CYCLES & SEGMENTS

The Herscu Model in Homeopathy

Dr. Paul Herscu developed his model for homeopathy through the study of the Cycle (or pattern) that each remedy presents, and the Segments (or sub-patterns) that run through each Cycle as clusters of ideas.

Dr. Herscu examined thousands of cases, both cured cases and those where errors were made. Through these studies he evolved a model that offers a logical and integrated practice of constitutional homeopathy.

Disease is a Single Entity

For Hahnemannian homeopaths, disease is a single entity. Therefore, there must be a unified method of describing it — that is, of seeing it as one disease.

The Cycle is a pattern, a single flow of events. Each Cycle is composed of a number of sub-patterns, or Segments. These Segments can also be thought of as clusters of ideas, conceptual themes that occur in the symptoms and remedies related to the case.

A symptom does not ever stand alone. It has a relationship to all other symptoms, and this relationship reveals the fundamental Segments of the disease. A Segment will show up over and over again, in many places and many ways, throughout the various symptoms of the case.

Some of these symptoms will be found within rubrics, and some will not. For the purposes of this model, the presence of a symptom within a rubric is not relevant. It is the Segment, the idea cluster itself, which matters.

Working with the Big Picture

All the symptoms and characteristics that a patient manifests are context dependent. The Cycles and Segments approach enables the homeopath to perceive that context, to see how the interconnected Segments relate to the overall context, or Cycle, itself.

By grasping the context, or the larger picture, practitioners can find the correct remedy more easily and understand the progression and evolution of their patient over time. They can understand the pattern of their patients' problems and prescribe with confidence.

Four to Six Segments

In most cases, the practitioner will find four to six fundamental Segments. Each of these can be broken down into smaller Segments, giving even more flavor and detail to the remedy.

Each Segment can be described with a word or phrase, such as yearning for comfort or violent overreactions. Each Segment flows into the next, until you come full cycle - that Cycle is the disease. You can jump in at any point, start with any Segment, and see that the pattern formed by the Segments is a continuous flow, or a Cycle.

Each individual symptom a person presents is an example of a fundamental segment within that person's cycle of disease.

Fundamental Segments

Every item that appears in a patient will in some way fit into one of those idea clusters, or segments, that make up the total pattern of the remedy. This is why these basic ideas are called fundamental segments:

• fundamental, because they are intrinsic and essential
• segments, because each is a part of the whole cycle

Materia Medica Study

The Cycles and Segment approach also informs the study of Materia Medica. Remedies are understood according to the fundamental segments they contain and how those segments feed into one another. This quickly points to a differential Materia Medica, as many remedies share Segments, and yet their Cycles are completely different.

The power of the Cycles and Segments model can be seen in any case, whether the patient is young or old, and no matter what the specifics may be. When the overriding context of the Segments is understood, then the remedy can be discovered and prescribed with confidence.

For a further discussion of Cycles and Segments see Dr. Herscu's book: Stramonium with an Introduction to Analysis Using Cycles and Segments.