This article deals with the metals as the backbone of anthroposophically oriented therapy of mental diseases.  The relationship of a metal to the affected organ will be discussed briefly.  For more specific and detailed information, the reader is referred to the author’s chapter on psychiatry in Vol. II Part 2, Fr. Husemann, O. Wolff, “The Image of Man as the Basis of the Art of Healing. [The Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine, vol. III]”  The examples given in this article are based on experience in the Friedrich Husemann Clinic, Buchenbach (Freiburg, Germany) observations by other psychiatrists and doctors of family medicine as well as my own experience.  These topics have been discussed in the “Hochschulwochen fuer Psychiatrie” [psychiatry week] held at the Medical Section of the Goetheanum.

Conclusion

From the above deliberations can be concluded that therapy—using medicines and psychotherapy in the sense of an Ego therapy—do not only complement and support each other but one therapy is able to amplify the effects of the other therapy. For the therapy based on medications, psychotherapy may open up wider horizons. More differentiated relations to personality, biography and life phases are revealed. The therapeutic action of medicines can be directed more specifically to a particular organ and can take on a more concrete form because psychotherapy is able to contribute to a refinement of the “psychology of organs.” The simultaneous involvement of other organs associated with the major disturbance of one organ process may be seen more clearly. Similarly, a widening of the horizons of psychotherapy can be developed through the “sister therapy,” particularly in the direction of the cosmos. The organ relations reveal views into the spheres of the planets, which in turn influence the seven-year periods of human life. Psychotherapy can also take on more concrete forms. Through the use of a certain medicine the contribution of one can become clearer for the psychotherapist and he will be able to direct his psychotherapy more specifically to one specific organ. Through such organ aspects a counterweight is developed balancing a psychotherapy which has become too personally involved with the patient resulting in too strong and fixed bonds of the patient to the psychotherapist. Psychotherapy work down to the body, medicines work up to the conscious soul life. These two therapeutic processes meet each other. One could ask the question: in which organ sphere, in which realm of the soul do they meet in one case or another? In the last analysis, it is the meeting, the dialogue between the word of the human spirit and the words of the worlds in the healing substance, of which the therapist may become aware of in his consciousness. The Self, carrying out the therapy, moves always between two levels of therapy. Through destiny therapists are more inclined to the one or other level of therapy but in each case the somatic as well as the psychic realm has to be taken into account. Even though a therapist may not be able or willing to be active in both realms, he should have both in his consciousness. If he wants to limit himself, he should, if at all possible, cooperate with a colleague, who has a vocational call for and experience in a different field. In this connection, a statement by Rudolf Steiner should be mentioned that “specialization” has become a necessity, but it should be compensated by some form of “socialization.”[i] Exchange and cooperation between therapists, who are predominantly working in the somatic field and those who are predominantly working within psychotherapy, may help that within the framework of anthroposophic medicine—the patient is not only recognized in his totality, but can also receive an evermore effective therapy.