Book Excerpt: Focus on Healing by Jennifer ... - I Heart Book Reviews

Chapter Extract from ?Focus on Healing? by Jennifer Barraclough

What is holistic healing?

Healing means ?to make sound or healthy? and is a very broad concept. The word is also used as a shorthand description for the specific therapies known as spiritual, or energy, healing.

Health is not just the freedom from disease, but a positive state of balance and well-being in body, emotions, mind and spirit. All living things ? humans, animals and plants ? naturally aspire to this state.

Holistic means ?considering something as a whole, and more than just the sum of its parts?.

Holistic healing involves all aspects of the person ? body, emotions, mind and spirit, considered within the wider setting of their social relationships and physical environment ? in the quest for better health. People who can benefit from the holistic approach include:

? those who are already in good health and want to continue that way ? prevention is better than cure;

? those suffering from serious physical or mental disease;

? those with chronic symptoms which are causing distress, even if they are not life-threatening or do not fit in to any known medical diagnostic category.

I believe that the holistic philosophy can and should be part of any self-healing endeavor and of any professional treatment, whether in orthodox healthcare (also called conventional, allopathic or mainstream medicine) or in natural therapy (also called complementary and alternative medicine, abbreviated to CAM). It cannot be assumed that natural therapy practitioners are always ?holistic? and that conventionally-trained doctors and nurses are not ? sometimes it is the other way round! The benefits of the holistic approach are now being acknowledged in many areas of mainstream medical practice.

All the methods to be described in this book can be combined with orthodox care. When wisely used, the orthodox and holistic approaches have a lot in common. But there are also important differences. The orthodox approach is chiefly focused on material things which can be observed and measured, whereas the holistic one puts more weight on the intangible psychospiritual realm. And whereas by definition the holistic approach is about seeing things as a whole, the orthodox one tends to divide things up. Much of orthodox medicine is based on the classification of cases into specific disease states each with their characteristic causes, symptoms, clinical signs, laboratory findings, natural history and response to treatment. There are healthcare professionals specialising in different diseases, disorders of different body parts, or disorders of different physiological systems, often working in separate departments or even separate hospitals and not always communicating with each other very much. Given the vast and complex knowledge base of modern medicine, such compartmentalisation is probably unavoidable, for it would be impossible for any one person to keep pace with advances in all branches of the profession.

For many patients with well-defined disorders the orthodox healthcare setup does work very well. But for symptoms which cannot be explained by the disease model, conditions which involve more than one body system, or when several different disorders are present at the same time, it can lead to unsatisfactory fragmentation. Different parts of the body are interconnected in ways which are not always obvious. For example, gum disease is linked with heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers; and many headaches are due at least in part to dysfunction of the gastrointestinal system. Narrow specialisation within medicine can hinder the recognition of such links.

Not only are there many subdivisions within medicine itself, but in most clinical settings there is a huge gulf between medicine and psychiatry ? even though psychological and physical problems are often closely intertwined. Body and mind form an integrated unit, connected by two-way feedback systems. The ?mind-on-body? direction of these circuits involves the effects of emotions, thoughts and beliefs on physical health. The ?body-on-mind? direction involves the effects of biological factors on mental health.

The wish to be considered as a whole person, not as a collection of isolated parts, is therefore one of the main factors driving the growth of interest in the holistic approach. Another is a wish for safer, more natural treatments. Pharmaceutical drugs and surgery can have tremendous benefits. They are life-saving in many acute conditions, and an essential mainstay of management for many chronic ones. Even so, advocates of holistic healing prefer to avoid these high-tech interventions if at all possible. Though they may be powerfully effective in suppressing symptoms or attacking disease, they do not always deal with the root causes of illness, and they almost invariably have unwanted effects as well as therapeutic ones. Natural therapies, generally speaking, are gentler and safer and act by stimulating the person?s own capacity for recovery. Because this is primarily a self-help book I have made no attempt to cover the full range of these therapies, though a few specific approaches will be mentioned to illustrate various points, and I have included an Appendix outlining the system of Bach flower remedies which I use in my own practice.

Self-help is an essential part of holistic healing. Whatever other treatment is used, the sick person?s own desire and intention to get well are essential to the process.

Those exploring holistic healing must be prepared to some extent to make their own judgments and choices. Although there is a growing volume of research about mind-body medicine and natural therapies, and it is encouraging to see so many formal academic studies being done, there are still many controversies and unanswered questions. The ancient philosophical principles which underpin holistic healing cannot always be validated with ?scientific? methods. Some of the natural therapies which have been observed to benefit thousands of individuals do not stand up so well when tested in formal clinical trials. So although I would have liked to be able to back up all the suggestions in this book with sound published evidence, this has not always been possible and it will often be up to you, the reader, to decide what holds true for you personally.

The nature of the healing journey

It is said that all healing is self-healing. Not even the best of professional treatment can succeed unless a person?s natural life force and restorative capacities are still present. Many illnesses recover without treatment ? even sometimes despite treatment.

The body is continually striving towards good health as its natural state of being, and has an innate intelligence which often enables it to recover if allowed to do so by being provided with the right physical conditions, and the right messages from the mind. This means removing the various toxins which have contributed to development of the illness, or are preventing its recovery. Both toxins such as infections or poisons, and psychological toxins such as negative beliefs, thoughts and emotions, difficult relationships, and sources of external stress are included here. If further interventions are needed, the best ones to choose are those which stimulate the person?s own powers of self-healing.

