Anthroposophic Medicine

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International Postgraduate Medical Training in Anthroposophical Medicine for Doctors, Medical Students and other Health Professionals (IPMT)

Concept and Working Modus  

• Schooling of thinking and observation as a basis for diagnosing the higher members of the human being 
• Diagnostics and Therapy and the Pharmaceutical Experiments
• Professional Ethics and the Inner Path of Development in the form of Meditation and Self Education 
• Preparatory literature: 
• Next dates of the seminars (2003-2004)

Training concepts of the IPMT-program

• Schooling of the senses and thinking, as a basis for new diagnostic possibilities (Diagnosis) of the higher members of the human being).

• A practical introduction in diagnostics and therapy determination using casehistories and demonstrations from the areas of medicine production and knowledge of the substances. (Anthroposophical Pharmaceutics.)

• Questions to do with professional ethics and meditative schooling, as needed and necessary for an understanding of ones own profession, for-the relationship to the patients and also for the formation of therapeutic communities.

Schooling of thinking and observation as a basis for diagnosing the higher members of the human being

The morning is divided into three working elements;

1. Firstly, practising the new art of movement - eurythmy. This was developed before World War I by Rudolf Steiner, in conjunction with the movement and speech formation artist, Marie Steiner. All processes in nature and the human being, in art too, can be made visible with the help of movement. Therefore the eurythmic movements do not have a symbolic character, but rather correspond to the inner formative movements and shaping gestures, just as these too correspond to the formative language of the realms of nature and human speech - the archetypal alphabet of vowels and consonants which may be found in all languages. When we perform and practise these movements (Eurythmy as visible speech) we may develop a more subtle appreciation of formative and shaping processes in nature and in the human being and hence for the processes of illness and healing. In the course of the first seminar week, the basic vowels and consonants are taught, their movements practised and Rudolf Steiner's sketches for these given forms studied. In the further seminar weeks, the gestures corresponding to the tones and intervals in music will be added, as well as the cosmic signature of the planets and zodiac.

2. After a short introduction in a plenum session to the phenomenological method of working according to J.W.v. Goethe(1749-1832), the work is continued in small groups with practical observation exercises. Goethe gave us the aphorism: 

Were not the eye born of the sun, 
It could never see the sun.
If God's own power lay not in us, 
How could the Divine enrapture us?

The processes, which we recognise as the aggregate states in the area of natural phenomena (or as the four elements in the sense of the Aristotelian meteorology) solid state of matter (mechanics), liquid state of matter (hydraulics), aeriform state of matter (aerodynamics) and the pure state of matter, no longer accessible to physical description, warmth (thermodynamics) - stand, according to Goethe, in direct connection to the inner experiences and possibilities of soul and spirit activity. Goethe described this fact throughout his life's work. We can reduce it to a short saying:" Like recognises like." Just as the eye forms itself from the light to perceive light, the bones of the foot can only develop fully through walking and every organ develops its skillful activity through its own doing, so too the human being can only perceive and understand that which they themselves have experienced, felt and thought in some form or other. In addition Goethe also formulated his ethical-religious way of life: "One only learns to understand that which one loves". Developing love as force of cognition and thus creating a spiritual empathy is the goal of our work. As Goethe said: Make the kind of observing dependent upon the kind of object to be observed.

3. The third step following movement and the soul experience in observing nature, is the schooling of thinking. For this purpose we will use a chapter from the book "Extending Practical Medicine" written jointly by Steiner and Wegman. After a short plenary introduction, the work takes place in the same small groups as for the Goetheanistic studies. Using this text, a path of schooling in thought is taken that has four stages:

• Thorough reading of the text, numbering the paragraphs, working through what has been said, written. Connections that remain incomprehensible or give rise to questions are written down if they cannot be satisfactorily answered in the time available.

• The train of thought will be followed from the first paragraph through to the last: How does one thought join with the next? Where does the train of thought apparently break off, in order to be taken up again at another place? Where do new thoughts start and - perhaps with apparently no connection - stand next to the first and second thoughts? What is the thread running through? Are we in a position to be able to reproduce the train of thought, developed by Steiner, ourselves?

