January 2002, Volume 2, No. 1
Dream Drawing in Shamanic Healing
Editor's MusingsHealing Potentials in Our Words
Daniel J. Benor, MD
Our words shape our perceptions and our interactions with the world. . .
Through words we are taught to label the myriads of stimuli that enter our sensory portals. Conventional medicine focuses on physical problems. It offers medicines and other mechanical manipulations (hormones, surgery, genetic alterations) as ways of dealing with problems. We are conditioned through the use of the term, medicine, to view these mechanical approaches as therapies of choice. This focus also tends to shut off awareness of other ways of understanding and dealing with disease and dis-ease.
Healee's PerspectivesRespants: Information, Inspiration and Expiration
Bernie Siegel, MD
Most medical school applicants today state that the candidate for admission is interested in and fascinated by the human body. The problem is that a person comes with each body. The person is not treated properly by many a physician. The person may also disturb the physician who has been given medical information but not a medical education. An education teaches you how to deal with and care for the human experience of illness and not just to treat the diagnosis. A medical education should also teach the skill of communication so that we do not kill with our words, but heal with them ö just as we heal with a scalpel and do not wound with it. One of our sons showed me how wordswordswords become swordswordswords when not used properly.
ResearchPrayer Research: Descriptors and Outcome Measures within Perspectives of Science and Spirit
Seán ÓLaoire PhD
There is a hilarious scene in one of the Pink Panther movies, where Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers), a klutzy, feckless detective, arrives at an Alpine inn laden with lots of pieces of luggage. He manages, with great difficulty, to open the main door and come in from a snowstorm. Inside is a huge welcoming log fire, a recumbent German Shepherd dog, and an elderly, not-easily-impressed, unfriendly and altogether arrogant desk clerk. Sellers asks "Does your dog bite?" Without even lifting his gaze from his work, the clerk replies "No, monsieur." Sellers deposits several bags on the floor, thus freeing up one hand and reaches out to pat the German Shepherd, whereupon the dog promptly savages him. In total alarm and with a hint of betrayal in his voice, Sellers reprimands the clerk "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite?!" Stiffly and with great dignity the clerk disengages himself temporarily from his tasks to haughtily declare "That is not my dog."
Healing ApproachesShamanism and the Medical Encounter
Cecile Carson, MD
Case 1: It is 3:00 a.m. and I am awakened suddenly from deep sleep by an image of my patient M. drifting out into the cosmos. Inexplicably, I go downstairs and sit in meditation for a few minutes, finding myself saying, "M. come back, come on back," over and over again. I then go back upstairs to bed and to sleep.
EmotionalBodyProcess II: Theories and Evidence on Combining Imagery, Energy Medicine, and Awareness of Non-Local Mind
Daniel J Benor, MD, Dorothea von Stumpfeldt, MD, and Ruth Benor, RN
This paper discusses theories to explain EmotionalBodyProcess, a method involving imagery healing for transformation of negative energies. This innovative technique was described in IJHC Volume I, No. 1. Briefly, it involves the creation through imagery of a space where you concentrate the energies of of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and healing. Into this space you invite the image of whatever negativity in your life you wish to transform. By dialoguing with the negative image, offering to give it whatever it wants of you, you will find that the negativity is rapidly diminished.
EmotionalBodyProcess combines imagery, subtle energies/biological energies, and non-local consciousness How these may work is discussed in this paper.
Counseling With Soul Talk
James R. Bell, MD
The recent tragic events in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 have dramatically and inalterably altered all of our lives. There is great need for those of us in family practice, indeed, for all physicians, to be available to our patients for at least basic counseling to help our patients deal with the serious emotional repercussions of 9-11.
Like most primary care physicians, patient counseling has been an important part of what I do since my first day of medical practice. In August of 2000, I retired from traditional family practice to focus on spirituality in medicine. I counsel patients who are depressed, anxious, grieving, or in other forms of distress. I have been amazed at how easy it is to incorporate my personal spirituality in this counseling without infringing on patients' belief systems, and with very positive responses.
