  |
||
|
|
HEALTH: THE LIVING PRINCIPLEby Steve Paulus, DOTo find health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease.[1] A. T. Still We look at the body in health as meaning perfection and harmony, not in one part, but as the whole.[2] A. T. Still Health holds dominion over the body by laws as immutable as the laws of gravity . . .[3] A. T. Still A. T. Still, the founder of Osteopathy, shattered the orientation of the established medical community in the late 1800’s by radically shifting the perspective of patient care. Instead of allowing the exclusive focus of treatment to be directed at what was wrong or not working he asked Osteopaths to incline their treatment toward health. From the beginning, Still developed Osteopathy as a healing system with the primary objective to find health. Even today his work remains fresh and exciting as we carry forth the legacy of his teachings. Within the prevailing allopathic medical community this approach was, and continues to be, reformative, controversial, and in opposition to the basic tenets of a system of medicine whose goal is to combat disease. Yet, even within the Osteopathic profession there remains a gap in our understanding and experience of an obvious method of applying this apparently simple and profound principle. What did Still mean when he asked us to “find health” or that “health holds dominion over the body”? A. T. Still was a country doctor and remained connected to the natural world. Expressed in his teachings are his intimate experiences with Nature as the vehicle though which God works in human beings. He wrote, “The Osteopath who succeeds best does so because he looks to Nature for knowledge and obeys her teachings. . . ” [4] A. T. Still equated Nature with health, stating, “Nature is Health.” [5] When Still discusses Nature in reference to the Osteopathic approach to the care of patients, he is not separating the natural world inside of us with the nature commonly associated with the outer world. To reach an understanding of perhaps the most fundamental teaching of Still’s, we must first find what prevents us from perceiving health. One of the greatest obstacles to experiencing Nature or health in a clinical context is, unfortunately, the success and dominance of mainstream science and the scientific perspective. As creatures of overdeveloped faculties of reason, we have become paralyzed regarding our connection with Nature. Even worse, our innate ability to draw upon instinct, intuition, imagination, and direct experience has atrophied. As a culture, we no longer trust our own perceptions. Instead, we almost exclusively rely upon stimuli aimed into our conscious and unconscious psyche through visual and auditory images from TV, movies, radio, music, and printed works. This limits the expression of our full potential. As advances occur in the over-specialized scientific realm, and as reliance upon gaining information instead of wisdom continues, a chronic laziness has ensued, causing us to rely less upon direct observations and experience of Nature and the natural world. The first of Still’s “students” to narrow the gap in our understanding of health was Rollin Becker, DO. Becker speaks of health as “a living principle in a living body.” [6] Becker’s experience of this living principle was expansive. In Life in Motion he states: It is extremely difficult to find words to express health. Health is a word with an unknown meaning. We think of health simply as “health;” we don’t have any definitions for it. We can’t prove that we’re healthy; we can’t prove that we register health. However, health in the broadest sense, “Health” with a capital “H”, is a something. It’s the very reason we’re all here . . . I mean on earth. We’re here because we have Health. [7]By capitalizing the “H” in Health, (just as Still capitalized the “N” in Nature) Becker gives the word spiritual meaning beyond the ordinary, thus giving a common word theopoietic acknowledgment. The Chicago Manual of Style, the definitive reference on writing rules and guidelines, elucidates the capitalization of words as elevating the selection to a transcendent idea or in making reference, directly or indirectly, to one supreme God. [8] A. T. Still certainly implied a profound definition but was enigmatic in his applications. Becker gave us our first practical glimpse at an everyday use and method to experience Health in Osteopathic practice. If Health can’t be defined, as Becker says, can we be satisfied with a description which dances around the edges of what we are able to know conclusively? A description is a discourse intended to give an image of something experienced, whereas a definition is a distinctive statement expressing the meaning of a word. Truly, Health is best understood as a perceptual experience founded in conscious awareness. However, using words to describe the indefinable can create a framework of discussion that opens the door to deeper understanding. As we work to better understand Health, we can dig deeper to etymological origins. By uncovering the history and derivation of the word Health, we are given a view of its connections to other words and the unconscious expression of value and true meaning. The words Health and Whole are both derived from the same Old English word hal, which means healthy, sound, or complete. Akin to the word hal is the Old English haelen, to become well or to care. [9] Thus, within the Osteopathic lexicon the terms Nature, Health, and Whole are not only linked but are interestingly, synonymous. The understanding of Health, the Whole, or Nature as the living principle, or that aspect that gives us our “aliveness” was not original to Osteopathy. Galen, the famous second century physician writes, “This Nature which shapes and gradually adds to the parts is certainly extended throughout their whole substance. Yes indeed, she shapes and nourishes them through and through . . .” [10] Also he states, that in reference to Nature, “there is no part which she has not touched, elaborated, and embellished [and] . . . if there were not an inborn factor given by Nature to each one of the organs at the very beginning, then animals could not continue to live . . .” [11] Perhaps the most “Osteopathic” of all writers/thinkers or physicians prior to Still and William Sutherland, DO (who developed the Cranial concept) was the 18th century German writer/philosopher/scientist Johan Wolfgang von Goethe. His concepts, experiences, and observations are so similar to the basic tenets of Osteopathy presented by Still and Sutherland that one must assume that they read and were influenced by Goethe (who wrote over 100 years before Still elaborated the science of Osteopathy). Goethe speaks of Nature in the same devotional manner as Still and parallel