The Spirit of Healing
By Dr. Lisa Lichtig, MD

Editor's note: In discussing this Modern Medicine issue with readers and friends, I kept hearing that modern medicine, in its system of diagnosis, treatment, and patient relations, is missing something fundamental. With that in mind, I posed a question to Dr. Lisa Lichtig. Following is her response.

"Even with all the information about the body-mind connection, most conventional doctors (and many alternative doctors) still focus on fixing physical symptoms. Many doctors and other practitioners even treat depression with drugs or herbs to relieve symptoms instead of looking at deeper issues. What's really missing from modern medicine and where can we find it?"

This is a beautiful example of when the question is more important than the answer. This is a question that can guide us, if we keep it in view. It is easy to blame the ills of modern medicine on managed care, malpractice awards, the 'doctor is God' syndrome, or demanding patients. Focusing on those symptoms of the system may only result in Band-Aid solutions. Let's consider the roots of this crisis in modern medicine that patients and health care professionals alike describe as a system out of balance and failing. During the Renaissance, the Church required a separation between body and mind to allow the advancement of scientific method. While scientific understanding of anatomy, physiology, and biology has brought progress and made noteworthy contributions, there is an essence of healing that has been forgotten.

Separating the body from the mind has helped to perpetuate the value placed on the mind in society. Nowadays, we call people with a body and no mind a 'vegetable'. This separation has also dissociated us from our spirits. Mind and body without a spirit is called a computer. Spirit is the aspect that is beyond mind, body, and even self. It is difficult to talk about it in words that are a product of the mind, yet it is this connection with our spirit that makes life worth living. Unfortunately, many of us are walking around disconnected from our spirits, and our system of medicine has become more like a great big computer. This separation of mind and body is incompatible with the inner sense that healing is a great mystery. Our compassion and desire to lessen suffering create an interest in healing. The word 'to heal' comes from the Germanic root for 'whole', yet medical training maintains the separation of the body, mind, and spirit. Medicine and healing have become separate. There is an intolerance for deeper truths that are unexplained by a randomized, controlled clinical trial. Modern life and modern medicine perpetuate this separation. Attempts are now being made to reintegrate the body and mind into medical thinking and practice, yet our modern culture fosters this separation. Our relationship with ourselves, our parents, each other, and all aspects of nature is devoid of spirit.

So what is 'IT' that we seek to find in modern medicine? I believe 'IT' is the heart essence or spirit. To find the heart in modern medicine, we must begin to rediscover it in ourselves. We must allow our heart to inspire and guide our relationships with doctors, patients, decision-making, food, parents, children, technology, nature, and all of life as we are a part of it. Talking about the integration of body, mind and spirit without a direct experience of it is just another mental construct.

Is there hope for the failing heart of health care? Relationship is the most important thing we all bring to life. A healing relationship between a health care provider and a person seeking help is essential for healing to occur. These relationships are endangered. The business relationship of modern medicine is based on doing things to people rather than being with people.

All of our spirits are sad and angry to be involved in a medicine that places more emphasis on productivity than healing. We feel rushed through the medical system like cattle with questions unanswered and fears never acknowledged. There is often no one truly present to see us. The system has become impersonal and does not value authentic expressions of the heart. And the cycle continues.

The past 24 hours of my own practice began at one a.m. with a call from a woman in labor. This was her second pregnancy, and I was scheduled to be out of town near her due date. Months earlier she taught me a valuable lesson. She said, "It doesn't matter if you are there for the birth. What is most important is the growth that happens during this pregnancy." She opened herself to a transformation that can occur when we bring forth life. She went into labor when I arrived back in town. Last night, I was blessed to witness and hold the sacred space for the flow of the Divine through this grunting, squatting, birthing woman. Later in the day, I saw people with various concerns, from fatigue and depression to coughs and sore throats. While medical science informed each of the interactions, it was the gentle touch and flow of the Divine Mystery that offered healing. This evening, I visited with a 90 year woman who is spending her last days of a long healthy life being cared for at Hospice. She was diagnosed with cancer just two weeks ago. Birth, old age, sickness and death. Whether we are rich or poor, white or black, man or woman, plant or animal, we all share these natural cycles of life.

Modern medicine seems to separate itself from these natural cycles of life. This is an unfortunate fact, because we are given the opportunity to enter into the essence of life itself through our healing. Life is reaching out to us, speaking to us about what it is. Yet we walk through life shielding ourselves from the very thing that most of us wish to touch, a Divine connection. May we sense the movement of the Divine through all of our lives as we are touched by the power and magnificence of the mystery.

Lisa Lictig, MD is co-owner of Family to Family, a practice in Asheville, NC.