Emotions and Bach Flower Remedies

Dr Bach’s keyword was “simplicity”. He believed that all in Nature is simple and is capable of satisfying our needs – food, water, air, heat. Therefore, Nature itself is capable of providing us the means for our well being.

Bach thus wanted to create a “simple” system, which would use Nature’s own products, and could be at everybody’s disposal. In fact, according to him, Remedies should be taken in the same way as one takes a lettuce leaf in order to satisfy his hunger.

As a matter of fact, Dr Bach chose the Remedies with the intention of reducing the undesirable effects of stress, as they are capable of acting directly on one’s mind – and therefore on one’s emotions – by boosting the immunity system. One could thus state that Bach Flower Remedies are capable of changing distress into eustress. This means that singling out those true emotions that produce stress in an individual is of extreme importance in order to choose the right Remedies, and therefore to heal or prevent disease.

Within Bach’s System, emotional problems can be either “transitory” or “long term”. The former are emotional states that last for a relatively short period of time, whereas the latter are emotional states that are there since a long time – even since years – and no solution has ever been really found (perhaps because one has adapted to circumstances). These negative emotions have, with time, modified one’s personality by accumulating in what is called ” the snowball effect”.

We can ourselves choose the remedies for transitory emotional states by passing into a state that psychologists call metaemotion, that is by trying to face our emotional states, in order to singling them out clearly. But, as said before, when these emotional states have been ignored for a long time, then “layers” of negative emotions are formed which have to be recognised and “discovered” one by one. This process has been associated to the opening up – layer by layer – of an onion: each layer of the onion corresponds to a negative emotion we have to free ourselves of before reaching its core. What can we expect to find in the core of the onion? Sometime, we might discover our “type Remedy”, showing us the main quality of our personality we should work on. Some other time, it could be a traumatic event which was not rightly resolved at the time when it happened. Or else, it could be a small emotion that has overgrown. The only way to know it is to start lifting up the layers of our onion one by one. The way to do it is the following:

1. choose the remedies needed at the time, for how we feel “now”
2. take them regularly until we feel they are not working any more
3. choose the remedies again
4. stop when the need is felt

This way, the remedies give us the opportunity to learn something about ourselves. It is an enriching process, which teaches us how we are predisposed to respond to stress. If used in the proper way, remedies can give us insights about who we really are. Anyway, it should be pointed out that should we take remedies we don’t need, they would not interfere with the appropriate ones, becoming passive.

Sometimes it is difficult to “understand oneself”, especially if one is not used to listen to the body’s – and therefore the mind’s – messages, therefore the help of a practitioner is needed, someone who may understand our true emotional states in order to choose the right remedies.

Integrating Counselling with Bach’s Remedies – PART I

Both Counselling and the Bach System have the same common objective of solving the client’s stress by the awareness of the causes that have produced it. Evidence is that self-healing is slow, and that a boost in the client’s immunity system comes spontaneously.

The methods used in Counselling and in the Bach System differ in that the former consists in a series of interviews with the client, whereas the latter consists in a first in-depth interview aiming at prescribing the Flower Remedies which are found most appropriate for the emotional states that the client is living at the moment of the interview, and another follow-up.

Therefore, in comparing a Counsellor to a Bach Flower Practitioner, the latter has one further tool, and during the courses at the Edward Bach Foundation modern Counselling techniques (from Carl Rogers’ Client-Centered Therapy to Eric Berne’s transational analysis and Stephen Karpman’s dramatic triangle) are all studied as part of the system’s knowledge.

Through my personal experience, during consultations with my clients, I had the chance to verify the efficaciousness of integrating modern Counseling with the Bach Remedies, and I wish this method could be used by those who are interested in true and effective consultations.