Clinical Holistic Medicine: Social Problems Disguised as Illness

Abstract

Many of the diseases seen in the clinic are actually symptoms of social problems. It is often easier for the physician to treat the symptoms than to be a coach and help the patient to assume responsibility in order to improve quality of life, social situation, and relations.If the physician ignores the signs of the disease as a symptom of social problems, and treats the patient with pharmaceuticals, he can give the patient the best justification in the world not to do anything about the situation. It is very important that the physician is not tricked by the games the socially troubled patient, more or less unconsciously, is playing.A firm and wise attitude that confronts the patient with his or her lack of responsibility for solving social problems seems to be a constructive way out. The physician can give holding and support, but the responsibility must remain with the patient. Often it is better for the patient that the physician abstains from giving drugs that can remedy the symptoms and takes the role of a coach instead. Suffering is not necessarily bad, suffering is actually highly motivating and often the most efficient source of learning. Coaching can help the patient canalize his motivation into highly constructive considerations and behavior. A holistic approach thus gives the patient learning and helps him rehabilitate his social reality.Concerning children with recurrent or chronic pain, we have observed an overuse of painkillers, where we believe part is of a psychosomatic nature due to poor thriving in the family. Here the physician has an important job helping the parents to develop as persons, teaching them the basic holding of awareness, respect, care, acknowledgment and acceptance of their child. Most of the chronic pain and discomfort with children can be improved if the physician understands how to use the holistic medical toolbox.

The Life Mission Theory VI. A Theory for the Human Character: Healing with Holistic Medicine Through Recovery of Character and Purpose of Life

“…We hope when developed, this upgrade of holistic medicine can be helpful to support the immune system of HIV patients [73] and to help with inducing spontaneous remissions of cancer [73,74] and other diseases [60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,75,76,77,78,79].…”

“…It seems thus that character is an important aspect of life in need of a scientific exploration. The presented theory integrates a vast number of prescientific and psychoanalytically inspired theories, where the idea of repression of the character into the subconscious is central in all the life mission theories [1,2,3,4,5,6] and the theory of holistic healing [27,28,60,61,62,63,64,65,66]. The disadvantage of this "Freudian" flavor is a feeling of mystery, as it really is difficult to understand the mechanistic and neurological principles according to which gestalts can be buried in our unconsciousness.…”

“…The techniques are described in the book on consciousness-based medicine [59] and a series of papers on clinical holistic medicine [60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68]. In the following case, the patient is treated in accordance with the holistic process theory of healing [27] with a focus on recovering the character and purpose of life.…”

Clinical Holistic Medicine: Tools for a Medical Science Based on Consciousness

“…It is very important to stress that we imagine the excellent physician to use both toolboxes and more [31] in his treatment of his patients; we actually want the physician to be multiparadigmatic [32]. Often both biomedicine and holistic medicine must be taken into use to cure a patient; mostly the acute problems can be solved using biomedicine, while chronic health problems need a holistic approach [33,34,35,36,37].…”

A need for holistic approach to the occupational health developing (in Serbia)

“…Therefore, a professional vision of occupational health has to be supported by the current plan of the WHO and the objectives it defines. The detailed guidelines for concrete definition of its future actions in that direction should be looked for in the definition (WHO, 2009) [2] related to the notion of "healthy workplace" which reads: "A healthy workplace is a place where workers and employers cooperate and continually improve the process of protecting IJOMEH 2011;24(3) 231 even national economies that gain in importance when the crisis is globally escalating [10][11][12][13][14][15]. In this paper, the individual's and public's health is viewed as a dynamic process, but not independent of other dynamic processes (e.g., economy, politics) that are all part of a much bigger process.…”