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Holistic Medicine
What is Holistic Medicine? People tend to think
of it as being the same as Alternative or Complementary Medicine, but
that is not the case. Holistic means understanding disease and wellness
in the most thorough way possible. That means examining body, mind, and
spirit... diet, exercise, and prayer.
First of all, then, it is important to know what
Holistic Medicine is. It is an approach to healing and wellness that is
addressed by many complete healing systems. Chinese Medicine is holistic,
as are Ayurveda, and Chiropractic Medicine. While each of these has its
own slant, each generally is looking at body, mind, and spirit. Our holistic
approach relies on nutritional science to help diagnose and treat the
body, and mental fitness techniques, especially mental imagery, to mend
the mind and access the spirit.
Balance
Holistic Medicine operates under the assumption
that illness involves being out of balance. One can be metabolically out
of balance. One can be experiencing a good deal of stress or unresolved
emotional conflict. These emotional states are, in and of themselves,
an example of being out of balance. Of course, being out of balance emotionally
means that the rest of one's life may be out of balance.
Balance means that we give proper and adequate attention
to our health, recreation, love life, nutrition, exercise, creativity,
and spirituality. One cannot compartmentalize one's life in such a way
that each of these important life arenas are always getting enough time
and attention. There is an ebb and a flow. However, when one of these
areas dries up, we're out of balance.
Interconnectedness
An important aspect of Holistic Medicine is
the notion of interconnectedness. In the field of amino acid therapy,
I usually find that my patient's have imbalances in their nervous system,
immune system, endocrine system, and often gastrointestinal system. It
is often very difficult to tease out one small piece of the larger picture
known as "life" and work only with that one element.
Out of my training as a psychiatrist, I initially
came to believe that the brain and mind were largely disconnected from
the rest of the body. We gave powerful medications that were supposed
to correct abnormal brain chemistry. The only time we looked holistically
was when we realized that our powerful medications were causing side effects
throughout the body.
Through two decades of clinical work, I realized
that the mind had a major impact on one's health. Poor mental attitude
could cause some illnesses and trigger others. A positive change in attitude
could have a major positive impact on one's physical health.
It is now patently clear that the mind not only
affects the body. It permeates the body. It is becoming more and more
difficult to define where the mind ends and the body begins. That is why
many pioneers in Alternative Medicine refer to the MindBody, as if it
is one inseparable entity. And that is our belief.
Interconnectedness is a property of cells, organs,
systems, individuals, groups, and cultures-at-large. In other words, not
only are the mind and body interconnected, the individual is also connected
to a larger whole. He is part of a group, which is part of a culture or
society.
Here is an example. A study of depressed adolescent
girls revealed that you could give parent or child anti-depressant medication...
and the child would get better. In other words, if you "fix" any part
of a system, you begin to fix the entire system. If you "repair" a family
that displays high degrees of emotional conflict, a family member with
ulcer disease may recover.
Reductionist Versus Expansionist
The great success of traditional, Allopathic
Medicine, in treating bacterial infection, led to the widespread notion
that we can always identify a single cause and a single cure for every
illness. Medicine has been reductionistic, looking through more and more
powerful microscopes to identify smaller and smaller causes of illness.
While there is merit in that approach, Medicine has tended to neglect
the importance of strengthening the immune system, rather than only trying
to kill a bug. After fifty years of antibiotic use, we are now one antibiotic
away from the evolution of bacteria that can't be killed. Our magic bullets
are failing. In fact, that new bug has arrived and it is called MRSA.
The initials make it sound safer, but it stands for Multiple Resistant
Staff Aureus. In lay terms, it is a staph infection that is almost impossible
to kill.
Illness is often infinitely complex. It's not as
simple as identifying streptococcus as the cause of a sore throat. Cause
and effect become difficult to sort out when dealing with chronic illness.
So where are magic bullets appropriate? When you've broken a bone, the
cause is evident and the treatment may be in an emergency room where a
cast is put on. Surgery is a kind of magic bullet.
When treating chronic illness, I often find it difficult
to find a starting point that was and is the cause of the illness. For
example, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome may be triggered by a host of pathogens,
such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, and yeast. However, an illness takes
on a life of its own. Before too long, a serious disorder of amino acid
metabolism sets in. One may become depressed because of the illness, and
the depression then weakens the immune system and the adrenals. And that
may allow more pathogens to take hold. It becomes a vicious cycle with
no "center" of the illness.
In my practice, I will use "magic bullets" to kill
yeast, bacteria, or parasites. I will then recommend a comprehensive nutritional
program to bring ALL systems back into balance. It's the balance thing
again.
Sometimes, it is more important to look ahead, to
look toward the goal of health... or super-health. Sometimes, looking
back is not useful. In other words, whether you are ill, out of balance,
because of a chronic infection, chronic depression, a death in the family,
or a junk-food diet, once we have made the corrections, we need to move
forward.
As a result of this complexity, I do not spend much
time trying to explain the one thing that caused illness. I am much more
interested in doing everything under this Holistic Sun to bring people
back into balance - metabolically, emotionally, spiritually, and more.
One woman, Jane, approached me for help with a sexual
problem. Her husband, Jim, had a number of physical problems, including
exhaustion and a severe disorder of amino acid metabolism. His greatest
concern was with his health and their sex life was not a big priority
for him. After a couple of months on amino acid supplementation, Jim was
feeling like a million bucks. His energy was way up. His sleep was normal.
