The Sehgal Method Dr.M.L.

Sehgal and his genuine work known as Sehgal method has become an icon in the homoeopathic world. Dr.Sehgal had a passion for doing things with perfection. Initially he was attracted towards homoeopathy after he had seen some good results in cases treated by a homoeopath. He became curious after seeing the amazing work of small pills. He started studying it as a hobby. Later it became his passion.. He had started treating family members and close friend to gain practical experience. He used to discuss his cases with reputed homoeopathic doctors of his time. Though he was getting miraculous results but was also failing in many cases. He had a feeling that somewhere something is lacking. Why it is so that in some cases we get wonderful results and in other we fail miserably? Why it is that we are not able to apply hearing law in each and every case. ? He thought that if it is a law it has to be applicable in each and every case, like the law of gravity. Why patient feels hesitant to approach in homoeopathy straight away after knowing his problem? He started studying further in search of some more vital clues. He looked into journals, encyclopedias and other available literature. Incidentally while treating a boy of 10 for high fever on alternate days. Dr.Sehgal observed that child liked to remain in bed, not complaining about anything, and on asking how is he? , boy replied, He is well. Dr. Sehgal used to read and apply some rubrics from the mind section of Kents repertory. He had no clue how to use these common, usual symptoms like desire to remain in bed, not complaining, saying well he is even when sick, He had prescribed Hell., opium., and Stram. the remedies for painlessness of complaint but no medicine worked on him. Then he had a fresh look at the case and on the basis of the following rubrics: INDIFFERENCE, complain does not WELL, says he is when very sick BED, desire, to remain in Hyos became the indicated remedy, which was administered in 30th potency with astonishing results. The boy recovered with a week after getting 2-3 milder attacks. He passed loose stool at the end of the final attack. The recurrence of the fever stopped thereafter. That was the turning point in his practice. Encouraged by the above result he started observing such symptoms which seems to be common, ordinary and usual symptoms representing the mental state of the patient during the sickness. He also started understanding the meaning, interpretation and applicability of mind rubrics. According to Dr.Sehgal a patient knowingly or unknowingly can speak anything related to his / her problem. He / she could start telling what could be the uppermost in his mind. Like he / she straight away start telling a physician about pain, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, or about social problem / business / work / domestic life / married life etc. He / She will express in a plain way. We have to observe, What he says How he says, Why he says, and When he says.

Let us take an example. We often come across this common question from patients, How long will the treatment last? This question has annoyed us sometime or the other in the beginning of our practice. Some patients put this question on the very first day others put it after they have received treatment for sometime. What a silly question? How on earth can a patient expect his physician and specially a homoeopath to tell him how long will his treatment last. They come to us with the feeling that homoeopathy is an eradicative therapy and can cure but still worry about the time it will take for the complete cure. Later on as we went on practicing this system more and more we tried to really understand our patients. First thing we tried to understand was that these common remarks are coming from a layman who has no knowledge about medicine. Secondly, when a patient is asking a physician about the duration of his treatment there must be some kind of doubt / confusion / fear / anxiety etc in his / her mind. Instead of getting annoyed with his question, we try to understand his concern behind this question, how long does the patient have to take the treatment might not be an important question for a physician but it could be very important for the patient. Somewhere in his mind some sort of doubt / fear / anxiety etc are bothering him more than the pain, difficulties, desires, aversions caused by his problem. Some of the common expressions I got from my patients are: 1) With great annoyance in his voice a patient says, Already so much time has been wasted. I have tried allopathic, homoeopathic even ayurvedic treatment but from no where have I got any relief. I doubt if you would be able to do anything DOUBTFUL, of recovery 2) Patient says, I have already spent so much time and money on the treatment. I am worried about how much more I will have to spend on it. FEAR, extravagance of 3) Patient says, I am concerned about it because if it doesnt get cured soon then it might lead to some bigger problem in the future. ANXIETY, future about 4) Patient says, If I know when I would get better then I could organize things in my life and plan accordingly for the future. LIGHT, desires for 5) Patient says, I always have a fear in my mind that things may go out of hand in case they are not treated properly and timely then it will be too late and no other option would left for me. FEAR, betrayed of being 6) The same question is asked by a patient after sometime has passed in the treatment. He says something likes, Its been many days; I feel it should end now, it become boring. ENNUI 7) He adds, I want to discontinue your treatment at once. He has enough of it and is now averse to any more treatment. DISGUST Similarly in other situation when a patient asks the doctor, I am not getting any relief. Should I go for X- ray, ultra sound or blood test? I may have some serious problem like cancer. There will be patients who just before the case taking make an inquiry Do homeopathy medicine aggravates the disease? I have heard this about homeopathic medicine like that it first aggravate the disease. It may be good but I am scared of it, so please do not give me medicines which can cause aggravation. There are some patients who require a guarantee, which a physician can not give and then that makes them hesitant towards homeopathic treatment.

