title: Toward topological descriptions of the therapeutic process: part 3. Two new metaphors based on quantum superposition, wave function "collapse," and conic sections.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Quantum theoretical discourse has previously illustrated (1) the therapeutic process as three-way macro-entanglement (between patient, practitioner, and remedy, called PPR entanglement), and (2) depicted the Vital Force (Vf) as a quantized spinning gyroscope. Combining the two via semiotic geometry leads to a topological description of the patient's journey to cure. In this present article, two new metaphors for the homeopathic therapeutic encounter are described, based on (1) a quantum mechanical model of adaptive mutation (QMAM), and (2) the illuminated geometric patterns generated by a light source attached to a spinning gyroscope.
  
  
  METHODS
  (1) QMAM demonstrates how quantum superposition between DNA and mutant adaptations could arise and how environmental pressure "collapses" the DNA wave function to a particular state. In QMAM for the therapeutic process, isolation helps induce coherence between patient, practitioner, and remedy, generating a quantum-like superposition of patient "unwell" and "well" states. (2) The light beam from a precessing gyroscope sweeps out an ellipse, which becomes circular, the faster the gyroscope spins on its axis and the less it precesses. Ellipses have two foci that, as a metaphor for the state of a patient's Vf, are seen to represent the patient's "unwell" and "well" states.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Superposition of the patient's "unwell" and "well" states generated by the QMAM metaphor can "collapse" to the cured state, following decoherence at the end of therapeutic process. Similarly, the curative therapeutic process may be thought to "spin up" the patient's Vf, so the precessing ellipse's foci (i.e., the patient's "unwell" and "well" states) merge into a "circular" curative state.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The two new metaphors may be seen as equivalent and semiotic simplifications of the previous more complex topological description of the patient's "journey to cure."
authors.affiliation: Program for Advanced Homeopathic Research , London, United Kingdom .
authors.forename: Lionel R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Milgrom
mesh_terms: D006705:Homeopathy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations