John oljace wrote on another tread:
''According to Paul Herscu, who I believe is the best homeopath in the world, no remedy should be given before surgery unless indicated. Sure, if person is truly scared and has other indications of aconite it may be helpful, but it is better to wait and not interfere with the vital force until after the surgery. I helped take symptoms of a patient after major surgery and there were no pain meds given after the anesthesia wore off. In providing symptoms I observed, It was 30c aconite and changed to a carbo veg case within 45 minutes and within an hour to Bryonia and then an Arnica state within 2 hours and then the patient was doing so well they were restless and wanting to do things and Ars was given. He was the only patient of about 15 in the recovery room who was alert, awake, and in good spirits within 7 hours and 5 remedies after the surgery. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in homeopathy. Although I have only studied Herscu's method for 2 years after trying many methods of case taking and analysis I have clearly seen much evidence to confidently say Herscu's method and treatment is superior to all others.''

About the use of Arnica:
''Herscu says it is the most over prescribed remedy. The person must be in at least a mild state of shock as if in an out of body experience. They will often act like they are fine and even try to do things they probably should not be doing. Also the pain does not usually show up instantly but shows up later when the person is in a lesser state of shock or after the healing starts, ie a deep bruise type pain is usually delayed. There are obviously other key notes such as a fear of touch because it will cause pain to an existing injury vs. say stramonium which is a fear of touch, of a new injury occurring but these are the primary ones.

Perfect example is 2 kids fall down stairs and one cries a little and within a short period is almost normal except minor pain. the other says he is ok and tries doing things and then complain later or it is obvious mentally he is not clear on what he is doing. The first kid would not get arnica and the 2nd would.''

What is Paul Herscu’s method?

__________________
Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath

i'm ready to listen any input on this new topic/info

Good Morning Hans.

I found the following article in my files. While I am not sure this is what you are seeking, it may be helpful.

Melin
.................................................

Review: A New Method of Finding the Simillimum Report
on a Presentation by Paul Herscu, ND, DHANP
by Laura Lohman-Gannan, DHM

A New Method for Finding the Simillimum, a special seminar presented by Paul Herscu on June 19-20, 1999, at the NCH Summer School in Baltimore, was an introduction to a new model for case and remedy analysis. Initially the model appears as a wonderful organizing tool for all the information homeopaths must weigh for each case. But the real payoff of the method is that through the organizing process, a quality emerges about the person or remedy - and this becomes the common thread for every aspect of the case or remedy. In the examples that follow, you can understand the beauty of the method.

Herscu is attempting to create a standard for case taking and remedy analysis where the outcome generates predictability such that if 50 people were to analyze the same case, there would be 5 remedies to consider rather than 50 - putting to rest at last the common complaint that homeopathy cannot be consistent. Herscu honors all aspects of classical homeopathy but offers this approach so that homeopathy advances into the years ahead with greater understanding and reproducible application in all healthcare disciplines. Homeopathy can never survive as the only form of medicine; it must instead offer itself as a usable and brilliant tool for other healing modalities.

In describing his method for finding the simillimum, Herscu uses the terms "cycles" and "segments." He refers to the "cycle" as the following process: The vital force of an individual is stressed. The vital force reacts (strains) to correct the imbalance. The strain shows itself as signs and symptoms, and the signs and symptoms grow stronger as the vital force over compensates. Then the body tries to correct the over compensation to maintain balance, and the person is brought back to near where he/she started. However, each time around this loop, s/he returns less and less healthy, and the cycle becomes a downward spiral. This cycle is the disease, and it keeps repeating itself over and over.

The "segments" are the groups of symptoms that develop throughout the cycle, the first segment being the chief complaint. Typically homeopaths could extract as many as 100 repertory rubrics for each case, and this is where the repertorization system can break down and cases can become bowls of spaghetti. Herscu observed that if you could categorize the symptoms, there would be simplification, and a non-mechanical aspect of the person would emerge. Each segment could be described as a word or phrase. For example, if there were many discharges from a remedy or a case, one segment might be called "discharges." Under this segment you could form a string of symptoms: ear discharges, nose discharges, diarrhea, menses, sneezing, crying. As you collect this information you would notice that the discharges are all, for example, burning or clear or violent, and this is the emergent quality that allows you to understand that this person or remedy consistently has this type of discharge when under stress. You also begin to suspect that if they have burning discharges, for example, they may feel that releasing in all spheres of living is painful! This is a Sherlock Holmes moment because you begin to sense the common thread and can suspect other outcomes from the patient. As you extend the string of symptoms you understand four aspects: (1) under strain, this body creates discharges (2) the discharges have a certain quality throughout the person (3) the number of symptoms occurring under the segment measures the chronicity of the condition and (4) the reoccurrence of the same type of discharges throughout confirms that you are tracking the chief complaint and creates the predictability for all other discharges for the patient. Once the pattern is established further questions for that segment are no longer necessary.

