J. Standford
Healing the Three Parts of Self
If we are wanting to heal, we likely perceive we have something to heal from. In our western culture we have a tendency to divide our "brokenness" into three separate compartments: spirit, mind and body. If we need to heal the spirit...we seek a spiritual healer or counsellor; if we need to heal the mind we seek the help of a psychological healer ( a counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist) and if we believe we need to heal the body we often seek the help of a physician.
The Divisional Tendency of Medicine
When we seek the help of medicine we divide even further...we can then begin to divide the body into sections and specialities.
Medicine dissects the body from the mind and spirit, the systems from the organism, the organs from the systems, the tissues from the organs and the cells from the tissues to get to the root of the problem ...it disassembles the whole ( in a sense breaking it up) in order to fix it and make it whole again. Does that make sense?
My Own over Specification Experience
I spent years trying to get a "specific" diagnosis, to determine what "specific" organ in a "specific" organ system was malfunctioning in my body, and what "specific" part of that organ was not doing it's job correctly and even went down to what "specific" cells. I was so desperate to get to a "specific" solution to my health issue that I willingly went from one division to another...I went from general practice, to internal medicine, to cardiology and than to several sub specialities within the cardiology field.
There was a "minor" issue discovered by each sub speciality involving different "specific functionings" of my heart. Because the specialities were so divided...none of these little issues were examined as a whole...they were not put together in one package. One speciality only saw the mitral valve issue, one saw the coronary vasospasm, one saw the inappropriate tachycardia, one saw the bradycardia, one saw the atrial flutter(irregular heart rhythm) and one saw the dyskinesia(abnormal movement) on the right ventricle...each thing by itself was so minor it was passed off as insignificant and not a valid cause for my perception of limited energy. Each sub speciality did not see what the other sub speciality saw.
Each sub speciality...then...made the conclusion. "If this minor cardiac anomaly that I picked up is not responsible for such complaints of physical limitation...there must be something broken elsewhere in the patient leading to such complaints...likely the mental dimension. Her illness then most likely is mental rather than physical.Therefore this is not my problem to solve." The file gets closed.
It is amazing how quickly information about a person's assumed "defective nature" gets communicated from one speciality to another when the objective facts don't lol.
I am not putting down or judging the specialities. I am just trying to make a point as to where we are going with this division. I understand the mind sets to some degree but by breaking the heart into pieces and into different "specific" functions these subspecialties' do not see the whole. They do not see how cardiac functioning will be impacted when all the so called insignificant things are put together. They only allow themselves to see what their eyes are trained to see. If they do not see the whole, communication as a whole team is fractured. The less specialized field of cardiology just hears that everything is insignificant from each subspecialty therefore she must have other issues. Internal medicine passes it off as insignificant and general practice, if it is so inclined, can do the same. (Luckily for me that wasn't the case.)
The Impact of No-Wholeness
The impact of the wholeness of the cardiac complaints on the patient's life then gets diminished...the physical limitations do not get viewed in terms of how they impinge on the whole of the person ( financially, professionally, mentally, emotionally as well as physically etc). The person's holistic limitations do not get viewed as to how they impact a social network ( family {with diagnosed or non-diagnosed cardiac conditions}, community, work force). The impact of communities with individuals that are not well do not get viewed in terms of how they impact society as a whole and from there the human race as a whole and from there all beings as a whole. It goes on and on...all because we need to be so specific...to dissect and divide the whole.
We do not need to be so specific then...maybe that is not the answer. Maybe the medical model is one of those things we revere and accept that should actually be questioned. Maybe we need to stop assuming that healing will occur with scalpels ( the real and proverbial kinds) and start trying to heal with sutures that sew people back into a whole picture.
I am not putting down physicians...I am just being honest about the mental paradigm they are trained under. I appreciate and value what they do and what they did for me but I think we need a little bit less dissection and divison and a little more "wholeness' in our approach to wellness. Don't you?
Hmm! But that wholeness doesn't start with "changing and fixing" the ideologies of allopathic medicine.
It starts with us and how we divide our own beingness into three separate parts. We need to start looking at the mind, body and spirit as one integrated being. That is where wholeness will start. There is where true healing will start. That is where the knowing that we are and always were well will start.
Hmm! Some food for thought.
All is well in my world.
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