It's not a click-bait title using controversy to grab your attention. It may not
even grab your attention considering it seems to be a rather obvious question
in the first place. After all, how could healing not be the goal in medicine?
But this question really asks us to question our understanding of both Healing and of Medicine. In the alternative health world, the concepts are used somewhat interchangeably. Medical practitioners may even refer to themselves as 'healers'. Or they may simply promote the idea that they will help you 'heal yourself'.
The sentiment is wonderful of course, patient feeling better, recovering from illnesses and pain, and receiving attentive care from earnest treatment providers. But yes, there is a caveat. So let's take a look at these terms.
Medicine in the Western Biomedical model operates on death-prevention and disease-care. It does not treat conditions until they have reached a stage in which they present on blood tests, scans or show up in rashes, extreme pain, or other obvious symptoms. Even then, treatment may not be provided if no diagnosis is clear based on existing research which is itself based on averages rather than individual human beings. Western Medicine is fantastic though. It is truly life-saving when circumstances are dire and that's exactly what it can be effectively used for.
Medicine in Chinese Medicine and other holistic practices is based more on identifying a root cause for the symptoms, and helping to restore proper function and promote 'wellbeing', or overall health, rather than simple eliminate a particular symptom. Many practitioners however will operate by symptom elimination if they cannot determine a sufficient diagnosis within their theoretical framework. In contrast to Western Medicine, this approach ideally involves modalities and substances that are seen to be more 'natural', less invasive, and with less harmful side effects.
So aren't both of these involved in healing in some capacity? The answer is yes, definitely, they are. In both cases there is a mutual goal of preserving life, albeit from different stages of disease and different goals for a satisfactory outcome. The thing to note about each one is that the medicine and the practitioner are generally responsible for ensuring that healing takes place. As Lonny Jarrett often muses, the conventional patient will go to Western Medicine to feel better without changing their lives, and the alternative patient will go to Acupuncture or the like to feel better without changing their lives.
Many a holistic practitioner will take issue with that statement as we are readily requesting that patients change their diet, sleep habit, mindfulness practices, and products and chemicals used at home. That said, the patient often presents with the idea that you, the practitioner, and the treatment provided will be the key factors in making them feel better about where they're at. In fact, it's a common phrase in the wellbeing community to talk about meeting patients where they're at. Of course that's true in a sense because where else can we meet them? But many times that's where we stay as treatment progresses. We monitor changes in signs and symptoms and dust off our hands as pain decreases, cycles regulate etc. Patients may even continue to see us for preventative purposes, to relax, or just to escape from their weekly routine for an hour of peace. There is nothing wrong with any of that. In fact, it is a major part of our job as practitioners. Ongoing pain and discomfort can do a number on anyone's sense of self over time and it's important that their are options to help alleviate this.
But posing the question again, is Healing really the goal in medicine? Here is the potential downfall of a hyperfocus on healing. Healing is inherently involved with the past. An injury, a trauma, etc. It is extremely personal, it is our own story of what happened, it is our current reason that we cannot pursue what is next in life. The idea is often that we must heal ourselves (or be healed by another) before we must really take on responsibility for our adult lives (a different story if we are children). If we are healing, we are not really free. We are still in a conditional state. A first this, then this. It is a presumption that we are not already whole, that we cannot be total until a set of circumstances is satisfied. It is inherently stagnating. Stagnation, in Chinese Medicine, is the underlying factor in any disease process. Life is inherently change, evolution, and anything that runs in resistance to that, points towards death. Cells are always dividing, the natural world is in perpetual transformation, and when that is slowed, and eventually stopped, that portion of nature dies, ultimately rejoining the transformative process in its decay.
So let's clean these ideas up a little. The point here is that healing has a stagnating aspect in the sense that it is focused on the past and creates conditions for moving forward. The idea of healing has the inherent suggestion that the vessel is not whole, is not growing, because it is in a state of recovery from past assault. There is a moment possible for each patient in which the focus flips. There is a move from past to creation of the future. Healing attempts to bring us to a ground zero, back to the baseline, or simply to feel better about where we are at in life. The pivot is to something much less personal. It is when the patient experiences themselves as part of the whole, of everyone, that their healing is not so much about them, but about the integrity and growth of everything. If they are an integral part of all that is, their healing is less of a 'me' story and more of a duty for encouraging the greater transformation at hand. The shift is from healing to evolution.
There is something in this idea that is exciting, but another aspect that is more irksome. It's a grand idea to be part of the evolution of mankind and the universe, sure, but what about our very real pain and ailments? Is this to say that I shouldn't be able to seek care for these before I'm expected to go about pursuing my greater purpose in life? Kind of yes. Anyone can of course choose to pursue healing, to stay in healing. But let's be wary of staying there for too long, getting comfortable in the known of our ailments, never pressing into the unknown realm of freedom and responsibility. What if we simply ride the pivot, move from healing to evolution, and use medicine to clean up the consequences of such a courageous pursuit. Surely taking on what's next in life, asking ourselves the honest questions, and embarking wholeheartedly on that path will generate its own wear and tear on the mind and body. And medicine can assist with that.
So if ultimately we understand our place in the whole, then moving from the known past into the unknown future is the only way for everything to continue evolving. Evolution means moving into the unknown as you can't expand from where you are into where you are not without ambiguity. Moving from person, past, healing, to future and evolution means change. Change is inherent in medicine. Healing isn't the goal, evolution is the goal. Freedom from perpetual healing.
Phew. Okay. Grappling with this, my own next question was- how on earth do we do this? Like practically, what are earth do we do....
We will let this theoretical concept settle in here a bit. I'll write the next post on the how. The hint is, it's all about Freedom. It's all about not being in stagnation. It's moving from a state of what is not true to what is, what is blocked, to what is moving etc. The right medicine, the right change, will differ for each patient. I do believe this. But I also feel there is a set of practices that will be catalytic for the majority, and that's to what I will dedicate the rest of my practice and my life.
Thanks for reading, please get in touch for any reason.
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