Some healers say that anything can be healed. Since beginning to explore the holistic approach I have heard many stories of apparently complete cure from conditions which had been labeled as hopeless by the medical profession. Some detailed accounts of such cases can be found in Remarkable Recovery by Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Ian Barasch (Riverhead Books). Sometimes the explanation seems to be biological ? for example advanced cancers can go into remission after the patient undertakes a radical change of diet, or suffers a high fever due to infection. Sometimes the turnaround follows a psychological shift, usually including the following features:

? a strong desire to recover;

? a strong belief that recovery is possible;

? a major change in attitudes and way of living;

? a resolution to do something worthwhile with the new lease of life.

While it may be true in theory that (almost) anything can be healed, it must be acknowledged that in practice not all illness will recover. Healing is not always curing; sometimes it is more about coming to terms with the situation so that quality of life is restored, perhaps even enriched, in creative new ways. When this happens, physical improvement may well follow. But even when a disease is so advanced and severe that a cure is highly unlikely, there is always scope for relief of symptoms, improved emotional adjustment, a sense of peace and a heightened awareness of the spiritual dimension of life. Maintaining optimism that healing in this wider sense of the word is always possible is always important, however dire the situation may seem.

Rapid and apparently miraculous recoveries do happen sometimes, though by definition they are rare. Gradual improvement is more common, equally valid, and often easier to cope with. One meaning of the axiom healing is a process not an event is that natural healing often proceeds slowly. The body has the wisdom to prioritise the process so that the most serious problems are tackled first. There may be apparent setbacks which are due to ?healing reactions? (also called healing responses, or aggravations) as physical or mental toxins are cleared from the system. A more profound meaning of this axiom is that a life well-lived is more about the journey than the final destination. The journey of healing can be long but rewarding, ?peeling the layers of the onion? to reveal the good nature of the true essential self.

Anyone who embarks on a serious exploration of the holistic approach will want to look more deeply into the significance of their illness on levels besides the physical. The saying form follows thought implies that many physical health problems have a psychological or spiritual basis, though material disease-causing agents are usually involved as well. Therefore, there may be a meaning in a person?s symptoms and, if and when this is recognised, the illness may even come to be seen as a ?gift?.

The benefits of a positive focus

Orthodox medical practice is mostly concerned with pathology ? diagnosing what is wrong with a person already, and searching for indicators of what else might go wrong in the future. But according to the teachings of many noted healers, energy is better directed to promoting health than to fighting illness. Edward Bach, for example, claimed that his flower essences worked by ?flooding our bodies with the beautiful vibrations of our Higher Nature, in the presence of which disease melts away like snow in the sun?. Cultivation of positive thoughts and mental qualities, love and harmony in personal relationships, and a life path which brings meaning and joy, are all powerfully conducive to self-healing. One of the major changes in my own approach has been to focus on the potential for positive personal growth instead of just exploring the problems.

But this introduces a paradox. On the one hand your illness may be dominating your life, so that your healing journey is the most significant venture you will ever undertake. On the other hand it can be unwise to let yourself become too identified with your bodily condition or make it your one and only focus. This is why the ?fighting spirit? attitude, though often advocated, does not always help. When you direct your personal energy towards something, whatever it may be, you tend to magnify its significance and continue to attract it into your experience. In other words you are likely to get more of whatever you think about, or feel strongly about ? whether you want it or not. It is now well established that our feelings, thoughts, beliefs and mental images can impact on our biochemistry, and even on the expression of our genes and on the structure of our brains. And as well as having these internal effects there is evidence that they can radiate outwards to resonate with similar vibrations in the wider universe, so that we act as both transmitters and receivers at an energetic level. This is consistent with many spiritual teachings and is the essence of the Law of Attraction (http://www.abraham-hicks.com) which can be summed up in the saying ?like attracts like?. Making use of the Law of Attraction to create the conditions you desire, including better health, means taking your mental focus away from your illness and towards the things you want instead.

About the author:

Jennifer Barraclough is a graduate of Oxford University Medical School and practiced for many years as a medical doctor in England before moving to New Zealand and becoming a Bach flower therapist and life coach. She has authored or edited several previous books including ?An Outline of Modern Psychiatry? ?Cancer and ?Emotion? and ?Enhancing Cancer Care?, and published a number of research papers. She lives in Auckland with her husband and cats. To learn more, please visit:www.jenni.co.nz

About the book:

There are many different pathways to healing. Taking a holistic approach which considers the whole person ? body, emotions, mind and spirit ? this practical guide will empower readers to make the choices which are best for them. Self-help methods including lifestyle changes, cultivation of positive mental qualities, and mind-body techniques such as visualization are outlined. It also discusses how to make informed use of professional treatments whether mainstream or alternative, and describes the principles of natural therapy with brief descriptions of some frequently-used modalities. The idea that illness can lead to a positive transformation, for example by stimulating creativity, is illustrated by real-life stories from contributors who have used the approaches described in the book to cope with medical conditions ranging from cancer to heart disease. Jennifer Barraclough?s background in both orthodox medicine and holistic healing, and her experience of being a patient herself, makes her uniquely qualified to provide a balanced overview of the topics covered in this book. Written primarily for those who are living with a long-term illness, ?Focus on Healing? will also be of interest to healthcare professionals, and to general readers who are interested in natural health.

Source: http://iheartbookreviews.com/book-excerpt/book-excerpt-focus-on-healing-by-jennifer-barraclough/

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