to the way that Becker uses Health. Goethe writes that “nothing happens in living Nature that does not bear some relation to the whole . . .” [12] He declares that “Nature has no system; she has—she is—Life and development from an unknown center toward an unknowable periphery.” [13] Goethe does not make distinctions between pursuing the whole by the “least particles” or by “following the trail far and wide.” [14] The basis of Goethe’s teachings are to individually and directly experience Nature and her manifestations and to unveil what is spiritually at work within the observer and the observed. Goethe’s life was devoted to experience and to discover the phenomena at the source of physical or material elements. For Goethe, science was equally an inner path to spiritual development as well as a discipline intended to gaining knowledge not simply accumulating information. Goethe said, “Nature conceals God! But not from everyone.” [15] Reading Goethe can restore faith that in pursuing the Osteopathic path we as humans can consciously become whole again through a direct experience of Nature, which opens to the sacred. Thankfully, discussions of Health did not end with Becker. As Osteopaths, we need reminders in each generation. We must continue to teach our core philosophy and remember that Osteopathy is obliged to expand. J. S. Jealous, DO elaborates the teachings of Still and Becker by dancing even closer to the essence of Health, narrowing the gap in our understanding. He tells the story of Health in a way we can understand and is one step more pragmatic and accessible. He describes Health as that “something other” or the extraordinary within us. [16] It cannot be damaged, diseased, or lesioned. It is at the core of our being, it is unchangeable and cannot be increased or decreased. Health, according to Jealous is the “true matrix”, the infrastructure of a living being that interfaces with every structural, physiologic and psychological expression. [17] Health does not originate from a single place within the anatomy of an individual, but emerges from each cell and is present in all living fluids as the matrix from which insentient matter becomes animate. [18] A. T. Still gave us the core teachings in Osteopathy, but he rarely recorded instructions on techniques or how to apply the philosophy in a practical manner. His teaching style was experiential and personal, requiring a face-to-face and hand-in-hand connection. Becker and Jealous are no different in that respect; however, they do offer us additional clues to guide us in our quest for understanding and knowledge. In Becker’s treatment philosophy he did not confine himself to correcting lesions or dysfunctions. Rather he says, “I’m letting go to see that Health is the thing that comes through, rather than a correction of a lesion.” [19] He tells us to “tune through that strain pattern” in order to discover “what is Health for this area.” [20] He then says that once you’ve found a lesion to stay out of the “closed loop” of dysfunction and allow the “Breath of Life to literally flow into those tissues and become as strong as it is in the rest of the body.” [21] This approach allows the “health pattern” to become the dominant pattern, as we yield for Health to reappear. [22] Jealous offers a treatment approach very similar to Becker and to Sutherland. He says to feel the Health of a patient you must drop from your sensory field perceptions of bone, membrane, fluid, central nervous system activity and most importantly lesions, dysfunctions, or disease. He teaches, “Even though the patient’s physiologic, structural or psychological processes are disordered, we can as Osteopaths offer the individual an experience of feeling completely balanced and whole.” [23] Sutherland would ask us to realize a state of “Be Still and Know” in order to experience the Health. Jealous extends that teaching and asks for our observer to first become afferent (receiving), then to feel Health come to you, rather than looking (efferently) to search for something. [24] The perception of Health has no reciprocal tension and no emotional state. He states it can be sensed, but not palpated, by the operator as an identifiable matrix with a unique feel that is linked to the Breath of Life. [25] When Still said, “I love my fellow man, because I see God in his face and in his form,” [26] he wasn’t looking at a lesion, dysfunction, disease, illness, or injury. He was directly experiencing Health, the Whole, or Nature. Ultimately, when we speak of “normal” are we not identifying the Health? What truly makes us wholistic as Osteopaths is our orientation and objective to start with Health, to find Health, to discover the Whole, to identify with Nature, and to immerse ourselves in the natural world found in the outer reaches of the inner space we call the body. If, as Sutherland says, the Breath of Life is the fundamental principle of Osteopathy, then it is the Health, which holds dominion over each animate being, and is the living principle. Unfortunately, within Osteopathy, it is the mechanical model, which holds dominion over the profession. By orienting exclusively toward a linear, mechanistic model we exclude the essence of Osteopathy. What if we as the greater Osteopathic community engaged Still’s radical perspective? Not in exclusion to the mechanical orientation, but as the foundation for developing a living system of healing based upon Health. Then and only then will we look at each living being with perfection and harmony. Finally, we could say with confidence (and honesty) that we practice from a perspective which engages the Whole patient and all of Osteopathy. [2] Still, A. T. The Philosophy and Mechanical Principles of Osteopathy (PMPO) Osteopathic Enterprise, 1986, p. 44 [3] Still, A. T. Quoted in: Becker, Rollin, E. Life in Motion (LIM) Rudra Press, 1997, p. 255 [4] Still, A. T. Osteopathy Research and Practice Eastland Press, 1992, p 13 [5] Still, PMPO, p. 22 [6] Becker, LIM, p. 63 [7] Becker, LIM p. 219 [8] The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition The University of Chicago Press 1993, p. 265 [9] Partridge, Eric Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English The Macmillan Co. 1966 ,p. 283 [10] Galen On The Natural Faculties in Great Books of the Western World Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor, Encyclopedia Britannica,Inc., 1952, p. 185 [12] Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, quoted in: Goethe on Science, An Anthology of Goethe’s Scientific Writings Jeremy Naydler, Editor, Floris Books, 1996, p. 93 [26] Still, A. T., quoted in: Webster, George V. Concerning Osteopathy Revised Edition Plimpton Press, 1917, p. 2 |
News |
|
Copyright (c) 2004, 2005 by Stephen Paulus, DO. All Rights Reserved.
|
||