To Study The Relationship Of Classification Of Depressive Disorders With The Hahnemannian Concept Of Mental Illness

Abstract

Background: Hahnemann (1996) has classified mental illnesses in a rather different way. He understood the mental illness not very different in kind from the physical illness. He classified the illnesses on the principles of cause and effect and the dynamic shift of the illness from the body to mind or vice versa. Aim & Object: To classify patients suffering form Depressive Disorder as per DSM IV criteria. To determine the relationship of this classification with that enunciated in the215, 216, 221 and 225 aphorisms of Organon of Medicine. To evolve the totality of patients on the basis of the above evolved Hahnemannian classification of Depressive Disorders. To project a therapeutic plan based on the finding in 1, 2 and 3 above. Material And Methods: Detailed interview focusing mainly upon symptomatology for arriving at a comprehensive clinical diagnosis according to DSM IV. Studying the evolutionary pattern of the selected cases to understand them according to the Hahnemannian classification. Correlating the therapeutic outcome with the principles used and thus discovering any correlation between the two approaches. Result and Conclusion: The conclusions range from the conceptual clarity of the applicability of the two systems of classification together to the specific understanding of the requirement of appropriate remedy in the appropriate potency and repetition based upon a collective understanding of the predisposing and maintaining causes and the susceptibility. The importance of understanding of the susceptibility came out as the most important aspect in the combination of the two systems of classification. [Joshi H Natl J Integr Res Med, 2022; 13(6): 10-17, Published on Dated: 15/11/2022]