The Psychological Significance of Breast Cancer
and the Homeopathic Remedy“Camocladia dentata”

The Longing to Belong by Antonie Peppler

Today, the old, traditional role of the housewife and mother has an extremely negative image. Many women are increasingly not accepting this role anymore. It has almost become a compulsion to be independent, to support oneself, to stand on one’s own two feet. In the battle for one’s own independence, the feeling for community, for being there for one another, for commitment and loyalty have been left behind. Antonie Peppler attempts to show in the example of breast cancer to what degree certain illnesses that are more and more common today are an expression of this new development.

The breast symbolizes giving. But giving does not exist without a taking. In breast cancer we find a serious disruption in the issue of “I am taking care of someone, I am there for someone,” but also of “I am taken care of, I receive, I can take/I am allowed to take, I can give/I am allowed to give.” If the ability to give has eventually become a dictate to give and if a person has the feeling that she is not receiving anything in return or has been very wounded in this regard, then a deep harmony has become imbalanced and the ground for breast cancer prepared.

Breast cancer on the left side is not the same as breast cancer on the right side.

Breast cancer on the right side is descriptive of the Amazon, who resolutely and powerfully wants to hold her own position and clads her inner wounds in a cloak of defiance. After all, the Amazons of earlier days removed their right breast of their own accord in order to be able to better shoot the bow. They rejected men and demanded their independence. Breast cancer on the right side is a reflection of these old traditions.

In contrast, the mamma carcinoma on the left side describes a personality that longingly wants to be accepted, that is deeply wounded by the apathy and lack of attention of her partner.

Patients with breast cancer left are often together with partners that are either completely indifferent to them or love their freedom and their adventures outside of the partnership. With these women their longing for security and a sense of community gets left behind. In its place there develops the breast cancer on the left side as an expression of embitterment, of the unformulated anger over the lack of belongingness.

The disappointed vision of relationship.

With all of my breast cancer patients, I observed a great disappointment within their relationships. This disappointment was not worked through. There was no confrontation and therefore the breast cancer developed. There is a homeopathic remedy that precisely fits to this issue of the disappointed vision of relationship: Comocladia dentata, the Guao of Cuba.

This remedy is very important for people who carry a vision of the optimal relationship, but do not demand its realization or are still looking for it and therefore cannot live it out. They are more or less easily wounded, because their vision is not fulfilled. They then rescue themselves through defiance or suppression in order to in some manner maintain the relationship. The childhood longings for the dream prince return.

Comocladia with the psychological significance of “disappointed vision of relationship” is extremely valuable in addressing the basic issues of the breast cancer patient. The original conflict, the deep desire that one is there for the other and the corresponding disappointing situation, which was deeply suppressed, come to the surface once again.

Now the possibility arises that the two partners can exchange their views and each can learn what expectations the other had of the relationship. If this conversation is fruitful, then a new basis for the relationship can slowly be formed. A process is set into motion that offers a possibility to heal the old wounds and the emotions, such as defiance, revenge and sadness, which came out of them.

A new form of togetherness.

As breast cancer is spreading more and more, perhaps we should take a general look once at whether the current picture that everyone should secure his or her own position by themselves isn’t a misunderstanding. Perhaps a new life orientation should be created favoring freely chosen relationships.

No organ could exist if one cell of the organ did not care for the others. Just as different organ systems exist, there are different people. Not all people fit together. The traditional gender roles created a certain coercion so that people came together that really did not match at all. Today we have, through the dissolution of these old traditions, the task of seeking out people that naturally resonate with us so that an organically functioning system develops.

Working together is, however, just as important today as it was in earlier times. The difference today is that we can freely choose the type of togetherness we want. Being there for one another is too often forgotten about in our times. It looks just like many separate, defiant cancer cells that just are there for themselves, just want to exist for themselves alone. (….) A solid relationship, in which one person does something for the other and in which the relationship itself has the highest position of authority, is certainly the next step of learning for our culture.

Let us think again of our own desires and needs for relationship, joy and exchange. The realization of these needs only functions when we throw our old concepts overboard and meet ourselves and our partners in honesty, prepared to try out new ways. The more honest I am to myself, the more honest I am to those around me. The more loving I am to myself, the more loving I am to those around me. The more I seek to fulfill my heartfelt desire for relationship, the more fulfilled my relationships will be.