Practitioner price list
Practitioners based in the UK have long been able to open a ‘practitioner account’ with Nelsons and enjoy substantial discounts on items bought through their account. We are pleased to announce that with immediate effect the Bach Centre has decided to offer a similar service to registered practitioners.
A price list is enclosed with the Bulletin, from which you will see that there are large savings to be made on books and videos. For convenience, you can use the same form to order labels and consultation pads.
To order, simply make out a cheque for the full amount, including post and packing, and send it in with a list of the items you want. Alternatively you can order from Kathy over the phone and we will invoice you. Personal callers can turn up any weekday between 10.00 am and 3.30 pm.
Bach Remedies Workbook
The new book is now in the shops, and is attracting a lot of interest. Written to be simple and fun to use, it will be of special interest to practitioners who are teaching the remedies and looking for ideas for quizzes, puzzles and games to help their students learn the system.
The retail price is £14.95, but practitioners can order it at the special price of £11.25.
On the subject of books…
Registered practitioner Lynn Macwhinnie is busy with her own publishing plans. Lynn is a trained Relate counsellor, Chair of ACW, a division of the British Association for Counselling, and is editor of Counselling at Work. A career development consultant, she also delivers counselling skills training within organisations.
Now she is putting her skills to good use and writing a book dealing with the use of the remedies in the workplace. If any practitioners have experiences or opinions or expertise in this area that they want to share with Lynn you can contact her on 01926 614707 or through us at the Centre.
As for us, we are now hard at work on the long-awaited (and long-promised!) animal book. Watch this space for details – and it’s not too late to contribute your own experiences working with animals. All help gratefully received!
‘How often should I take the remedies’
by Charles Callis
For the past six months or so I have been observing the frequency with which people take their remedies and their response to it. This curiosity was started off by my wife, Linda, who, whenever I made her up a treatment mix, would always take them very frequently, even drinking straight from the bottle at the start ‘to get them working’ and would have achieved what she wanted and stopped using them in a very short time, usually less than a day. She would exhort other people to do the same, suggesting they take the drops twenty or more times a day.
Needless to say, Linda is an Impatiens type with a good measure of Vervain thrown in. However it did seem that people were responding more rapidly to the remedies when they took them more frequently, even for chronic conditions.
In contrast, when I started prescribing with patients at a medical centre, I found that people were usually only taking the remedies once or twice a day. They treated them in the same way as tablets prescribed by the doctor, sticking to the rate at which they would take an antidepressant or a sleeping pill. In spite of this I could detect a shift in their attitude which I would not otherwise have expected.
Even outside of a medical setting, generally people stick to the recommended four times a day, ignoring the words ‘at least’ on the label or the invitation to take them more frequently if needed given in the leaflet. Recognising that there was a certain mind-set that was restricting the use of the remedies, I began encouraging people to take them very frequently to start with, suggesting twenty times a day as an illustration of how frequently they could be taken.
In response to this a few people still stick to four times a day. The majority seem to settle for something in the order of six to ten times a day. A few people take me at my word and take them very frequently. One such was an ex-soldier with serious difficulties post-trauma and adjusting to civilian life. Used to obeying instructions, he took them exactly twenty times a day for three weeks and then reduced it to eight times a day. He returned at the end of the month, completely free of all problems.
Another example of frequent use was a man taking anti-psychotic medication to control voices. A side-effect of the medication is a dry mouth, so that he was drinking six pints of water a day. Once he began to put the remedies in his water, he was taking them almost continuously. He found as a result that he was able to reduce his medication.
My conclusion is perhaps not surprising. People take the remedies at a rate that reflects their individual personality and attitude to recovery. Some launch into them with great enthusiasm, allying the energy of their positive thinking to the healing power of the remedies. Others take a more measured approach and a time-scale that suits them better. Sometimes circumstances fortuitously give rise to a certain rate of use. It’s helpful however at least to go some way toward dispelling limiting preconceptions of how frequently to take the remedies before allowing people to find their own pace and timing.
[Editor’s note: As Charles points out, people are unused to trusting themselves when it comes to dosage, and may be unwilling to go beyond a fixed number of doses in a day. Even so, the question of when and how often to take the doses more frequently should be left to clients, since the client is best placed to know when an acute situation demands more frequent use. Beyond the minimum dose, it is not up to us to advise people whether they should take the remedies 6, 20 or 100 times a day. Charles’ approach, which involves giving and example of how someone might take more frequent doses, is better. It causes less confusion, and leaves the client in control.]
