Healing itself is considered an art. Art is fuzzy. Healing can be too. It is a process, when things come together it is an ‘aha’ moment, a gestalt. You have seen the whole, how everything fits or at least enough of it to be of true assistance. In homeopathy one of the areas of study is understanding physical generals.

Physical generals are symptoms that encompass the whole person, the ‘I’ symptoms…”I feel better when I’m still, moving, walking”, etc. One of the keys to finding the simillimum are these class of symptoms.

Here are a list of (some) physical generals:

• Time of aggravation or amelioration.
• Thermal modality, i.e. whether the patient as a whole is aggravated or ameliorated by cold air, by warmth, by open air, etc.
• The circumstances of aggravation or amelioration of the patient, which are given in the “Generalities” chapter of the repertory.
• Menstrual function in women.
• Appetite and thirst (want of appetite, thirstlessness, ravenous appetite or extreme thirst)
• Cravings and aversion of food and drinks.
• Sleep, sleepiness or sleeplessness; sleeplessness after waking at night; Seleep unrefreshing in the morning.
• Sexual problems in males or females.

These are some of the questions that allow us to relate the symptoms that one is experiencing to rubrics in the repertory and to the descriptions of remedies in homepathic materia medicas (book of medicines/remedies).

So there you are, another way of looking at and understandings symptoms.