The most debilitating symptom for the patient in terms of functioning in the world is a good way to look at the deeper state of which the case should be built around to find the pattern or cycle of why they remain ill.

However, the remedy selection is based on a cycle of main ideas that logically makes sense. These main segments or idea or grand characteristics are a combination of mental, emotional and physical generals. All are important to the extent they are strong, or frequent or peculiar and debilitating to the patient in terms that they are using up a lot of energy that is keeping the body from healing.

Example: cycle of Rhus tox: Injury leads to feeling of resrtiction and anxiety that leads to restlessness and motion that leads to an over exertion again leading to an injury and the cycle continues. Every rhus tox patient will exhibit most of these main ideas in a mental, physical or emotional way. It then makes it very easy to distinguish it from otehr similar remedies. I have seen and use cycles for many remedies, even the samll and seldom used ones and while it is not an exact science the whole philosophy and method clearly simplify the whole process and increase the success rate considerably.

Some remedies have 5 segments and some have as many as 9 for the more complicated and larger remedies. They all have many opposite main ideas/segments that allow a cycle or cirle to form representingthe pattern of the patients disease. They are logically connected in that one leads to another. This method also allows one to ask logical questions to distinguish remedies and to find many examples or strong intense or peculiar symptoms to find remedies quicker. Some cases, even chronic ones unfold in 45 minutes or less. It truly is amazing. It takes about 6 months to understand everything and then about 6-9 months to be good at it but it is the best investment I ever made and I do this on a very limited basis due to otehr responsibilities, but have become very efficient at it. I had trained under a homeopath who taught a method by a well known canadian homeopath. They are quite different and Hersc's method is clearly more logicla and superior in practice.

John O.