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VS the
Healer
Divided They Fall
By Avinoam Lerner
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 methods
cross 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 the
surgery? 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 more
medical practitioners developing greater appreciation to ancient healing modalities.
But when the healer and the scientist meet, their conversation will come to a halt
because of their point of focus and beliefs-systems. Their differences and
divergences 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 cuts
and bruises. But many still believe that it is unfounded and far reaching to assume
we have the ability to activate this innate healing capacity at will.
The healer gladly embraces the notion that the body has an innate mechanism
designed to defend against all illnesses, cancer included. This mechanism is the
immune system. The key to healing, then, is to find the means by which to activate
this 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 most
part only on what is tangible and proven, which to me doesn’t makes sense at all.
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The Whole versus the Parts
The healer focuses on restoring a state of well-being where physical, emotional and
social aspects are in balance. The healer considers the whole person – mind, body
and soul - and how their interconnectedness affects the body’s natural healing
ability. Before western medicine, the healer utilized spiritual rituals intended to
activate or enhance that innate capacity.
But before western medicine, there was a great void in the understanding of the
body’s mechanical system. This is the scientist’s focus.
The goal of the scientist is to identify and treat specific organs. Science approach
is to investigate a faulty part of the body by dissecting and breaking it into its
building blocks with the purpose to gain insight into its defective performance.
What traditional medicine is lacking is seeing the person as a whole, emotional and
spiritual being, rather than a mechanical system and a physical body which needs
to be fixed. Science is focused on the parts.
The healer, on the other hand, capitalizes on the intimate nature of the therapeutic
relationship. The healer believes this supporting relationship both empowers the
client to participate in their healing journey as well as motivates them to care for
themselves.
In his book Healing Psyche, Rob Van Overbruggen mentioned that in certain
treatment places in China, patients are not called “patients” (which is the medical
term) and they are not called “clients” (which is the mental health term). They use
the term “student,” no matter how sick a person is.
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Avinoam Lerner 1157 Walnut Street, Newton MA Phone (617) 564-0707
Email: Free@AvinoamLerner.com www.AvinoamLerner.com
The argument for use of this term is based on the fact that their “students learn how
to influence their personal healing resources. They will learn how to heal instead of
being treated.”
Inherited in the term “student” is the notion that one becomes more involved and
active in his/her healing process, and assumes more responsibility. Van
Overbruggen says, “A person remains a person and therefore takes responsibility
for their state of mind, attitude and behavior even between visits and continue to
rely on their own judgment.”
In 1975 scientists and healers had a common meeting ground. Dr. Robert Ader, of
the University of Rochester, New York investigated how long conditioned
responses (in the sense of Pavlov's conditioning of dogs to drool when they heard a
bell ring) might last in laboratory rats.
The result was Psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI for short. PNI is the study of the
interaction between psychological processes, primarily stress, and the nervous and
immune systems of the human body. This study was the first to prove the
relationship between the mind and the immune system.
This discovery forced scientist to shift their focus from an isolated faulty organ to
the interaction between different systems of the body. It also forced a shift in
discussion where no longer the question was whether or not the mind plays a role
in illness, but rather whether the mind can influence our biology enough to either
create illness or heal it.
While Dr. Ader was the first to scientifically discover the relationship between the
mind and immune system, it was his successor Dr. David Felten, then working at
the Indiana University of Medicine who was able to map its wiring. Dr. Felten
found the hard-wire connection between the body's immune system and the central
nervous system under control of the brain.
In a 1997 interview by The Rochester Review, Dr. Felten said discussed the
findings and the reactions from both the scientific and alternative-medicine
communities.
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Avinoam Lerner 1157 Walnut Street, Newton MA Phone (617) 564-0707
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Neither would embrace PNI as proof of the mind-body connection. The scientific
community didn’t accept it as medicine and the alternative-medicine group was
uninterested. He says,
Now that the mind-body relationship is established, the debate is whether or not
the mind can influence the immune system enough to overcome disease. This can
only be learned through trying over and over again, and acknowledging all those
who have successfully done so. This requires both traditional and alternative
medicine to converge.
Meeting the world of the healer and the world of the scientist can have great
positive outcomes for the development of methods in recovery and healing for
cancer and chronic illness.
Both are necessary for complete medicine. The scientists offer methodology and
expertise in the physical realm, and a way to study and research results. The healer
understands the emotional and spiritual influence on our bodies and how to
activate our natural innate healing powers.
The day both shall converge will be a great day for people suffering from chronic
illness and cancer. This day is getting closer.
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Avinoam Lerner 1157 Walnut Street, Newton MA Phone (617) 564-0707
Email: Free@AvinoamLerner.com www.AvinoamLerner.com