• Whilst the first and second steps have more to do with the way in which the content is brought as forms of thought, in the third step the emphasis is on comprehending the composition of the chapter as a whole: How are the beginning and end related to each other? In the course of the paragraphs, do various important points reveal themselves or does the whole move towards a climax, which is all important? Does one thought develop out of another in a more sculptural style of directing thought or is it a more inspirational style where one thought does not directly join onto the next, but rather is in a loose illuminating association ie a complementing form? In this third step, which is to do with a deeper, artistic grasping of the way in which the inner and outer structure of the chapter is built up, the possibility arises of unlocking the text in a much more intimate way as a work of art, a composition. Through this it may then be Possible to come to further deeper understanding of the content in the text and thought relationships.

• The highest stage of grasping in thought and understanding is then the attempt to penetrate to the essential , that means the being of what is written. Rudolf Steiner's spiritual-scientific research rests upon supersensible experiences, which he was able to translate into clear concepts and thought connections. With that he could. also put them into words, making them reproducible and comprehensible for present day people. We want to take the reverse path: Going from the written text, to the effectiveness of the thought; from there to the artistic revelation and in the end to the being of what is recognised and said.

Diagnostics and Therapy and the Pharmaceutical Experiments

First, we will work on diagnosis of the members and the therapy arising from that, using a characteristic case-study from the book Extending Practical Medicine by Steiner/Wegman. This will take place over two consecutive afternoons. In the first the diagnostic method is in the foreground. Then the possibilities of the night are taken practically into account. If I have taken in a picture of a case, a concrete patient situation with as many details as possible, the question arises what does it all say to me for possible therapy, for my therapeutic goal? I take this question into sleep and observe, how and what other aspects reveal themselves, when we take our own ideas regarding the state of illness and health of a patient to a higher wisdom. " Morning is cleverer that the evening" is an old folk saying. Looking at the night from a spiritual-scientific point of view shows that just as we look at everything during daytime from the aspect of the material-physical with the help of our senses, during the night we look at the same things and processes in a social­moral way, ie from a soul-spiritual aspect. Therefore the case studies are placed in such a way, so that the night lies between the discussion of diagnosis and that of therapy. We can thus learn in this way to take note of how particular thoughts or points of view can transform themselves solely because we have taken them consciously into the night.

Professional Ethics and the Inner Path of Development in the form of Meditation and Self Education

In close connection with the review and preview of the day, as well as the specific questions of the participants, the basics elements of the Anthroposophical path of inner meditative schooling and self education will be developed. Here it may well be sensible after a plenary session to also divide the evening seminar time into small groups, particularly if members of various professional groups

are present and it is important to work on questons of professional ethics more strongly in those particular groupings (psychotherapists, dentists, nurses, doctors and others).

Preparatory literature:

Rudolf Steiner/Ita Wegman:            
Grundlegendes für eine Erweiterung der Heilkunst nach geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen GA 27, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1991

Fundamentals of Therapy. Mercury Press, Spring Valley NY 1999

Rudolf Steiner: 
Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik GA 93, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach The Foundation of Human Experience, Anthroposophic Press USA

Michael Evans/lain Rodger:           
Anthroposophical Medicine. Healing for Body, Soul and Spirit. Thorsons, London 1992

Otto Wolff         
Anthroposophisch orientierte Medizin und ihre Heilmittel Anthroposophical Medicine and its Remedies, Mercury Press, Spring Valley, NY, USA

Michaela Gloeckler:            
Medizin an der Schwelle, Persephone 3, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 1993

At the Threshold of a new Conciousness, Anthroposophic Press USA

If you have questions, suggestions or comments regarding the content of these pages, please contact directly the secretary of the Medical Section CH-4143 Dornach, Telephone: +41-61-7064290, Telefax: +41-61-7064291, E-mail: med.sektion@goetheanum.ch. 

This page was updated 08.11.2003.