These are the PRESENT, PREDOMINATING, and PERSISITNG mental states of the patient. Every word of the patient is to be weighed, evaluated and interpreted in the language of rubrics and then out of them the present, predominating, and persisting are to be sorted out to make a basis for prescription. So instead of explaining the meaning of the rubrics Dr. Sehgal preferred to convert the expressions of the patients into the rubrics as they appear in Kents repertory For example Take the case of a house maid, she was separated from her husband and had two children totally dependent upon her. After getting frequent attacks of malaria, she became depressed. She had high fever and she was worried that she couldnt afford to fall sick so often, as no body will pay her for the period of her absence from work. She wept at her helplessness. WEEPING, sad thoughts HELPLESSNESS It led to the medicine Stram. 30 was prescribed. The lady was out of the grip of the fever within a few days. A girl of 19 used to have attacks of urticaria with high fever. She was hospitalized twice for the severity of the attacks with grave prognosis. The doctors feared that attacks of severe intensity at short intervals could endanger her life. She said, I was expecting the attacks anytime and I did not like to attend college because of unwarranted remarks from my classmates. She further said that she was averse to any kind of work except sweeping the floor. She reserved this job for herself for the fear of infection. She could not rely upon other do it as well. Desire for amusement was also present in her. FEAR, infection of AMUSEMENT, desires for Lach 30 was prescribed to her. This time attack came with lesser intensity and for smaller duration and then it never came again. What is revolutionized method, and why is it named so? A ) What is the change ? Simply put, it is emphasizing on mind symptoms and prescribing only according to them. Classical method also agrees that if we have dependable mental symptoms we can ignore the physical ones. According to them, the mental symptoms are not to be found in every patient. It is at this point that revolutionized method differs from it in the concept. It observes that no individual at any given time is without any mental state. If a person requires medicine, that is, if he is sick, it is not necessary that he must be angry or weepy or anxious. He may be a normally behaving person covered by the rubrics like cheerfulness, ecstasy, exhilaration etc. Here we will take up one of Dr.M.L.Sehgals case of a priest (religious head) who ran a big ashram in London. He was suffering from allergic asthma. My brother wrote to me that he is a devote of an ashram and wants his priest to be treated by me, because the priest finds a lot of difficulty in his meditation and in conducting havan (a ritual in Hindu religion performed around the fire through offerings of butter, oil, grains and perfumes, to various Gods and Goddesses). I told my brother, let your priest write to me in his own hand in a simple way and then contact me on the phone after a few days for a few minutes to me. Priest wrote his case history giving all the symptoms of allergic asthma. He wrote, Although I am quite indifferent towards feelings of love or hate, since I have renounced everything in this world, I still feel a little uneasy when I find obstruction in the performance of my religious duties. I