Wholistic ApproachesDoctoring as a Human Experience - On Developing a Healing Partnership:The Doctor-Patient Partnership
Ronald Banner, MD
In IJHC Volume I, No. 1, "Patients' experiences," Ronald Banner explored the process (stages) of becoming a patient, how suffering is much more than pain, and the subjectivity of decision making by patients. All these point up the need for inputs from patients.
In this discussion, I explore the development of a working partnership between doctor and patient. These should be our advisors/counselors/teachers - these people who have experienced illness and who understand their experiences. These advisors are essential in understanding and improving patient care, as well as in medical education, policy development and research (Reiser 1993). I illustrate the notions presented in this article with the experiences I shared with a patient named Stanley, who had severe and complex illnesses.
Medical Student Idealism Meets Medical System Realities
Billy Fenster
I spoke with a third-year classmate today. I'll call him Todd. Todd is a very decent guy; He is considerate and intelligent, and will be a fine orthopedic surgeon. He shared some of his disappointments with me: Before medical school he dreamed of being a physician -- working with a team of dedicated people who spend their days in the task of helping rescue others from serious disease and early death.
Instead he found a medical system built on egos, and days filled with impersonal work centered on almost anything but caring for people. Through the academic years he told himself that it wasn't really "that bad,"' but now he looks back at the relentless, life-draining load and pressure and knows that if he had the choice he would never repeat it again. He admitted how medical school has changed him. Not that he is bitter, but he just no longer feels the way he used to. At this point he knows that he is going to just go about his business, keep to himself, with no illusions of changing anything for the better, except perhaps for what is directly near him.
Wholistic News ReviewsWholistic News Reviews: Traditional, Complementary, Alternative, and Psycho-Social Modalities of Treatment
Larry Lachman, PsyD
Personality Traits Different In Male and Female Asthma Sufferers
Loss of Religious Faith Impacts Mortality
Medical School Applicants Should Be Screened for Personality Disorders
Cyberonics Device to Treat Depression
Marital Problem Discussions May Raise Blood Pressure
Depression-Related Autonomic Dysfunction May Increase Post-MI Mortality
Antidepressants and Psychotherapy Produce Similar Changes in Brain Activity
Fear Leads Psychiatrists to Self-Medicate Depression
Healing with FoodOverview of Two Popular Diets: Vegetarianism and Macrobiotics
Annemarie Colbin, CHES
Background
Vegetarian diets eschew foods that entail the killing of animals. While anthropological studies have not discovered any fully vegetarian natural societies (DeVries 1952; Farb and Armelagos 1980), adherents of various religions and spiritual practices have adopted vegetarian eating styles for many centuries, going as far back as Pythagoras in Europe (Barkas 1975), and even further in other cultures such as India (Swoboda 1992).
Poetry and Art as HealingPoetry
Roberta J.H. Shoemaker-Beal and John MacEnulty
HumorHumor
Anonymous
Book ReviewsRon and Ina Denburg. The Diamond Diet: A Multifaceted Path to Weight Loss, Health, and Wellness - 7 Weeks That Will Change Your Life
Sacred Space Publications. Sacred Space: The international journal of spirituality and health
Michael Lerner. Choices in Healing
Cay Randall-May, PhD. Pray Together Now: How to Form a Prayer Group
Sam Menahem, PhD. When Therapy Isn't Enough: The Healing Power of Prayer & Psychotherapy
Sam Menahem, PhD. All Your Prayers are Answered
Neil Donald Walsch. Conversations with God, Book 2
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging
Faass, Nncy (ed). Integrating Complementary Medicine into Health Systems
Scott Shannon, MD (ed). Handbook of Complemeentary and Alternative Therapies in Mental Health
William A. Tiller, Walter E. Dibble, Michael J. Kohane. Conscious Acts of Creation: The emergence of a New Physics
Elmer Green, PhD. The Ozawkie Book of the Dead: Alzheimer's isn't what you think it is!
Lolette Kuby. Faith and the Placebo Effect: An Argument for Self-healing
Chara M. Curtis and Cynthia Aldrich. Fun is a Feeling
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