The classical method, as practiced today, generally includes the following elements:

• Each remedy is given in minute doses to healthy volunteers, and the full range of physical, mental, and emotional responses to it are carefully recorded.
• The remedies which are mostly of natural origin (plants, minerals, animal poisons, etc.) are specially diluted and refined, both to minimize the risk of toxicity and to enhance the depth and completeness of their action.
• Each patient is interviewed at length, and all the signs and symptoms of the illness to be treated are noted in detail.
• The patient is given the one remedy that produces a total symptom–picture most nearly like his or her own.
• The remedy is given until a suitable reaction occurs, and then stopped for as long as the reaction lasts.
• The patient is instructed to avoid coffee, dental work, and other antidoting factors (see Instructions to the Patient).

The homeopathic interview is necessarily detailed and intimate, because it looks beyond the pathological diagnosis to the unique set of lived responses characteristic of each individual patient. Special attention must, therefore, be given to precisely those features which are peculiar or idiosyncratic and, therefore, tend to be ignored in the conventional medical workup, even by the patients themselves.