asked him only one question Does the obstruction cause any effect on your state of mind and force you to abandon your routine work, rituals, prayers etc? He said, Now I have come to accept it as a reality, which perhaps I have to live with, and I dont allow anything to obstruct me in the performance of my religious rites. On the following rubrics: 1) RECOGNISE, everything , but cannot move Original rubric in Repertory (RECOGNISES, everything, but cannot move, recognize (catalepsy). 2) INDIFFERENT, lies with eyes closed Cocc. Ind. 30 was prescribed in three small doses, to be taken after 15 minutes interval. It is now been about a decade since the priest had not had anymore attacks of asthma. The priest was so grateful that he propagated the news of his recovery among his followers spread all over the city of London. What I want to emphasize through this example is that it is the present mental state, in whatever form and style it may be present which is important and need be given attention. B) How to select a remedy? Since the mind is a vast field, for the purpose of selecting a remedy we must select from the present mental state, persistent and predominant symptoms, which I call signals. C) What is the meaning of P.P.P.? What persists is that which is trying to settle permanently, what predominates is that which is the uppermost and all powerful. In other words it does not allow other symptoms to raise their heads. In the case of priest, at times there may have been many thoughts in his mind about his sickness yet one final thought, of identifying and accepting the reality, was predominant. Let me tell you here that this phenomenon has a scientific background. It is the powerful that prevails, in the criteria of so called infection. If a person is already suffering from a powerful infection no infection weaker than that, like a seasonal fever etc. can have any effect on him. In other words if he is suffering from a disease which is less powerful than another infection which invades his body later, the former will get subdued and the later will predominate and will require to be treated first. And only when the system is cleared of the powerful infection the weaker of the two infections will present it and demand treatment. D) Case taking and implementing P.P.P. For selecting a remedy, treat a patient like a computer in human frame that emits signals in the form of speech and action, which when combine, form expressions. Convert these expressions into the language of rubrics as listed in the repertory, in the mind section. In other words it is decoding and deciphering the signals of mind in a mechanical way. It is as if the data has been pre- fed by whatever order or disorder is going on in the body and the computer is throwing this data on the surface. Why I call it mechanical is to guard you against becoming emotional at the time of case taking. The patient may abuse or misbehave with you in the worst manner but you must remain detached and then react to his behavior. Your relation is exactly like the one between a meter and a meter reader. The job of the meter reader is to concentrate, and try his best to read the meter accurately remaining objective all the time. E ) When not to prescribe? I am of the opinion that before a doctor examines a patient he should check whether he himself is fit to do the job well. As in judicial norms, it is well known that a judge should make judgments only when he is in a normal mood, i.e. only when he is in a balanced state of mind. In the same way a doctor should also be in a normal frame of mind when he prescribes medicine. We have many rubrics like: 1) GROPING, as if in the dark

2) CAPRICIOUSNESS 3) CONFUSION 4) CALCULATING , inability for If the physician is himself under the influence of any of these mind rubrics, he should not expect himself to be capable of selecting the right medicine. The right course for him in such a situation will depend upon the type of patient he is dealing with. If you feel that the patient is co-operative, you can tell him the truth that you are not in the right frame of mind at that moment, requesting him to come on the next day or at any other suitable time. You will win his respect. He will be assured that he is in proper hands. The second course is to send the patient back with placebo i.e. blank pills, with the instruction to report on the next day so that you have the time to study his case with a clear and stable mind. The third option is for the patient, who is in a relatively serious condition. If the patient really cannot wait you can request him to consult someone else following these three norms will never let you down in your practice. So while you have to be mechanical in your approach you also have to use your intelligence to understand the symptoms of the patient accurately. To conclude, the main criteria is to arrive at the indicated remedy with the help of the tenets of the present, predominating and persisting symptoms without any bias or prejudice, that is without considering its grade as given in the repertory, ignoring things like whether the remedy is short, or deep acting and whether it covers any miasm. According to the experience of Dr.Sehgal, if the selection of the medicine is correct, it must act in two ways: 1) First action 2) Second action The first action is instant relief in any kind of physical and mental pain or discomfort. The second action is the reversal of the original complaints. The relief under the first action may last for only a few seconds, minutes, hours or days and it is sometimes here that we are required to be very careful, because it is the first action that gives the indication whether the remedy prescribed is right. If the indication of the first action is missed it might happen that the effects of second action mistaken for the signs of the first mislead you into changing the medicine or raising its potency. As a result the case might take a wrong direction from the very beginning. The second action is quite opposite to the first one because the ailments, on the basis of which the medicine was prescribed, come back. Here you have to think whether the return of the complaint is due to the advancement of the disease or it is the curative action of the medicine as part of the total curative process. To verify this, first of find out what happened to the symptoms of mind on which the medicine was prescribed. For example earlier at the commencement of the treatment your patient had in his psyche one of the rubrics IRRITABILITY pain, during. You should investigate whether there is now any change in his present state of mind. Usually, under the second action the patient says he has no relief. Do not take him on his word. You have to remind him, Last time when you came to me you were weeping and were very annoyed. Today you dont seem to be so. Likewise on your previous visit you were not walking as easily as on you are now. The discipline followed by the second action. Its duration: The second action follows a fixed discipline. It lasts for a fixed period of an odd number of days, usually 3.The middle day is the peak day.

