A Report on Dr. Rajesh Shah's seminar in England
by Bob Fordham, Tricia Grafin, UK
(Courtesy The Society of Homoeopaths news letter, England)

Like all good homoeopaths Rajesh and Rupal are clear about their mission! The world needs more homoeopaths. It needs homoeopaths 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 Encyclopedia 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 medalist from the Bombay Homeopathic Medical College. Both Rajesh and Rupal practice in homoeopathic 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 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 homoeopathy, 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!