POLARITY ANALYSIS USING BOENNINGHAUSEN’S

THERAPEUTIC POCKET BOOK

Dr.A.Mohammed Shahul Irfan
(M.D HOM)- PART I

DEPARTMET OF REPERTORY

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Dr.V.Sathish Kumar M.D (HOM)

HEAD OF REPERTORY DEPARTMENT –SKHMC-KULASEKHARAM

Introduction
Polarity analysis (PA) is a development of Boenninghausen's concept of
contraindications by Dr. Heiner Frei MD. It serves to determine in individual disease a
healing probability for each homeopathic medicine in question. The method leads to an
efficient and reproducible choice of remedy and increases the precision of prescriptions
as compared to a conventional homeopathic procedure .Polarity analysis is based on
Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocketbook 1846, an exceedingly reliable repertory.
Polarity analysis is generally practiced with computer software.

The Polarity Analysis software is based on Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocket

Book 1846, developed by Dr. Heiner Frei MD and it contains new grading’s of polar
symptoms derived from many successful cases. The division of the symptoms in three
reliability groups (high, medium, low) leads to precise prescriptions.

About Dr. Heiner Frei M.D

Heiner Frei was born and lives in Switzerland. After graduating from medical
school in 1977, he specialized in Pediatrics and served for several years as Head
Physician in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the University Children’s Hospital
of Bern. In 1987, and was president of the Swiss Association of Homeopathic
Physicians from 2001 to 2005.

Dr. Frei developed “Polarity Analysis”, a new approach to improve the precision
of homeopathic prescriptions, and has published numerous articles on the subject. He
teaches homeopathy in Europe, India, and the United States, and has written four
books on different aspects of Polarity Analysis and ADD/ADHD, including “Polarity
Analysis in Homeopathy” and “Homeopathy and ADHD.” He has received several
research awards for his scientific work. His latest work is Polarity Analysis software, a
repertory with symptoms divided into three reliability classes, which allow for even
more precise prescriptions.

Boenninghausen Contraindications / Polar Symptoms

Boenninghausen himself strived to unambiguously match the genius of a homeopathic
remedy with the patient’s characteristic symptoms. What does this mean? The genius
of a remedy includes those modalities, sensations and findings that have often been
seen in the remedy proving, occurred in various localizations and have also been
clinically healed. These symptoms are what is actually characteristic of the remedy.
Genius symptoms are generally listed with a high grade in BPTB. The contradiction
concerns the polar symptoms those that are expressed as opposites: for example,
thirst/lack of thirst, cold, desire for fresh air/dislike of fresh air. Many remedies have
both poles of such symptoms but in differing grades. Since the patient’s symptoms
(especially the modalities) should match the genius of the remedy, Boenninghausen
strived to match the symptoms in as high a grade as possible (grades 3 to 5). If the
remedy contained the patient’s symptom at a low grade (1 or 2) but the opposite pole
of the same symptom at a high grade (3 to 5), he regarded this as a contradiction to the
patient’s characteristic symptoms, and therefore as a contraindication for the remedy.
According to his experience, such a constellation rarely led to healing. For example,
“covering aggravates” is found in Aconite (Grade 4), and yet this remedy also shows
up in “covering ameliorates” (Grade 1).

POLARITY DIFFERENCE
Polarity Analysis systematically uses Boenninghausen’s insights for all polar
symptoms: on the one hand by excluding remedies with contraindications, on the other
hand by calculating the polarity difference. This is done by adding the grades of the
polar patient symptoms for all likely remedies and then subtracting the grades of the
opposite pole symptoms. The higher the resulting polarity difference, the better the
remedy matches the patient’s characteristic symptoms i.e. assuming there are no
contraindications. At least five polar symptoms should be used for the analysis if
possible. To elicit the polar symptoms, the usual homeopathic case taking is
supplemented with checklists (for acute illness) and questionnaires (for chronic illness
and multimorbidity), in which the patients underline the symptoms that they have
observed in themselves. The checklists and questionnaires are specifically designed to
elect polar symptoms. So far eight checklists and twelve questionnaires have been
developed for different problem areas, such as neurology, gynecology, ENT and
airways, allergies, and so on.

A CASE EXAMPLE

One of the case from Dr.Heiner Frei was of a child whose troubles began three days
before consultation with a mild sore throat. Since then he had developed a headache
and pain in the limbs, as well as a high temperature of 39.4 °C (102.9 °F). He was very
weak, could hardly swallow and tolerated only cold food.

The examination revealed a bright red throat, severely swollen tonsils, and petechial
bleeding on the palatal arch. His tongue was bright red, the cervical lymph nodes were
severely swollen and painful, and tenderness over abdomen on palpation. The
provisional diagnosis was streptococcal tonsillitis. The diagnosis of scarlet fever would
also require the presence of the characteristic skin rash with light speckling of small,
slightly raised bright red spots. His skin showed that the exanthema had already
formed.

