What is "health?"
“Health” and "healing" are multilayered concepts. Healing is not necessarily permanent or even long term. Healing doesn’t require physical change.
Since initiating my studies of Chinese medicine, I have broadened my ideas of both the concept of healing itself as well as the timing of the healing process. While I certainly believe in the possibility of healing in its objective classic Western sense, where conditions such as pain or anxiety are measurable and immediately resolved, I have since expanded my definition of the term.
By the very nature of being a health clinic, patients come to Foster Wellness to experience change – healing – in some aspect of their being. As a practitioner, my understanding of healing has changed based on what I have seen with patients and their unique expectations and outcomes. I originally thought in very western terms, in that only in achieving objective, measurable change during a treatment would equate to being successful. One patient in particular, though, taught me that the “healing” can be a very different experience.
I had been treating this patient every week for about 6 months, where his symptoms had waxed and waned between sessions. If there were clear results at one visit, he would report that he had regressed at the next visit; the ground we gained would have been lost, in my eyes. For example, he would report being headache-free for two weeks and then in the third week he would indicate that he had had a series of three or four headaches. After about a half a year into working together, I asked this patient what kept him coming back for treatments when it seemed to me that he was getting only sporadic benefits. He explained to me that the treatments were “saving his life.” The acupuncture treatments and his craniosacral therapy he received regularly enabled him to continue to survive the trials of his daily life. I realized that he was experiencing healing on a level that I had failed to notice.
What “healing” means is going to be different for each patient coming to Foster Wellness, thus I have worked to expand my assessment skills so I can observe these more subtle changes. I continually strive to hone my assessment skills for observing on such a level, listening and watching for changes from week to week with all of my patients.
There is also a time element to healing. I’ve come to realize that nothing is permanent. This is a very simple and obvious concept to experienced medical providers, but it took me several years to become comfortable with this reality. If today my knees are perfectly pain free, or my yoga practice feels strong and energized, I can expect that tomorrow or next week I might be riding my bike a little more slowly because my knees hurt, or lying in Savasana instead of moving through a rigorous Hatha flow due to my body feeling a little less vibrant.
Regarding this understanding in clinical practice, I am learning to hold contradicting ideas at the same time. My ultimate hope is that my patient will only need to come into the clinic for a single visit to cure their ailment, but I also know that even if one component of their body is “fixed” there will be others that, in their reality, “fail” them. Or perhaps the same complaint will return again over time. Or, even more challenging, perhaps their main concern will still be there when we complete the treatment. In any case, I feel my role in working with my patient is to provide – even for a few minutes – relief from their symptoms. Even if the change isn’t permanent, I consider a treatment successful if, for a moment during the acupuncture or massage treatment, they can experience an ease in their condition.
There is a complementary aspect involved here. Of course, if the patient’s pain, sorrow, or feeling of cold in their feet went away there would be no more discussion. I would consider this a basic success. However, I also see an opportunity for acupuncture and other treatments I perform to offer an experience for the patient beyond simply “fixing” the problem. Even if their main complaint isn’t immediately resolved, some part of their consciousness becomes aware that regardless of what shifts in their physical or emotional body, everything is going to be okay. As much as creating an environment for the patient’s physical or emotional body to shift and create objective change, I have as much focus on offering a view into a dimension where the patient can breathe in spite of (or because of) their condition and be present with it. This is a fairly radical concept, I suppose, but I entertain the idea that health conditions offer opportunities for spiritual development and expanded consciousness.
I was introduced to Vipasana meditation through one of my patients, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, where he taught that if one becomes an observer of the breath one can become an observer of the mind and thus move beyond the emotional binds of our perceived ailments. I believe acupuncture and massage and many other forms of therapy are ways for patients to meditate their way to a place where they can hold their current circumstance with equanimity and peace. The needles and touch are one way of guiding a patient to this state of awareness.
I believe in an objective measurable definition of healing, where, for example, a patient comes in hobbling with back pain and they leave the treatment feeling more mobile and pain free. Acupuncture and massage, though, also offer the patient an additional opportunity: to be comfortable with where she is now, to more present with her current circumstances and find ease in the road to healing. In the ability to be present and rest with herself, she is able to take a deep breath and settle more securely and confidently in the path ahead.
