ANALYTICAL REPERTORY OF THE SYMPTOMS OF THEANALYTICAL REPERTORY OF THE SYMPTOMS OF THE

MINDMIND

Dr. Smita Brahmachari

The practice of Homoeopathy is a balancing act. We weigh

pros and cons to arrive at a prescription; for us differential

diagnosis is not only for identifying the disease but also for

identifying the drug. In such identification process we gather all

the symptoms of the patient, without a prejudiced eye. We do

not judge the patient or censor his sayings for we very well

know the importance of each and every symptoms – whether it

is a mental or a physical symptom. Mental symptoms were used

for the final deciding vote rather than for initial identification of

medicines, except in a few exceptional cases. Pioneer

homoeopaths had this approach to practice that the Mind and

Body are not separate but are only different manifestations of

the same vital force.

The need for such a repertory where the mental

concomitants of physical complaints and physical concomitants

of mental states are available has been met in Dr.C.Hering’s

ANALYTICAL REPERTORY OF THE SYMPTOMS OF

THE MIND. This book contains those symptoms of the mind

that have been observed in connection with the bodily

symptoms. This book is not a collection of mental symptoms as

in Synthetic Repertory, Vol-I. Hering being an ardent follower

of Hahnemann wanted to revive Hahnemannian concept back

into Homoeopathic practice. So, at the end of the ‘Introduction’,

he says that through this work, the future Homoeopaths will be

able to follow the right way of the true Hahnemannian school,

i.e. always to individualize.

This is a humble attempt on my part to represent this

work of Hering. I have used this book in the OPD only a few

times but after going through the whole work, the potentiality of

this book can definitely be felt. We all must try to use this book

and establish the role it can play in our daily practice.