scientist vs the healer

Scientist

HealerVS the

By Avinoam Lerner

Divided They Fall

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The Scientist versus the Healer: Divided They Fall

In my ideal world the two words, Healer and Scientist, describe the same person.Currently, though, they describe two worlds apart. It is rare that their methodscross over and that one honor and recognize the contribution of the other.

Can you imagine going into surgery and your surgeon asks you to breathe deeply,set intention for healing of your body and using hypnosis to prepare you for thesurgery? What if this helped your recovery and boosted your ability to heal?

This vision may be realized sooner then we think as news of more and moremedical practitioners developing greater appreciation to ancient healing modalities.

But when the healer and the scientist meet, their conversation will come to a haltbecause of their point of focus and beliefs-systems. Their differences anddivergences stem from the way in which they see disease and how to handle it.

Capacity to Heal

The scientific community agrees that the body has the innate ability to heal cutsand bruises. But many still believe that it is unfounded and far reaching to assumewe have the ability to activate this innate healing capacity at will.

Most scientists dismiss the notion of miraculous healing or spontaneous remissionas anecdotal stories. However, it’s getting a bit hard to ignore the overwhelmingamount of data describing spontaneous remission (O'Regan et al. 1993).

The healer gladly embraces the notion that the body has an innate mechanismdesigned to defend against all illnesses, cancer included. This mechanism is theimmune system. The key to healing, then, is to find the means by which to activatethis mechanism, and stimulate it to defend the body against disease.

There is much more in this universe then what we perceive with our five senses.For example, many animals can hear a wider spectrum of sounds than we do,others see in more sophisticated ways than we do. Yet we are focused for the mostpart only on what is tangible and proven, which to me doesn’t makes sense at all.





The Whole versus the Parts

The healer focuses on restoring a state of well-being where physical, emotional andsocial aspects are in balance. The healer considers the whole person – mind, bodyand soul - and how their interconnectedness affects the body’s natural healingability. Before western medicine, the healer utilized spiritual rituals intended toactivate or enhance that innate capacity.

But before western medicine, there was a great void in the understanding of thebody’s mechanical system. This is the scientist’s focus.

The goal of the scientist is to identify and treat specific organs. Science approachis to investigate a faulty part of the body by dissecting and breaking it into itsbuilding blocks with the purpose to gain insight into its defective performance.

What traditional medicine is lacking is seeing the person as a whole, emotional andspiritual being, rather than a mechanical system and a physical body which needsto be fixed. Science is focused on the parts.

Patient versus Student

The approach of minimizing a person to “a body to be fixed” objectifies us andcontributes to the experience of helplessness and hopelessness. These two states ofmind have shown in research to suppress the immune system and lower the body’sability to defend itself against illness (Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser 1988).

The healer, on the other hand, capitalizes on the intimate nature of the therapeuticrelationship. The healer believes this supporting relationship both empowers theclient to participate in their healing journey as well as motivates them to care forthemselves.

In his book Healing Psyche, Rob Van Overbruggen mentioned that in certaintreatment places in China, patients are not called “patients” (which is the medicalterm) and they are not called “clients” (which is the mental health term). They usethe term “student,” no matter how sick a person is.





The argument for use of this term is based on the fact that their “students learn howto influence their personal healing resources. They will learn how to heal instead ofbeing treated.”

Inherited in the term “student” is the notion that one becomes more involved andactive in his/her healing process, and assumes more responsibility. VanOverbruggen says, “A person remains a person and therefore takes responsibilityfor their state of mind, attitude and behavior even between visits and continue torely on their own judgment.”

Dismissing Scientific Proof

In 1975 scientists and healers had a common meeting ground. Dr. Robert Ader, ofthe University of Rochester, New York investigated how long conditionedresponses (in the sense of Pavlov's conditioning of dogs to drool when they heard abell ring) might last in laboratory rats.

The result was Psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI for short. PNI is the study of theinteraction between psychological processes, primarily stress, and the nervous andimmune systems of the human body. This study was the first to prove therelationship between the mind and the immune system.

This discovery forced scientist to shift their focus from an isolated faulty organ tothe interaction between different systems of the body. It also forced a shift indiscussion where no longer the question was whether or not the mind plays a rolein illness, but rather whether the mind can influence our biology enough to eithercreate illness or heal it.

While Dr. Ader was the first to scientifically discover the relationship between themind and immune system, it was his successor Dr. David Felten, then working atthe Indiana University of Medicine who was able to map its wiring. Dr. Feltenfound the hard-wire connection between the body's immune system and the centralnervous system under control of the brain.

In a 1997 interview by The Rochester Review, Dr. Felten said discussed thefindings and the reactions from both the scientific and alternative-medicinecommunities.





Neither would embrace PNI as proof of the mind-body connection. The scientificcommunity didn’t accept it as medicine and the alternative-medicine group wasuninterested. He says,

"When we first started presenting our findings, people laughed at us.Mainstream scientists, who have a tendency to look at anything new

as kooky alternative medicine, wondered why we couldn't just stickwith traditional research...The alternative medicine folks don't want tobe bothered with all the scientific rigmarole of testing; they just wantto promulgate their beliefs… But what we had finally given bothfactions was absolute, one hundred percent quantifiable results,showing that the immune system and the central nervous system areindeed connected." Copyright 1997, University of Rochester, Maintainedby University Public relations Last updated 3-26-1997

Now that the mind-body relationship is established, the debate is whether or notthe mind can influence the immune system enough to overcome disease. This canonly be learned through trying over and over again, and acknowledging all thosewho have successfully done so. This requires both traditional and alternativemedicine to converge.

Meeting the world of the healer and the world of the scientist can have greatpositive outcomes for the development of methods in recovery and healing forcancer and chronic illness.

Both are necessary for complete medicine. The scientists offer methodology andexpertise in the physical realm, and a way to study and research results. The healerunderstands the emotional and spiritual influence on our bodies and how toactivate our natural innate healing powers.

The day both shall converge will be a great day for people suffering from chronicillness and cancer. This day is getting closer.

http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V59N3/feature2.html



scientist vs the healer

Health & Medicine