Greg Lewerenz, May 8, 2011
Since initiating my studies of Chinese medicine, I have broadened my ideas of both the concept of healing itself as well as the timing of the healing process. While I certainly believe in the possibility of healing in its objective classic Western sense, where conditions such as pain or anxiety are measurable and immediately resolved, I have since expanded my definition of the term.
By the very nature of being a health clinic, patients come to Foster Wellness to experience change – healing – in some aspect of their being. As a practitioner, my understanding of healing has changed based on what I have seen with patients and their unique expectations and outcomes. I originally thought in very western terms, in that only in achieving objective, measurable change during a treatment would equate to being successful. One patient in particular, though, taught me that the “healing” can be a very different experience.
I had been treating this patient every week for about 6 months, where his symptoms had waxed and waned between sessions. If there were clear results at one visit, he would report that he had regressed at the next visit; the ground we gained would have been lost, in my eyes. For example, he would report being headache-free for two weeks and then in the third week he would indicate that he had had a series of three or four headaches. After about a half a year into working together, I asked this patient what kept him coming back for treatments when it seemed to me that he was getting only sporadic benefits. He explained to me that the treatments were “saving his life.” The acupuncture treatments and his craniosacral therapy he received regularly enabled him to continue to survive the trials of his daily life. I realized that he was experiencing healing on a level that I had failed to notice.
What “healing” means is going to be different for each patient coming to Foster Wellness, thus I have worked to expand my assessment skills so I can observe these more subtle changes. I continually strive to hone my assessment skills for observing on such a level, listening and watching for changes from week to week with all of my patients.
There is also a time element to healing. I’ve come to realize that nothing is permanent. This is a very simple and obvious concept to experienced medical providers, but it took me several years to become comfortable with this reality. If today my knees are perfectly pain free, or my yoga practice feels strong and energized, I can expect that tomorrow or next week I might be riding my bike a little more slowly because my knees hurt, or lying in Savasana instead of moving through a rigorous Hatha flow due to my body feeling a little less vibrant.
Regarding this understanding in clinical practice, I am learning to hold contradicting ideas at the same time. My ultimate hope is that my patient will only need to come into the clinic for a single visit to cure their ailment, but I also know that even if one component of their body is “fixed” there will be others that, in their reality, “fail” them. Or perhaps the same complaint will return again over time. Or, even more challenging, perhaps their main concern will still be there when we complete the treatment. In any case, I feel my role in working with my patient is to provide – even for a few minutes – relief from their symptoms. Even if the change isn’t permanent, I consider a treatment successful if, for a moment during the acupuncture or massage treatment, they can experience an ease in their condition.
There is a complementary aspect involved here. Of course, if the patient’s pain, sorrow, or feeling of cold in their feet went away there would be no more discussion. I would consider this a basic success. However, I also see an opportunity for acupuncture and other treatments I perform to offer an experience for the patient beyond simply “fixing” the problem. Even if their main complaint isn’t immediately resolved, some part of their consciousness becomes aware that regardless of what shifts in their physical or emotional body, everything is going to be okay. As much as creating an environment for the patient’s physical or emotional body to shift and create objective change, I have as much focus on offering a view into a dimension where the patient can breathe in spite of (or because of) their condition and be present with it. This is a fairly radical concept, I suppose, but I entertain the idea that health conditions offer opportunities for spiritual development and expanded consciousness.
I was introduced to Vipasana meditation through one of my patients, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, where he taught that if one becomes an observer of the breath one can become an observer of the mind and thus move beyond the emotional binds of our perceived ailments. I believe acupuncture and massage and many other forms of therapy are ways for patients to meditate their way to a place where they can hold their current circumstance with equanimity and peace. The needles and touch are one way of guiding a patient to this state of awareness.
I believe in an objective measurable definition of healing, where, for example, a patient comes in hobbling with back pain and they leave the treatment feeling more mobile and pain free. Acupuncture and massage, though, also offer the patient an additional opportunity: to be comfortable with where she is now, to more present with her current circumstances and find ease in the road to healing. In the ability to be present and rest with herself, she is able to take a deep breath and settle more securely and confidently in the path ahead.
Greg Lewerenz, May 8, 2011