by Eunice J Minford MA FRCS Ed Consultant Surgeon, Antrim, N. Ireland
It is quite common to consider illness and disease as something ‘bad’ that has happened, that something is ‘wrong’ or has ‘gone wrong’, that something has been imposed upon us that needs to be eradicated, removed or eliminated. Whilst there may well be a need for surgery or medicine in order to treat a condition, how we perceive illness and disease can make a profound difference to how we see and understand it and how we understand healing. There is the tendency to see illness and disease as the enemy, something to be fought against and overcome. The phrase ‘fighting cancer’ or ‘battling cancer’ is often used when referring to patients who are engaged in cancer treatment. This way of understanding illness and disease was part and parcel of my medical training, which was steeped in the biomedical paradigm. The latter reinforces the idea that illness and disease happen to us, but are not caused by us, that we are victims of circumstance, chance, bad luck, our genes, toxins/chemicals or infectious agents. In this system, patients are devoid of responsibility for their own health and dependent upon the doctor to fix or cure them and thus they are disempowered. However, with the development of different paradigms of understanding the manifestation of illness and disease we are able to consider another way of understanding illness and disease – one that does not render the person a victim but is instead empowering and encourages them to take responsibility for their health. Continue reading “Illness and Disease are Healing”
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 