Almost all the doctors, irrespective of the 'System of Medicine' they practice , have come to the conclusion that one must go beyond signs and symptoms in order to treat a patient.The patient's psyche or mindset, his nature, and temperament, lifestyle, reaction to stress, contribute a lot in causing diseases. Pathology is not the only thing one should consider while treating a patient. . Of course, a Homoeopath does consider pathogenesis, pathology of the disease, but he goes far beyond pathology considering pathology to be one of the steps of disease evolution and giving mind the highest importance in his analysis. While treating a patient, a homoeopath has to first understand about patient's mind, lifestyle, socio- economic status, genetic predisposition, psycho- sexual status, thinking pattern, relations with his parents, spouse, children, friends and also about his behavioral pattern. From all these things he has to understand the patient's mental makeup.
Then comes the patient's physical built. The homoeopath has to consider the patient's desires and aversions, reaction to heat and cold etc. and lastly about the disease or diseases the patient has, how they evolved, what were the causative factors, what are factors modifying the disease etc. The doctor must also understand about the active pathogenesis of your disease, the exact series of changes taking place in the body during the disease process, complications of the same and any other supplementary therapy the patient needs apart from the homoeopathic medicine and so on(auxiliary management).
Keeping all these things in view the homoeopath has to select one single remedy, which has the capacity to act on all the above-mentioned factors. The one who is qualified and has the capacity to take all these efforts, who has understood homoeopathy to this extent is an Ideal True Homoeopath. Homoeopathy believes that there are diseased individuals who need treatment and not individual diseases. This is a basic difference between homoeopathy and allopathy. We consider man as a whole and not diseased parts or organs.
When the disease-the pathology-gets maximum importance while selecting a remedy, then there is a separate remedy for running nose, another remedy for throat pain and so on. In this type of treatment where is the holistic approach? This is nothing but giving `white sweet pills' on allopathic principles. It will only suppress the disease, not cure.