by Bob Fordham
(Courtesy the Society of Homoeopaths journal)
Like all good homeopaths, Rajesh and Rupal are clear about their mission! The world needs more homeopaths. It needs homeopaths who can prescribe confidently and accurately and who can manage the whole range of cases likely to come their way. How will this best be achieved? By being down to earth!
That's exactly how Rajesh describes himself and the Phenomenological Approach he has developed. He insists on working with the direct experiences (signs and symptoms) of the patient. His observation is that it is unnecessary to speculate about a pre-existing state of symbolic representation of the patients suffering. The symptoms themselves are concrete and available to our senses. These should be our primary concern. They will furnish us with a highly individual description of the patient. In the remedy provings, we find analogous information: provers produced significant changes marked by groups of symptoms when undergoing drug testing.
Rajesh's method depends on identifying significant expressions and representative groups of symptoms in the patient's history and finding as precise a reflection of these as possible in the suffering of a single prover. For us, it was a delight to open up Allen's Encyclopaedia and use such precise information in this way. It seemed to represent the best in a scientific application of homeopathic principles. And it was exciting too!!
Rajesh graduated as a gold medallist from the Bombay Homeopathic Medical College. Both Rajesh and Rupal practice in homeopathic hospitals and medical colleges in Bombay. They also run their own general practices. Their teaching was crammed with the clinical experience amassed from managing a large and diverse caseload. This and well-selected videos gave their teaching tremendous breadth.
Rajesh and Rupal took to stress the totality, finding significant symptoms not just in the mental state of the patient, but also in the individual expression of particular symptoms. They also stressed the organ or system affinities of illness as a necessary part of the whole.
They taught in Devon, London, Leeds, Glasgow, and Darlington, contributing to college-teaching, teaching- clinics, and a seminar. The clinics were particularly well-received. Rajesh saw a practitioner's difficult cases and discussed his approach with the participants. It was very useful to have such an immediate appreciation of the method in practice and participants re-marked at the clarity with which very complex cases could be understood.
Rajesh and Rupal exude enthusiasm. As experienced teachers of homeopathy, they were well- organized in their presentation of their material. Their commitment and the sheer joy with which they taught were truly infectious. They now have many friends in the UK, all of whom will be wishing them a speedy return!