The concept of individualisation describes the practical diagnostic procedure and is based on the development of specific symptoms over time, which must be diagnosed using all available tools. This is done in several successive steps:
Step One - Case Evaluation
- Case intake with detailed medical history and biographical anamnesis
- Detailed clinical examination, status praesens
- Gathering and arranging all essential external findings (laboratory, imaging procedures, paediatric development reports, educational learning reports, psychological reports)
Step Two - Case Analysis
- Develop a working hypothesis (see below) on the individual case from a holistic perspective (cf. there)
- Identify and prioritise the individual symptoms of the case - in other words, select the stable symptoms of the case that best reflect the working hypothesis
- There may also be several working hypotheses, especially if the data and findings are incomplete, as is the case in everyday practice, so that a decision must be made on how to proceed. This reduces prescribing certainty.
How is a working hypothesis formed?
The working hypothesis (WH) is a formulated description of the understanding of the case. It is based on the phenomenology and the hermeneutically developed context of the individual case. For this purpose, the development and course of the disorder with the essential subjective qualities of the condition at the time the case was recorded should be recorded retrospectively as precisely as possible.
In this way, the most likely assumption for understanding the case becomes the working basis. From this, the symptoms that best represent the condition and its development can be compiled with their modalities, localisations, sensations and accompanying symptoms. With the help of the working tools repertory and Materia Medica, the homeopathic diagnosis of these symptoms is then carried out by comparing remedies in order to select the most suitable remedy with its equivalents in the Materia Medica.
The WH is constantly adapted during the course of the case after evaluation. It makes it possible to create an individual prognosis over the course of the case if it can be falsified as consistent. To this end, the working hypothesis should be elaborated so precisely that it can also be falsified.
Step three - Drug diagnosis
Step three - Remedy Diagnosis
- Hierarchisation of the individualised symptoms of the case of illness by means of materia media comparison - in other words, repertorisation[1] and materia medica study, i.e.
- the compared symptoms are sorted according to their degree of differentiation (grading), checked for completeness, clear modalities and qualities of the sensations are assigned to the Materia Medica
- Often a differential diagnostic comparison of several possible remedies is necessary in order to find the most suitable remedy with the highest agreement between the case data of the WH and the Materia Medica information.
Summary
In summary, the individualization of the case of illness refers to:
- Systematically working out the symptom pattern in individual cases
- Creating a working hypothesis of the of the disease
- Selection of symptoms representing the WH
- and weighting of the stable symptoms of the disorder for the comparison
Knowledge of the development of symptoms over the course of the patient's medical history, i.e. which phenomena developed when and how, with or against each other, is crucial for this - regardless of whether it is a
- Acute, newly emerged disorder,
- acute crisis of a chronic condition or
- Progression of a chronic disease course,
is concerned. On the basis of this methodically stringent approach, the individualisation of the case, a systematically substantiated differentiation of remedies can take place. This process is known as homeopathic remedy diagnosis.
[1] Homeopathic repertories are comprehensive encyclopaedias in which defined drug reactions and clinical symptoms are assigned to the appropriate known homeopathic remedies in an overview.
Authors: glt | Rev.: gbh, mnr, sfm, smi | Ed.: pz | Last modified Apr. 10, 2025