IJHC Current Issue

BEAUTY AND HEALINGS IN WINTER'S LIGHT, THROUGH THE DARKNESS

Credits: Courtney Milne, The Pool of Possibilities

Editorial Musings

This issue of IJHC features reports of several people who have had remarkable recoveries from varieties of physical problems. This aspect of wholistic healing that is grossly neglected by conventional medicine will hopefully become a regular feature in IJHC.

This subject has held great interest for me for decades. My initial focus was on remarkable recoveries produced by spiritual healing. These often have been labeled 'miraculous' healings in the popular press. Healers with strong gifts of healing may find them occurring too regularly in their practices to label them as such.

Research

Ovarian cancer and faith

A sixty-seven year old woman came to my office for a first visit in the spring of 1985. For anonymity, I will call her Helen B... Though she had previously had a total hysterectomy, it was as if part of her cervix had been left behind, or that she had formed an excessive amount of scar tissue. At this time her liver tests were abnormal, indicating compromised liver function; her tests also showed she was noticeably anemic

Extensive cancer mass was present in the left and central pelvis, extensively involving the small and large bowel. In the face of a lack of a bowel preparation, definitive surgery was postponed. Widespread 1/8" to 3/8" sized masses were studded throughout the pelvic and abdominal cavities, exceeding one-hundred in number... The pathologist's final diagnosis was: "Large mass, terminal ileum and sigmoid colon: poorly differentiated carcinoma, of probable ovarian origin."

A holistic program including meditation, dietary changes, vitamin supplements, psychological interventions, and exercise were instituted. Marked changes were noted on subsequent surgeries, with disappearance of the cancer.

Protocols to treat veterans with brief courses of therapy are required, in light of the large numbers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with depression, anxiety, PTSD and other psychological problems. This observational study examined the effects of six sessions of EFT on seven veterans, using a within-subjects, time-series, repeated measures design. Participants were assessed using a well-validated instrument, the SA-45, which has general scales measuring the depth and severity of psychological symptoms. Participants were assessed before and after treatment, and again after 90 days. Symptom severity decreased significantly...

Living with Life Challenges

Modern medicine has not explored the issues of self-healing and of patients who exceed survival expectations. The reason is that we either give the treatment the credit or dismiss them as miracles or "spontaneous remissions." Medicine does not study successes like these because it believes that one cannot learn from spontaneous events. However, when we think of these cases as unique to the patient and self–induced, we are more likely to ask patients for their stories and learn about survival behavior.

It has been known for a long time that psychological factors can contribute explanations for so-called "spontaneous" remissions. Psychologist Bruno Klopfer, back in the 1940s, was given 24 personality profiles of cancer patients and correctly predicted 19 times who would have a fast or slow growing cancer. In one case he couldn’t decide and his predictions were wrong four times (Klopfer, 1957). Yet when patients enter their doctor’s office and are given a diagnosis, they are not handed a list which tells them how to behave and act like a survivor or a list of questions to determine their personality profile and find who is more likely to become a spontaneous long-term survivor and who needs psychotherapy.

Few in-depth writings explore the anomalous remission or healing of symptoms and disease that defy the physicalistic explanations of allopathic medicine. This issue of IJHC features the reports of several people who experienced these remarkable recoveries from several physical problems.

In dealing with cancer, many people use the term 'false hope' when they criticize complementary therapies. The concerns about false hope are often exaggerated. Hope is real, Hope heals. Hope is always real, and there are always possibilities of healing. With every disease there are people who have somehow healed themselves.

Variations on the Theme of Healing

Women for Women International (WFWI) helps victims of war become self sufficient in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. WFWI conducts year-long programs for participants, providing financial aid, job training, rights awareness and leadership education. They also want to help participants deal with the often severe trauma they experience during war. I have adapted my Energy Psychology methodology called Clearing Limits Energetically with Acupressure Release (CLEAR™) so that it may be used in groups in short, onehour sessions as a part of WFWI’s program. In July 2008, WFWI sent me to Nigeria to test CLEAR with its participants to see if it could translate into other cultures and to see if the women would accept it. In this article, I explain CLEAR and the pilot program in Nigeria with WFWI facilitators and participants.

About me

I was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1961. I am a Cranio-sacral therapist, EFT practitioner, and a Biomedical Scientist. In the past 27 years I have mainly been working in hospital labs doing physiological examinations. Although that gives information on how certain organs perform and is an aid for the patient´s doctor to determine what kind of treatment to give. I felt there was much more to take into account for a patient's wholeness on all levels. On my soul journey to find answers I was led to vibrational medicine - a fascinating path that has a start but no end to it.

My work with essences is based on my intuition. Intuition has played huge part in all my work as a healer, cranio-sacral therapist and biomedical scientist. In the setting of a medical exam room my intuition has directed me to check out arterial sites for atherosclerosis, using Doppler ultrasound. These sites were not in the protocol. Often times it helped to identify a lesion. In my life, following my intuition has become my daily practice. Taking a different route then usual to work or phoning up someone when I felt I should is part of such intuitional activity. In this way I often connect with people who are in need of my help or who are helpful to me.

Wholistic Approaches

I work with children from infancy through age 5 years, helping them accommodate to or overcome musculoskeletal, sensorimotor and/or neurological problems that have often defied correction within conventional medical treatments. For more than thirty years I have studied and practiced mainstream approaches to physical therapy for children. I follow or am involved in research on child development. I have learned to work intuitively, helping children connect with their inner wisdom that guides them to normalize their abilities and differences.

Student and Healee Experiences of Healing

Healing Trauma in War Torn Countries
Julie Roberts, PhD
Victims of severe trauma in Nigeria report benefits of a self-healing method.

REBALANCING FOR CHILDREN: Pediatric Physical Therapy, Intuition and Healing
Jacqueline Mast, PT, MSEd
Parents of children with neurological problems report major improvements with intuitive physical therapy.

Poetry, Art and Humor are Healing

After thirty years of photographing sacred landscapes on all seven continents, in the past nine years I have focused my camera in one place – my swimming pool. I now have more than 40,000 images of this 20' x 40' space; they are all different, and the project shows no sign of coming to an end. I am constantly amazed at what I see, which for me is an endorsement of philosopher Marcel Proust's statement that "the real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Wholistic News Reviews

Stillbirth risks linked to maternal mental illness

No initial protection against breast cancer found with Vitamin D or calcium (in low doses)

Link between teen aggression and violent video games

Increase in PMS symptoms among women who smoke

Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization

Bob van Overbruggen, PhD. Healing Psyche: Patterns and Structure of Complementary Psychological Cancer Treatment (CPCT)

Frances Vaughan. Shadows of the Sacred-Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions

Julie Roberts; PhD. Change Works with CLEAR, Clearing Limits Energetically with Acupressure Release, Clearing Limits Energetically with Acupressure Release 

Ellen C. Braun, The Animal School (video)