Monomania [Greek, monos, meaning ‘one,’ and mania, meaning ‘madness,’ or ‘frenzy’] is a form of partial insanity conceived as a single psychological obsession in an otherwise sound individual.
There are several homeopathic remedies, which, in their ‘provings,’ exhibit a form of ‘insanity,’ such as monomania — a state in which the patient is irrational on one subject only. Among them are Aconite napellus, Anacardium orientale, Carbo vegetabilis, Camphor, Helleborus niger, Ignatia amara, Nux moschata, Pulsatilla, Silicea, Stramonium, Sulphur and Thuja occidentalis — where the ‘illness’ that manifests is in line with the essence of each.
Aconite napellus. The Aconite patients exhibit an incontrollable and often unreasonable fear of death. They are obsessed with death, even to the point of predicting the hour of their departure.
Anacardium orientale. The patient possesses many fixed ideas and believes that they are possessed of two persons, or two wills. That they are double. They hear voices from far away, or from the dead, telling, or commanding them, what to do.
Carbo vegetabilis. The patients is obsessed with wanting, or needing, air, which manifests in the constant desire to be fanned.
Camphor. This patient is obsessed with horrible visions and torturing ideas about religion which they cannot shake off even though they are conscious, or aware, of their state.
Helleborus niger. The patient is in a quasi-hysterical condition, imagining that they have sinned away their day of grace. Such patients possess fixed ideas that they have committed some sin.
Ignatia amara. Lovesickness. The romantically, idealistic Ignatia becomes frantically obsessed with love and with falling in love. Ignatia can fall in love with a person in their mind and create fantasies about them. This idealism creates a strong susceptibility to grief with which they subsequently become obsessed.
Nux moschata. The Nux moschata patient believes that they have two heads. There is also a singular state of mind found in some hysterical women in which the woman goes about performing her daily duties, but if interrupted forgets what she is doing. When in this state she has no recollection of past events.
Pulsatilla. These patients are religious freaks and have a particular tendency to dwell on religious notions. They have fixed ideas regarding the scriptures. They also believe that they are in a wonderfully sanctimonious state of mind, or have sinned away their state of grace. They can dwell on sanctification until they become fanatical and insane.
Silicea. These patients can develop fixations about anything to do with the person they care for, or for a subject/type of work to which they are drawn. As example, the Silicea monomania is commonly found in writers, or scholars, who are steadfastly devoted to their work with unwavering concentration.
Stramonium. The Stramonium patient has strange ideas about their body — i.e., that they are misshapen, elongated, deformed, etc. These patients also manifest religious mania in which they see, ghosts, demons, angels, or evil spirits chasing them around the room. They talk to spirits, hear commands from god, hear prophesy, and deliver sermons.
Sulphur. Philosophical mania. Mania over the study of strange and abstract, occult things that are beyond knowledge. They study a variety of them without any basis to figure out, or analyse on and dwell incessantly on the strange and peculiar. They dwell on the sort of reasoning that does not have any hope of a possible answer. For example, a patient who for a long time tries to find the answer to who made god.
Thuja occidentalis. They possess fixed ideas about their bodies because of their distorted senses. They believe that they are very delicate, made of glass and that they will break. They may also feel that there is a strange person at their side; that their body and soul are separated and/or that there is something alive in their abdomen.
