A child may have Sycotic traits right from birth [without going through the psoric phase] when there is parental inheritance [for e.g.. history of gonorrhea in parents] OR…
The child may slide from the psoric to sycotic phase depending on the external influences or any suppressive line of treatment taken, as explained in the psoric miasm.
A child in the Sycotic phase is confused mentally and physically. He, thus, reacts in 4 different ways :
- Reacts after a long time with a pause between action and reaction
- Reacts in a way which is harmful to himself [e.g., internalizing of the emotions or of the disease]
- No reaction at all
- Repression of emotions
As discussed earlier our life revolves around :
1] World of facts
Sycotic children are those who are sensitive but are confused because of fatigue.
In Sycotic phase, the children have a poor memory. They forget everything very easily, they do not remember even the most common names, numbers, etc. Their memory is weak for both recent and past events, more so for recent events. Their concentration levels are low and hence they have difficulty in concentrating on one task.
There is always a state of predominant confusion because the child does not know how to handle the stimuli. In spite of all the slowness and dullness, the child who is in the sycotic phase, always desires more for less effort.
2] World of perception
In the sycotic phase, the images that are stored are full of altered perception, confusion and negativity. Their perceptions are unclear and the children find it difficult to judge or perceive any condition or make mistakes in perceiving the realities of life, at both the mental and physical level.
3] World of imagination
Sycotic children have a lot of non-constructive, negative or fixed ideas. They keep building up more and more ideas in their mind; they plan a lot of big things, but never carry on these imaginations / ideas to fruition. Even if they do try to implement them, they cannot see them through to the end, which often leaves them sad and depressed.
Sycotic child
Evolution of a sycotic child
Causative factor
Suppression at the physical [e.g. suppressive line of treatment] or at the mental level [emotional suppression] is a very important causative factor for all problems in sycotic children.
Milestones
Whether there is suppression at the physical or the mental level, the formative years of sycotic children are not well organized. Usually one of the developmental milestones in these children is delayed, either head holding, walking, talking, teething, etc.
Intellect
Sycotic children are dull, lazy, sluggish and slow to act. They are slow to assimilate or receive any stimulation and also slow to respond, or to react to any stimuli.
These are the children who are not in touch with time and reality of life, and they succumb to external pressures easily.
Child at play
Sycotic children usually do not enjoy playing because of their laziness and sluggishness.
They play games which involve sitting at one place. They are especially disinclined to play outdoor games. You will often observe that sycotic children will love watching sports but if you ask them to take an active part in any of the sports, they will not do so.
They always desire to win, by whichever means, and usually by crooked means which comes naturally to them.
Paintings of sycotic children are shabby, disorganized and with dark colors. Their paintings are usually half done, even their completed paintings have no meaning, which clearly reflects their confusion.
Stories which sycotic children prefer to listen are those of jealously, corruption, evil, cheating, stealing etc. [In real life also they portray these kind of personalities. Young children who resort to stealing, lying, anti-social behaviors to the extent of homicide are strongly sycotic responses]
Scholastic performance
Academically, sycotic children are poor to average in studies. Basically these children have no interest in studies. They do not want to study or put forth any effort and yet they cannot accept failure. In order to pass their exams these children will resort to copying, snatching another child’s paper, taking chits to examination halls, etc.
They forget what to write in the exams out of confusion or anxiety as to how they will perform. Their memory is weak, for words, letters, reading etc. They have a difficulty in remembering what they have studied, and make mistakes all the time. There is marked poverty of thoughts, logic, rationality, etc. Their mind just does not seem to work and hence these children like doing home work which is repetitive [more mechanical rather than intelligent work]
Sycotic children bring home a lot of complaints from school regarding studies, behavior, attention, play, etc.
Emotional pattern
Negative emotions
Sycotic children are easily moved to negative emotions like anger, irritability, rage, hurt, jealousy, suspiciousness etc.
For example:
Anger and irritability is a very strong quality in sycotic children. Children are easily angered or irritated without any reason, but they find it very difficult to express these emotions. Instead, they keeps on thinking about such incidences constantly, and build up hard feelings against all those who have hurt them or troubled them in any way.
Scheming and Planning
If somebody scolds them, they will not weep or show any emotions [like most children do]. Instead, they start thinking about the incidence over and over again, and develop hatred towards the person [be it his parents or closest friends] who has hurt them, they will then keep making plans and schemes as to how they will take revenge, etc. Forgive and forget is not the policy of sycotic children.
Brooding
Thus, sycotic children keep on internalizing their emotions all the time. There is a constant bottling up of negative emotions within them, which keep on troubling them all the time. They keep brooding over such instances +++ which is a very important feature of this miasm.
Anxiety
In extremely young children, this anxiety is seen in form of restlessness, sudden weeping, getting up frightened at night [because of anxious and frightful dreams], enuresis etc.
In slightly older children, the anxiety is manifested either in their studies or at play.
Anxiety is often seen in their reluctance to appear in the exams without any reason. Their anxiety is so marked that they may develop physical symptoms like sweating, palpitations, diarrhoea, etc. whenever they are appearing for an exam or participating in any event. Once they finish the exams, they will develop anxiety about whether they will pass or fail in their exams.
