Introduction

By Julie Taylor

What I want to talk about is one of 'those' things: something which we already know and yet at the same time don't really know enough about.  Let me start somewhere near, what feels comfortable as, a beginning... 

As long as history has been documented, there are references to healers: medicine men, herbalists, witches, apothecaries and so on.  And there was a time, not so long ago and in my own lifetime, when society - doctors in particular - believed our bodies were simply a complicated arrangement of smaller parts. The common belief was that there was a ‘right way' to understand the human body and disease and that if we reduced the body down to its smallest parts, we could find the cause of each disease.  And then cure it. Maybe we could even 'build' a living breathing human!

Medicine took off with great speed down that new reductionist path and the often miraculous and wonderful Western medicine was born. Certain diseases responded dramatically and certain discoveries, such as penicillin, made widespread fatal diseases a thing of the past. Morale and hopes were high. Frustratingly, there are some areas that seem to confound modern medical thinking.  Even more frustratingly, there are new diseases (born discovered) every day - and hitherto rare diseases that are now becoming quite common.

With this new Western reductionism theory, there have been huge strides made in medical knowledge.  A decade or two ago, the brain was little understood and it was thought that if an accident or disease damaged the brain, there was nothing that could be done. Once a brain cell had died that was it. Game over.  Now there is talk of amazing plasticity and example after example of 'miracles'.  The human genome has been mapped and studies of epigenetics are well underway. Now, at last, we are beginning to see and accept that this simple reductionism idea is simply too simple.  

There's more. Often we can't define it. Or our training is so specific and doesn't include such a general and vague idea: that there's 'more’...

Back in an earlier century there seems to have been some sort of clandestine agreement?  (I guess everything was clandestine before the internet!) An agreement along the lines of "matters to do with the physical body will be left up to science to understand and cure.  Matters to do with the spirit and emotions will be left to religion to manage.” Something like that.

Which would be fine except that it leaves out the people.  Us.  It's our body and our minds that are affected.

Medicine offers that stress can cause physical disease and problems. Why then can the mind not also heal damage already done?

All of this has changed and new knowledge has only really occurred over the last century or two.  There are still 'old wives’ tales' and ancient stories passed down from mouth to mouth that allude to a 'greater power' having a hand in our health. Modern medicine is scrambling to change its image and to be more inclusive in its approach to health. More and more, we are realizing the inexorable - and completely inseparable - link between mind and body.  At last, we are embracing the connection between exercise, our diets, our knowledge, our minds, our spirits, our emotions, our financial wellbeing, stress and so on...

On the one hand, this seems to make a terrifyingly confusing and enormous landscape of medicine and alternative medicine;  one where it's impossible to find any one man or woman to hand over the responsibility for our health.  

In days gone by, here in the West, we could shut our eyes and comfortably hand over the reins to our bodies and health to our doctor. If and when 'things went wrong' we believed that 'they' knew best and had done everything possible to help. In those sad instances, we were simply 'unhelpable'.  We would turn over the reins then - perhaps - to our God. And accept, refuse, deny, or grieve.

For a while, in the middle of the last century, there was great faith in 'them' - the medical professionals - to take care of us. There was a 'top-down' model of medical care.

Now the pendulum seems to have swung. More and more we - those same people - are starting to take responsibility for our own health. The model now is closer to 'bottom up'.  In addition, it's often scary as change is. And there's no relief to be had by handing over responsibility to 'the system'.  We have to balance and weigh every single decision and be conscious of our every action.  At times it seems too 'big'.  Impossible even.  At other times it's exhilarating and exciting. 

To be in control of your own health - your own body and your own mind - is a heady thing. Finding the 'right' balance requires constant attention and adjustment. 

However, in the West we have also designed our lives so competitively that there's often no time to do the things we know we need to do. Time is, literally, of the essence.

Somehow we need to keep our minds open to possibility and to change.  We must be open to 'fact' changing... At the same time, we must guard against gullibility and attack by the cynical, insincere or foolish, made even easier by the internet.

HealingRevealed will propose an idea that makes sense of this change and of all the thousands of 'new' alternative healing methods. We will examine several new ideas and see how they fit together - seamlessly. At last, the idea of the 'mind and body' connected and as one, has come home to rest.