By this time, I had forgotten why Jane had initiated the consultation.
While reviewing their charts, I noticed that "sex life" was the number
one issue for Jane. I asked her about it, and she replied, "Oh, that problem
is gone. Jim is so healthy now that I am quite happy about our sex life."
By taking an holistic approach, and by realizing I was treating a marriage
and not just a blood test, the fortunate outcome was that both members
of the marriage received the treatment results they had hoped for.
People seeking guidance, or treatment from me, can
expect to find help in getting back into balance, in every sense of the
word. They will learn how to develop peace of mind, and learn how to use
their mind to foster healing. They will learn to think differently. To
quote Albert Einstein, "A problem can not be solved using the same consciousness
that created the problem in the first place." In other words, prepare
to be surprised. If you knew all the answers right now, you wouldn't have
read this far. You are looking for a way to feel better, ease pain, treat
illness, or develop certain skills at a peak level. Expect the unexpected.
In the process of coming into balance, you are opening up to solutions
that are not yet at your fingertips or the nearest book. You may need
a change in consciousness in order to develop the larger view that will
solve the problem created by your current state of consciousness.
We started this section talking about reductionism
versus expansionism. The reductionist believes that one can identify cause
and effect at a single, reduced level and find a way to treat a problem
based on that microscopic view. The expansionist is looking at the whole
picture, or is trying to. He or she hopes to find a solution by understanding
how all of the parts relate to each other.
To be effective, a good doctor needs to be comfortable
working with a microscope and a telescope. He needs to be able to zoom
in to the atomic level or molecular level, then zoom out to see how that
molecule is working in that individual... and then zoom way out and see
how that individual is functioning in relation to his family and society.
Walking the Balance Beam
Living is not just about "not dying." It is
about searching for meaning, finding connectedness, and trying to manifest
one's unique talent at the highest level. Just as art mimics life, so
do sports. Let's visualize a young woman at the Olympics, a gymnast, who
is on the balance beam.
What does she need? Her routine may take less than
90 seconds. A whole lifetime of training comes down to 90 seconds. She
needs what you've just read. She needs perfect balance, but not just physical
balance. She needs the finest nutrition, including the most targeted amino
acids to give her strength, flexibility, and endurance. She needs to stretch
before her event, so that she is loose and not prone to injury. But she's
not thinking about injury. She is thinking about winning, or at least
delivering the performance of her lifetime.
She has trained for most of her life to be physically
fit. She should have trained for at least two years to get mentally fit.
It takes that long to learn the tools of mental balance and to integrate
them not only into one's event, but also into one's entire life.
She may want to spend time connecting spiritually
before the big event. She may need to go inside, find that part of her
that is her Higher Self, and she needs to be in alignment with that. She
needs to be Whole.
As she approaches the balance beam, she has one-pointed
focus. She has the extraordinary balancing act of living in the moment
of each move, but also staying connected to the move after that, and the
one after that. She must be able to embrace the whole event all at once,
yet live in the moment of each move. Her mind cannot wander. Her body
cannot wander. Her entire life, right now, depends on how she moves on
a four-inch beam.
When body, mind, and spirit are working in harmony,
when they are in balance, the individual can do something miraculous.
And that is to perform better than she ever dreamed was possible. She
is in the zone. She has entered a new realm of consciousness. She is solving
a major challenge from a new level of consciousness, just as Einstein
would have suggested had he been a gymnastics coach.
The tools she needs during those 90 seconds are
the same tools and attitudes that sick people need to get well, and that
normal people need to become super-normal. The only difference is that
our gymnast has incredible determination and persistence, and refuses
to give up in the face of failure. Every mistake she has ever made is
an opportunity to do it better next time.
She has courage, and that is something that sick
people also need... in abundance. For your "sport," your illness may leave
you devastated, hoping for a cure, yet afraid of being taken in and swindled.
How do you maintain your hope, while maintaining healthy skepticism? Ask
a lot of questions. See who has walked this path before you. Who has undergone
an approach utilizing mental imagery and amino acids? Check it out. Read.
Research. Find out as much as you can. But, when you have done the research,
if you have concluded that this approach (or any approach) is sensible,
powerful, and worth trying... at that point, you must jump!
Our gymnast must run and jump to start her routine,
forgetting all fear and doubt. Once you have decided on a direction, try
to make the jump, the move, with the same courage as a world-class athlete,
whose life is temporarily confined to a narrow balance beam. Fortunately,
most of us have a much wider beam to balance on. However, as you peruse
this web site, you will come to understand that the principles for healing
are similar to the principles for peak performance.
Here is to your success and health,
David Gersten, M.D.
P.S. A very important PS. By utilizing state-of-the-art
mental fitness techniques, such as mental imagery, and scientific amino
acid replacement, you do not have a guarantee of success in the usual
sense. I can guarantee that the athlete will improve his or her performance
using the approach described on this web site, and practiced in my office.
But what about someone with a terminal illness? Not everyone is a superstar
and not everyone wants to "fight the good fight." Fight the fight that
you choose to fight. Do not accept the idea that you are choosing to create
your illness. Explore the idea that there is an immense amount of good
you can do for yourself and then do the best you can. Ask questions. Research
your own problem or illness. Decide, along with your doctor, what you
think is the best course of action. That is what I call "taking responsibility."
But no one really knows your life, your struggles, and your dreams. Go
for the gold, and remember to love yourself regardless of the outcome.
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