These children will also show a marked anxiety +++ about their health, they constantly feel they will fall sick or that they are suffering from some grave illness. [You will often observe sycotic children coming to a physician for a mild trifling ailment like a cold, and they will exaggerate their complaints as if they are suffering from a very long illness like pneumonia!!!].
They are true hypochondriacs who in the later stages of illness , develop all sorts of fixed ideas about their body and health .[for example, they think their body is made of glass – a typical Thuja state]
This anxious state often makes them fearful of everything around them; they develop marked fear of being alone, of dark, of failures, of performance, of meeting people, etc.
Even their dreams manifest their anxious state; they dream as if something bad would happen, of death, of missing a train, of failing in exams, of missing achievement, failures, etc.
Obstinacy
Sycotic children are extremely obstinate and headstrong. They will do whatever they desire to do, they are very demanding and once they want something they want it at any cost. They cannot bear the slightest contradiction for anything. Everyone must listen to them and keep them happy but they will not listen to anybody be it their parents or friends. When their demands are not met with, they feel extremely sad, depressed and frustrated.
Selfishness
Another most important factor in sycotic children is ” Love of Self ”
Sycotic children are extremely self centered and selfish in nature. They only think about themselves and will go to any extent to accomplish their goals or wishes. Hence, these children often turn out to be sly, crafty, and malicious in their manners.
Right from a very young age, the sycotic children are jealous and selfish. They are very possessive about their parents. The children in this phase will not allow their parents to love their younger siblings. If the parents cuddle and love the other child, they become jealous, rageful and will harm the younger ones when they are alone.
They will attract attention of their parents and others, by creating self-pity or by attention seeking behaviors.
Greed
Sycotic children are very greedy; they don’t part with their things easily. They are never satisfied with what they have; they always want more of everything.
For example:
They will never share their toys / books etc. with anyone. They will keep their belongings to themselves and also want to acquire what other children have. These children are often termed as miserly.
Even if they have 5 chocolates they would like to have all of them. They will not only eat all of these, but also grab other children’s sweets.
Their greediness for food is so marked, that out of mere desire of not wanting to share their food with anyone, they eat excessively and out of proportion [that is why sycotic children are always obese in constitution.]
[In older children, this quality of greediness is further carried and develops into a fixed idea or a fear, a fear of poverty, these young children feel they will have no money left, this makes them even more miserly than ever !!]
Fixed ideas
Another manifestation of their fixed ideas is their belief in lucky and unlucky numbers; superstitions, black cats etc. and they rely on these things for all that they want to do.
Thus, it is evident that in the later stages of disease, the sycotic children develop a lot of fixed ideas; it could be either related to their health / their greedy nature / belief in lucky and unlucky numbers, etc. These ideas are so strongly grilled in the mind of sycotic children that no amount of reasoning or explanation will change them.
As the disease progresses further, the child develops a lot of delusions, illusions and hallucinations which is a very important feature of this miasm. The different types of delusions, hallucinations, illusions may be those of animals, of ugly faces, delusions that he /she is very ill, or that she will become insane, as if everything is unreal, of distant voices, etc.
Transition from Sycotic to Tubercular phase
The last phase of sycosis is evident in children who resort to all sorts of addictions and harmful tendencies [evidence of child sliding from the sycotic to tubercular phase]
Also, self destruction begins in this phase. Repeated frustrations and failures lead to severe depression and suicidal tendencies in these children at a very young age.
Acceptance
A sycotic child would never ever admit his mistakes. They will always blame others for the mistakes which they commit. Even when scolded, these children will repeat the same mistakes again.
These children want to succeed in life without making an effort. If they are successful they will be highly egoistic about it and take the entire credit of their success on themselves. Even if others are successful, they want to take credit for others’ success.
And, when they fail, they want to blame all their failures on somebody else; they never want to take responsibility of anything!!
Acceptance of failure just does not come to them. Repeated failures lead to sadness, depression or even suicidal tendencies in these young children.
Sickness pattern
As mentioned previously, sycotic children will fall sick when there is any suppression either at the physical or the mental level.
Since they have very little capacity to bear stress and strain in life, they fall sick very easily.
The illness develops slowly, it is usually chronic in nature, with a low to moderate intensity and it never resolves easily.
Treatment
Sensitivity level of children belonging to this phase is low to moderate; their reaction to any stimulus is slow and passive, lasting for a long duration and with a low intensity. Any problem takes a long time for resolution.
Since the sensitivity and susceptibility of sycotic children is low to moderate, a remedy with a medium or low potency is required to combat the disease.
With the appropriate homeopathic treatment, a child can be reverted back to the psoric stage, though remnants of sycotic traits may remain if the disease had well progressed.
If inappropriate [suppressive line of treatment] or no treatment is carried out the child may slide into the tubercular or the syphilitic stage depending on the disease condition, the external factors & internal inheritance.
Behavioral disorders seen in sycotic children
- Obsessive compulsive disorders
- Delusions
- Illusions
- Hallucinations
- Schizophrenia
- Fear/ phobias
- Anxiety states
Young children suffering from autoimmune disorders, psychosomatic disorders, migraine, bronchial asthma, obesity, etc. are all sycotic responses.
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Editor: We will publish some exciting cases of the sycotic miasm by Dr. Jawahar Shah, in our next issues.