As you begin a case, you consider the first segment to be the fundamental segment - their chief complaint. In the line of questioning, Herscu stresses that you must determine what aspect of the chief complaint is worst. For example, if someone has headaches, they might initially say they have pain, but before you run ahead asking left or right side, day and night questions, ask them again what is the worst part of the headache. They might answer, the pain, the vomiting, or the feeling of being incapacitated. Then the case is no longer about the headache but is about the vomiting or the pain or feeling incapacitation - whichever is the worst symptom!

Your next segment might be about other reactions when strained. For example, you might find that they have a lot of discharges, so you create a segment for discharges, and as you list them, you begin to see that the person may have other violent reactions when strained, like violent diarrhea or coughing or sneezing, and you realizes the emergent quality is violent overreactions. You begin to feel predictability.

The next segment might encompass what the body does to feel amelioration, so there could be a segment for consolation with a string of symptoms like better for movement, better for eating, better for wind, and the similar theme of movement/exertion begin a response to strain.

Usually there are one or two more segments before one segment contains the opposite quality of the chief complaint. Herscu calls the opposite segment the solution because everything has an opposite in nature. In the materia medica he asks us to find the opposite. For example, in Thuja, the person feels a duality - a sense of not knowing about themselves/disgust within (the chief complaint), but the opposite is the fixed ideas they maintain. Understanding the opposite is more subtle but he suggests using it as a checking method for what you are determining to be the cycle for the person. If you find the opposite of the chief complaint, you are correct. As the reoccurring pattern is revealed over and over, you feel confident.

The last segment in the cycle is the segment that brings on the chief complaint. What causes the strain? Again the theme of the person will be the same; perhaps they are stressed by sudden changes in weather (movement), unpredictable events, etc. It is all a cycle from one to the other. Each segment flows into the next segment, or somehow pushes the person to the next, until you come full circle. Herscu shows us that in a matter of minutes we have arrived at the main theme in the story of the person, and on that basis we can repertorize with computer or book with greater precision and results. The most important payoff is that the remedy or the case has a quality to it that is not achieved through memorization of the repertory, but by looking at the big picture and understanding the one common thread or theme that runs throughout the fabric of the person's life or throughout the remedy. This is an expansion of the homeopathic process. When we understand the story of a person, like all good stories, the mind remembers it and can access it for repeated use without effort. The process is the same for understanding a remedy or case. This is the perfection of the model.

There is practice required in the perfection of this method but Herscu believes it will stand the test of use and allow superior results. As I reflected on the method I was reminded of symphonic form where there are four movements linked together by a common theme. Within each movement there are brass, woodwind, percussion, and strings. Each plays its part in the same theme with its own sound. In combination, there is an emerging quality of sound to each movement. Like the strings of the segment in Herscu's model, each instrument section is a symptom and each movement a segment. Each segment represents a variation of the theme, difference and varying in the intensity. The symphony allows the listener to experience four aspects of the same theme and in the end they combine to create one whole quality or impression about the work itself. Furthermore, there is a quality about the symphony unique to the composer that we will never forget or mistake for another. We will always know Bach from Beethoven and Brahms from Mozart. We know this without memorizing a single note or reading the music; we recognize the music from the emerging quality of the composer. It is an intangible that exists as an undeniable quality and is evident in each piece they compose. Did Bach use different musical notes than Beethoven? No, if you tear up the composed works they are just notes, but it is each composer's expression and combination of those notes that make them unique. I believe Herscu is teaching a method with specific language and observation and organizational techniques that allows the patient and remedies to become as clearly defined for the practitioner as Bach and Beethoven so that, as Herscu so aptly stated repeatedly during the lecture, the conclusion is beyond a shadow of doubt!

Bravo maestro Herscu! Encore, encore! We look forward to your future materia medica and cycles and segments for remedies.