Training in Argentina
We’re pleased to say that the first practitioner course was held in Argentina in March, and that it was a great success. Twenty five students took the course, and the trainer was Dominique le Bourgeois. The course work generated by this first course will be marked at the Bach Centre, until the new Argentinian Institute is fully up and running.
Epilepsy – help wanted
Practitioner Marian Dickinson has been giving talks on the remedies to a number of organisations, among them a local Epilepsy Group, which is a branch of a national organisation for people suffering from that condition.
‘All are on various medications for their individual form of this condition,’ she writes. ‘but Bach would appear to be one of the few ways to help, as so many other therapies are not completely suitable. Of particular value they can use the remedies directly to help themselves. So – does anyone have knowledge of treating those with epilepsy with the remedies? I’m sure someone “out there” will have some interesting information to offer.’
Basically the same considerations apply when treating sufferers from epilepsy as when treating anyone else, of course – in other words, selecting remedies for the personality and mental state. But if anyone does have particular experience in this area and would like to share it with Marian, you can contact her on 01903 734373, or through the Centre.
Welcome to…
Since the last (March) issue was prepared, eight new practitioners have joined the register.
- In the UK, Nina Ritchie, Caroline Windsor, Helen Lawton, Celia Stewart and Linda Porter.
- In the USA, Jane Shaffer and Rita Benor.
- And in Canada, Susan Hamilton (who is our first registered practitioner in Canada).
A case study
by Margaret Grech, Malta
This is a case I like to mention when giving talks on the remedies, since it illustrates the physical effects of being out of balance so clearly.
It is the case of a ten year old boy who could not get out of his home without having a bad bout of diarrhoea. It was found that this condition had started a little after his father had an almost fatal car accident, and had to spend a couple of months in hospital.
I gave him Star of Bethlehem for the shock, and Aspen for his general state of apprehension and dread. Chicory was his type remedy, shown by the fact that he wanted his father all to himself, and was always seeking attention and bossing his brother around. I also gave him Larch to help him regain his confidence.
Within a very short time he started to feel better and was soon living a normal life again.
A personal note…
from Stefan and Chris Ball
We’re delighted to say that our third child, a boy, was born on 7th March 1998. His name is Ethan James Ball, and everyone is well. Madeleine (left) and Alexandra (right) are also enjoying their new brother.
Our thanks to the many practitioners who have heard the news on the grapevine and sent cards and love – and presents!
Competition answers
In January we asked you which remedy Dr Bach was describing in the following passage:
‘I shall soon learn to understand how to find the balance when I neither hurt nor am hurting. But just for the moment I would rather that I suffered than that I caused one moment’s pain to my brother.’
The answer was Centaury, and the first correct entry we picked came from Hilary Leigh of Lancashire, England.
Hilary will shortly receive a book of her choice from the Bach Centre Collection.
A Bach flower mum
by Kathy Jones
I enjoyed reading the article by EH (in the March Bulletin) telling the true story of William and his mother Louise. My own experience involved introducing to the remedies a ‘mum-to-be’ who was becoming very temperamental during the last stage of her pregnancy. She lived in a remote area of Aberdeenshire and, at her request, I flew up to meet her.
This was J’s first baby. It seemed that she was very irritable with everyone around her and found herself shouting and becoming difficult to be with. Nobody could do anything to satisfy her and she was in a hurry for the baby to arrive so that she could get on with her life. I felt that Impatiens was the only remedy needed.
It happened that two days later the weather forecast was pretty grim and it seemed that heavy snow was on its way. The hospital decided that J should book in at once, otherwise it might have meant that a helicopter would have to be used when her labour started, in order to get her to the hospital.
Once she was in the hospital the staff there decided to induce the birth. But each time the day came for the procedure to start another mum-to-be arrived at the cottage hospital, in full labour, who obviously had to be seen to first. Day after day went by and in the end it was a full ten days before the staff could get around to inducing her baby.
How did this impatient, irritable mother cope with the delay?
Her family, the nursing staff, and J herself, were absolutely amazed at her patience and good humour. She laughed each time another mum was brought in, and she was pushed once more to the back of the queue. They praised her, and she became a talking point amongst the staff. She told them her secret – IMPATIENS!
Needless to say, J is now a ‘Bach flower mum’ and has the full set of remedies at home. And her Christmas present last year from her father in law was a beautifully crafted box for her remedies.
In the next issue
- Answers to the March competition
- A new competition
…and much, much more!
Thanks to all who have sent in articles and news to share. Please keep it coming – we enjoy hearing from you and what you have to say is always of interest to fellow practitioners.
This archive material has been edited to remove some out-of-date advice and information.