she said: "As a child I never was taught how to take care of myself."