The Phenomenological Perspective in Homeopathy

The homeopathic understanding of disease is primarily orientated towards the phenomenology of disease symptoms (see also Organon Introduction Hahnemann, 2017). All occurring phenomena of the case of illness are evaluated as phenomena in the sense of deviation from the previous "healthy state" of individual regulation and are documented precisely and comprehensively as symptom patterns. A distinction is made between

• Manifest symptoms of the pathology
• functional disorders
• Individual characteristics of regulation (vegetative, hormonal, immunogenic, circadian)
• Conspicuous constitutional features

Case analysis and homeopathic remedy diagnosis

Therefore, all physiological reactions of the patient, as individual signs of his regulation[1] , are explicitly included in the homeopathic case analysis. This means for the practice:

Every disorder or disease is understood as a symptomatically recognisable deviation in the homeodynamics of the organism, which is why all available data on the case - including the medical history - is recorded in a phenomenological overall view:

• all physical complaints,
• their acute and chronic development,
• expression of each symptom with all modalities, sensations, localisations and concomitants,
• the vegetative, somatosensory and hormonal response,
• all metabolic reactions,
• Characteristics of biorhythmics and
• Changes in perception, mood and affect during the course of the illness
• and concomitant symptoms of the complaint.

Established disease entities, such as diabetes, peptic ulcer, anxiety disorder, coronary heart disease, which are defined with their leading symptoms in clinical terminology, are used as diagnostic orientation centres.

It is important to record the individual symptoms, their weighting and all accompanying phenomena and changes in physiological regulation as precisely as possible against the background of the respective pathology. From this, an individualised picture of all symptoms and symptom groups and their development can be created, which forms the foundation of the homeopathic remedy diagnosis. (see Individualisation).

Experiences as to which remedies have helped in certain clinical conditions are recorded in the homeopathic literature in clinical manuals and also partly in repertories (see insert link below). Such treatises and repertory rubrics are not symptoms, but rather a kind of collection box that reflects an impression of experiences with the spheres of action of the remedies mentioned. These are only used indirectly for diagnostic confirmation. The decisive factor is always those individual symptoms of the individual case that correspond as closely as possible with the remedy to be selected in relation to the disorder or disease.

Significance of Clinical Diagnoses

Clinical diagnoses (physical examination findings, laboratory diagnostics and imaging procedures) therefore help to

• for case understanding and
• for weighting the symptoms,

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• precise findings can be used to assess the course of the case and thus
• can be used for prognostic assessment.

Current research findings on the respective diseases therefore provide a constantly welcome expanded foundation for:

• an interdisciplinary approach to homeopathic treatment options, and
• often significantly support patient-oriented counseling on a case-by-case basis.

In addition, there are all the bio-psycho-social correlations of symptom development, which help to understand and prioritise individual reactions in the context of living conditions.

However, the clinical aspects alone are not a sufficient basis for a homeopathic prescription.

For example: A patient with migraine is not given a homeopathic medicine solely on the basis of his headache symptoms, but after analysing his entire individual symptom pattern, of which the migraine symptoms are only one part. Added to this are all other characteristics of his vegetative, hormonal and immunological regulation as well as all aspects of his life situation that are useful for understanding in order to be able to make a hermeneutic weighting of the correlations of the entire case.

In practice, this means that several patients with the same clinical diagnosis, e.g. migraine and perhaps also similar headache symptoms, receive different homeopathic remedies in different dosages, as their medical histories and individual symptoms, i.e. their symptoms, differ:

• their symptoms in detail,
• the circumstances of their occurrence,
• the connection with other complaints,
• the individual case history and,
• Stresses that promote illness

significantly from each other. If the symptom pattern changes in the course of the case, the selected homeopathic remedy must either be adjusted in dosage after re-analysis or replaced by a more suitable remedy.

Conventional drug research and homeopathy

This complexity complicates the simple applicability of conventional drug research according to the gold standard of the randomised controlled trial (RCT), which sets narrowly indication-specific endpoints and requires randomisation with anonymisation of the patients in order to objectify achievable statements about specific drug reactions. (More about evidence-based medicine - EBM).

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[1] Hahnemann often uses the old term coincidences (german: Zufälle) in the sense of changes that coincide with the symptoms, which cannot be causally derived from the existing disease process.

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Sources und References

Hahnemann, S. (2017). Organon der Heilkunst (6. Aufl.). Hahnemann Institut für homöopathische Dokumentation. https://archive.org/details/organon-der-heilkunst

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Authors: glt | Rev.: gbh, mnr, sfm, smi | Ed.: pz | Last modified Apr. 10, 2025