PUBLICATION:
Camats Falip, R., (Winter Issue, 2018). Bach Flower Essences as Transformative Agents. Dream Time Magazine, p. 26-29.
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Bach Flower Essences as Transformative Agents
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Roser Camats Falip
“Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.” —Kahlil Gibran In life, when we are moved and enlivened by our Soul, we notice that there is a powerful force residing inside in each of us that propels us toward seeking improvement, healing, and wholeness—a “life force” that wants us to bring forth the best of ourselves in our lives. That life force pushes us to learn new languages, perfect an art, and refine the skills of a profession. Often in psychotherapy, what is called “the miracle question” is related to this life force mystery. When presented to a client, the information obtained can aid in discovering where the client’s Soul call resides: What would you like to get help with? What are the dreams or ideals you want to fulfill in your life? What are you good at? What moves you? What would you like to achieve in your life?What would achieving that look like? The details of these questions will assist a therapist and a client to identify the unique ingredients that will create a delicious recipe and the desired meal that will feed, nourish, and sustain the client in moving forward on his or her path of self-discovery and individuation. 3
In one of his main writings, Heal Thyself, Dr. Bach explained the real cause and cure of disease: "Disease will never be cured or eradicated by present materialistic methods, for the simple reason that disease in its origin is not material. What we know as a disease is an ultimate result produced in the body, the end product of deep and long-acting forces, and even if material treatment alone is apparently successful, this is nothing more than a temporary relief unless the real cause has been removed." Dr. Bach strongly believed that a Soul resides inside each of us that connects us with a greater creator and purpose. In this same line of thought, he continues: "Disease is, in essence, the result of conflict between Soul and Mind, and will never be eradicated except by spiritual and mental effort. Such efforts, if properly made with understanding, as we shall see later, can cure and prevent disease by removing those basic factors which are its primary cause." This approach to the healing power of the wilderness shows us a way to return to the roots of nature, the original bold state in homeostasis with life itself. And, as we know from Dream Analysis, flowers, plants, and trees are often symbols of potential and growth. These symbols can make this unique healing approach with flower essences a very powerful tool, which might invite us to work with dreams as one takes the remedies. Taking the previous quote into consideration we might ask ourselves: Can the remedies affect our dreams, becoming a preventive medicine for mind, body, and soul? Among the 38 remedies that Edward Bach discovered, each one heals one mental-emotional-spiritual aspect of us that is in disharmony. Each aspect that every flower represents can be examined and then treated. With dream exploration and interpretation, we can work in depth, exploring the material of a dream and drawing correlations with the themes that the dream portrays in parallel with the particular remedies that the client might be taking. Let us consider some examples: Agrimony might be good for clients who do not remember their dreams, since this flower helps one to be honest by removing the masks used to hide true feelings. Walnut is a perfect aid for centering and grounding oneself while traveling or adjusting to new beginnings. It could be a great aid for enhancing stable dreaming, because it is an essence that helps to stabilize emotions during periods of transition. Cerato could be used by those who need to ask others for advice. Their own answers could be revealed through dreams that reconnect them with their own answers and intuitions. **************************** |
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Although the Bach Flower Remedies were born and discovered in England, I see them as more like an Eastern or Native American approach to life, considering that Native Americans exhibit an holistic orientation to life that emphasizes harmony with nature and regards illness as the result of disharmony. Native Americans believe that human beings are not separate from nature, from the cosmos, or from each other. Rather, they believe that the plants, flowers, seeds, and even planets have a conscious spirit within, which is also an integral part of all of us. Therefore, following this paradigm, everything in nature is connected to us. In this sense, we could ask ourselves a lifelong “threestep koan” to meditate upon: How can we be in harmony with nature and at the same time with ourselves and with each other? Dr. Edward Bach, in his approach to life and disease, held, like Native Americans, a very firm conviction about the healing powers residing in nature. Throughout his discoveries, an organic and natural approach to living and healing permeated his purpose of bringing forth health over disease through different essences from different flowers. Thus, his discoveries delivered appropriate remedies as powerful mediators that can help us to reconnect with our Soul and thereby bring balance back to our lives. ************************ 4
Water Violet could help a dreamer’s personality to warm up and be more open to meet and connect with others in dreams. Rock Rose, Star of Bethlehem, and Aspen, three essences that work with issues around fear, might be appropriate to treat recurrent nightmares. Gorse would be indicated for someone who is in despair and always has depressive dreams. For dreams that indicate a lack of self-esteem, Larch would be an excellent essence to help one overcome an inferiority complex. For those who always blame themselves and experience themes of guilt in their dreams, Pine would be perfect to make them feel better about themselves. Workaholics, who are working too hard in their dreams, would definitely benefit from taking Oak. Therefore, we can approach treatment with Bach Flower Therapy and dreamwork in two different ways: (1) by treating the person’s issues with the flower remedies to alleviate or solve issues that the person brought to treatment, and later observing if any dreams come up; or (2) by prescribing a remedy with different flower essences after considering the information in a person’s dream. What happens in either case, is that dreams will always portray what is worked on at an unconscious level. During the taking of remedies, dreams can reflect back to us the precise healing that is occurring. A case example follows. A male mechanical engineer in his sixties came to me to treat his trauma after being robbed of all his working tools from the trunk of his car, which left him with a huge loss of money and prevented him from working. The remedies I gave him were: (1) Centaury (for submission and fear of saying no); (2) Gentian (for pessimism, negativity, and despair); (3) Impatiens (for irritability and mental tension); and (4) Gorse (for desperation and hopelessness). One month after he took these remedies, a revelatory dream visited him: "By the middle of the night, I have a dream related to a car and dead bodies. It was very hard to identify the type of car. It seems like ’60s, with a big trunk where the dead bodies were lying down. I was in shock. I immediately recognized one of my brothers. Two of the other brothers I could not recognize. Then, being hard to identify, I wake up thinking and thinking about the dream and the other two bodies in the trunk of the car. For many days, this dream took place in some part of my brain; after three months, my brother died." We have here a synchronicity for the dreamer, in that his dream forewarned him about the death of his real brother three months later. In the session, I highlighted for him how his dream made him experience the shocking emotion of being robbed. Taking the remedies helped him to navigate his trauma, especially the despair and irritation that this traumatic event brought into his life. It was significant that the dead bodies in the dream were in the trunk of his car, from where his tools were stolen. Symbolically, this could indicate that different parts of himself were connected to the tools, and his way or working needed to die or be transformed while he was letting go of his way of making a living, so a new way could be born. Most of the time, we can clearly sense the magic that is unfolding when a client opens up to be helped and to heal. It is in this magical-miracle process that the information needed for the healing to occur can come up through dreamwork and psychotherapy. I believe that through dreamwork we can witness this transformation, and dreams are a great aid while one takes the remedies. If Bach flowers work at the level of the Soul, as Dr. Edward Bach pointed out, and have the potential to make changes to the personality, the content being worked out during the taking of the remedies should be simultaneously represented and manifested at an unconscious level. In this sense, a dream has the potential to portray information about the integration and resolution of an unconscious conflict and bring this material into conscious light. Thus, we can approach the Bach flower essences as dream catchers or dream catalysts for health and healing. |
Roser Camats Falip is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#105026) in California. Roser helps many people through Bach Flower Therapy and dreamwork. She is a depth and body-oriented psychotherapist, with an office in Oakland, where she works as a mental health professional. Her website is www.bachflowertherapy.us
Paul Weisser, Ph.D., has been my editor for publishing this paper. Paul is a writer, editor, and desktop publisher. You can check his info at www.editor-writer.net - Every writer needs a Paul Weisser!
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