Using the Checklist (pdf available at http://www.heinerfrei.ch/resources) for Ear-Nose-

Throat and Eye, the mother picked the following symptoms:

Mouth odor
Dry mouth
Thirst – P
Swallowing: worse – P
Food and drink, cold things: better – P
Cold in general: worse – P
Warmly, from wrapping up: better – P
Open air: worse – P
Air, aversion to open air – P
Movement: worse – P
Physical effort: worse – P
Lying position: better – P
Standing: worse – P
Pressure, external: worse – P
ON REPERTORIZATION USING BTPB WITH POLARITY ANALYIS SOFTWARE

The references to the Repertory chart are as follows:

 The remedies are ordered according to the number of hits.
 Symptom descriptions: < = worse; > = better
 Polar symptoms are marked with (p).
 The number after the symptom in square brackets (for example, thirst [99])
refers to the number of remedies matching the symptom. This information is
important because it shows how strongly the choice of remedy is restricted by
the use of the symptom rubric.
 Patient symptoms: these are listed underneath the blue line and above the red
line.
  Opposite poles: these are shown in italics and are found below the red line.
 Calculation of the polarity difference: the grades of the polar patient symptoms
of a remedy are added up. From this total, the sum of the grades of the opposite
poles listed for the remedy were subtracted; the result is the polarity difference
(example: Nux vomica 35-18=17).
 Contraindications, CI: The opposite poles at the genius level (grades 3-5) are
compared with the grades of the patient’s symptoms. If the patient’s symptom
has a low grade (1-2) but the opposite pole is listed for the remedy with a high
grade (3-5), the genius of this remedy does not correspond to the characteristics
of the patient’s symptom; the remedy is therefore contraindicated.
 Example: when checking Nux vomica, we find that the patient’s symptom >
food and drink, cold things is listed at the 1st grade whereas the opposite pole <
food and drink, cold things is listed for the remedy at the 4th grade. In other
words, < food and drink, cold things is a genius symptom of Nux-vomica.
Therefore Nux vomica does not fit the patient’s symptoms and is
contraindicated. Columns with contraindications CI are shaded grey so that we
can instantly see which remedies are contraindicated.
 If we repertorize just the polar symptoms, eleven remedies completely cover all
symptoms, four of them without contraindications, but with greatly varying
polarity differences (Bry 21, Merc-s 12, Nat-m 12, Thuj 2). If we include the
scarlet fever rash in the repertorisation, only Bryonia and Mercurius solubilis
 The child was given Bryonia 200 C due to the large polarity difference. In the
following night, the child still had a slight fever. The next morning, twelve
hours later, the throat pain and headache had completely disappeared.
 In this case, the patient would have received Bryonia even without a materia
medica comparison, since the genius of the remedy, expressed in the very high
polarity difference, far more comprehensively and specifically matched the
modalities than Mercurius solubilis.

CONCLUSION
The basis of the polarity analysis is formed by the recollection of Hahnemannʼs and
Boenninghausenʼs basic findings, which were groundbreaking at the time. It leads to a
strict application of the paragraphs of the Organon, namely § 6 (the illness is formed
by the totality of its symptoms), § 133 (the modalities reveal that which is peculiar to
and characteristic of each symptom), and § 153 (when looking for the homeopathically
specific remedy, especially the peculiar, characteristic signs of the illness need to
correspond to those of the remedy). The mind symptoms take over the role of tipping
the scales for one of the remedies determined by the modalities in the Materia Medica
comparison, as Hahnemann expressed in § 211. Due to the “exceptionally reliable
grading of symptoms in Boenninghausenʼs Therapeutic Pocket Book” (quote by
Frederik Schroyens), the polarity analysis enables us to determine the remedy which
will in all probability correspond most with the symptomatology of the patient.
Polarity analysis has proven its value first of all in the exceedingly difficult area of
homeopathic treatment of ADD/ ADHD. After that, however, it proved its efficacy also
in the trials connected with simple acute and chronic diseases, and finally in
multimorbid patients. None of the other homeopathic techniques being used today has
been tested in such a comprehensive way regarding its effects and the results that can
be achieved.

References

1. http://www.heinerfrei.ch/polarity-analysis
2. http://www.heinerfrei.ch/resources
3. http://www.wholehealthnow.com/courses/polarity-analysis.html
4. http://www.theothersong.com/india/seminar-on-polarity-analysis-by-dr-heiner-
frei-at-the-other-song/
5. Heiner Frei, Polarity Analysis – Homœopathic Links Winter 2011, Vol. 24:
217–221 © Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Private Ltd