There is information about Herscu's books and method on the following web site
http://www.nesh.com/

Paul Herscu did a seminar in Australia a little while back, and he unfortunately came across very muddled and unclear. It was difficult to understand what he was talking about, and he kept going over very simple homoeopathic philosophy which seemed to have nothing to do with this method. Many people were disgruntled and disappointed by this - it was hard to feel we had learned anything at all. His books are much clearer, so perhaps he is not such a good public speaker.

The feeling that some of us got was that he was not saying anything new - he was just talking about organising the symptoms in such a way as to make repertorising clearer. The segments and cycles which seemed so clear to him, sounded very complicated to us. The idea of finding themes to cover the largest part of the case is very basic to successful prescribing - many of us had already discovered this. Perhaps for people learning the art, it may be more useful.

__________________
David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

dear david

i am pleased you wrote that because the article quoted above seemed to me as if herscu is just pointing out the importance of physical generals [it's an undisputed skill of a good practitioner to be able to identify them], and how they might, speculatively, relate to the mental state.

the example of how to solve a case by confirmatory opposing symptoms was bizarre:

"In the materia medica he asks us to find the opposite. For example, in Thuja, the person feels a duality - a sense of not knowing about themselves/disgust within (the chief complaint), but the opposite is the fixed ideas they maintain."

This is a stretched and rather subjective interpretation of the term 'opposite.'

...which works.

David,
Did you attend Herscu's seminar yourself, or is this a second hand account?

Regards,
Chris

For the record: I have used Herscu's method for 1.5 years now and my success rate after 11 issues of the Herscu letter went from 25-30% to 50-60% withing 9 months. I am taking the 2 year course now and am only 1/2 way through it but am now curing 70-80% of my cases and cutting my case taking time in 1/2 using his method of case taking. Regarding the opposites in thuja, fixed ideas of a person vs. dual ideas or confusion of identity are clearly opposites and are parts of the cycle of the remedy. This method is not simple to udnersrtand until a person understands his whole philosophy and each part of the method including treating the deeper state first and building the whole cycle around that, understanding the heirarchy of methods,and 3-4 other main ideas one must learn to tell which symptoms are important at a given time and which ones are not. Also combining physcial, mental and emotional symptoms into one segement to make the cycle is a critical aspect.

The fact of the matter is I do this in my spare time working under a physician ( I know nothing about medicine) and I know over 20 poeple who went to 3 homeopaths that are considered to be some of the best in the world and only 2 were cured and some ended up stoping homeopathy after many years and the majority ended up seeing Paul Herscu. He has cured or substantilaly improved the health of these people and I am confident he will cure all of them in 2-3 years or less and only a handful of these cases would be considered to be average in terms of difficulty.

I studied many methods of people considered to be the best and Herscu's method has considerably more logic and his interpretation of the Organon, Hanemann and Boenninghausen and a few other classics clearly lead to his method as well as his continued growth in being successful. I wll be publishing more about his method over time but am limited now due to other responsibilities.

I can not imagine there are many homeopaths who would not benefit greatly from learning his method and equally important is his understanding of the true grand characteristics of each remedy and how they form a cycle which results in chronic illness. It is so much easier to distinguish remedies and to find the deeper state as his description of remedies (future materia medica)is more on a modern day level. Even the analysis of the cheif complaint is amazing to understand in order to find out what needs cured first.

best of luck,

John O.

example of curing the deeper state first.

3 year old boy scared to death when left alone in a warhouse. Dellusions saw ghosts and 100 other symptoms, but most debilitating symptoms matched cycle of Opium - dellusons gone within 30 days. Then obsessed with thougths of ghosts as if possessed. Manc. cured this and reduced degree of fears to a lesser state. Then Hellebores for unobserving as if not part of world due to being in sevre fright so long. Then Bar-c,then Calc car. If look at all these remedies and rubrics they share many similartities and similar cycles but Opium is the deepest state to treat first as symptoms more severe then those of other remedies he eventually needed. He is like a new person and doing extremely well. This is major part ofherscu's mehtod. If try to decide between Bar-c and Cal-c always give Bar-c first. Between Bar-c and Hell, always give Hell. first. If not you actually supress the deeper state onlty to return later and confuse the homeopath. Other homeopaths all gave cal-c first and missed the case completely. I have seen this happen over and over.

John O.

So the most debilitating symptom reflects the deeper state. And it sounds like the debilitatin symptoms are based on mentals...Hans is not going to like this.