Discharging of the toxic matter: The other thing that is expected from the process of second action is the discharge that may take place from any of the five natural outlets nose, mouth, anus, urethra and skin. This means if the deposit of the toxins is in the head, the nose is its natural outlet. If it is in the liver or in the respiratory system or stomach its exit is mouth, if the toxin is in the intestine it gets discharged through the anus, if it is in the urinary tract it finds an outlet through the penis and if under the skin it comes out in the form of some sort of skin eruption. In revolutionized method we need to identify drugs as individuals, especially in those cases where three Ps have many drugs. For example the rubric LIGHT, desires for, has many drugs placed under it and unless we know their distinguishing features it is difficult to identify the medicine indicated. Obviously it makes the selection quick, easy, and sure. In actual practice we have three ways of selecting a remedy: Translating three P.P.P. expressions of a patient into the rubrics of mind. Comparing remedies placed under a common rubric, with each other as stated above. Observing a patient as an individual independent and free from any connection with other drugs keeping in view his established and unchangeable disposition. We have no hesitation or doubt in saying that no one would ever come so close to the genius interpretation that Dr. Sehgal has given us. For example: DELIRIUM, fear of men, with What is the fear here? It is a feeling of discomfort experienced at the thought of something harmful or dangerous. Of : This is the source. In this case that source is men and not women. Men: This word denotes strength, power. So this patient fears from anything which has the power to hurt or harm him. For example it could be the fear of sticks, punishment, or muscles. So this rubric has qualified the situation of fear. And it is the source of the fear that is more important here. It may be the story of a man working in an office where his colleagues are cooperative but he does not share their view and has a constant fear of them. If he shares their activities then there is an ultimate fear of the law and if he does not then he fears they may harm him and therefore he has an inclination to escape. Another example: DELIRIUM, terror expressive Delirium is a state of mind which shows derailment, derangement, or being off track. The person is in his senses but the tone and style of expression is exaggerated which stress and indicates abnormality of the mind. Terror: It is something that has the power to frighten the mind very badly. Expressive: Coming out of internal feelings to the surface. Through gestures and speech, revealing the inside of ones mind. So after getting a slightest jerk under the influence of fright, the patient according to this rubric go into a state of delirium, showing a great disturbance in the functioning of his mind.

Another example: SITS, and break pins Sits: Sitting is a position which falls between the position of rest (free from any worry) and walking (being in motion). This rubric denotes a persons helplessness where he is compelled to give up working. He is like a defeated solder finding him in effective in the present struggle for existence. But there is a protest that is going on in his mind. This protest finds an outlet by avenging itself on things which are inanimate, lifeless, and cannot offer resistance. Breaks: Divided into pieces by applying force accompanied by the desire to destroy things. Pins : Things that bind different things together , which arrange union for promoting peace even among opposing forces. The other meaning is to plug ones teeth hard on to something and to grind it, because the person can find no other way to emit the venom from his mind. Here we can say that the person is refusing to be consoled and is trying to kill the one who is consoling him and says, the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Frequently asked question There is a question frequently asked about the word REVOLUTION. What is new in applying mind symptoms? For some, it is an old concept which they have always used in their practice. Please understand the word Revolution. It does not denote any kind of revolt against any existing literature that our Masters have given to us. There are many practitioners who were / are using mind symptoms along with physical symptoms in their cases. Dr. Sehgal has mentioned in his book No. VII , page no. 14 , that we simply read the dial ( mental state ) which indicates the medicine. But while assessing the progress of healing process we should also consider the anatomy, physiology, pathology and the latest upper most mental state. This is because diagnostic investigations, especially those relating to the vital organs which are not visible i.e. of the lungs, liver, kidney, heart etc. require such data to properly assess the action of the medicine. Sometimes it has been observed that in spite of the best overall progress, the particular diseased organ shows no improvement. For example there was a case of a lady who had the problem of twitching eyelids. The lady regained her overall efficiency, her sleep become normal her appetite and routine elimination became normal and regular but the problem for which she had come to me in the first place remained for a long time. It means that the medicine was acting only partially and not covering the whole. For further reference please read the book Rediscovery of Homeopathy series I X. From: Dr. Sanjay and Yogesh Sehgal