A position paper on the nature of the counseling relationship within the philosophy of naturopathic medicine - The Best of Naturopathic Medicine

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Feb-March, 2003 by Hanna-Ian Faraclas

Abstract: This paper explores the dynamics of the counseling relationship specific to Naturopathic philosophy. The role of the physician and the responsibility of the patient in the process of healing are central to the discussion of the counseling relationship. The counseling relationship provides a vehicle to approach the symptoms of illness through recognition of and reverence for the blueprint of the human. Ideally the physician will understand and address the cause of illness with the apperception that illness is not random and plays a powerful role as a teaching agent. The physician acknowledges the role the patient plays in his or her healing and provides the patient with the environment and guidance for greater empowerment, authenticity, and transformation.

Act in Cooperation with the Healing Powers of Nature Address the Fundamental Cause of Disease

The counseling relationship begins with a reverence for life, the purpose of life and what it means to be human. The architect of the human has created a complex design consisting of emotional, psychological and spiritual components that manifet the fear of the unknown. I reassured her that once she got the results of the amniocentesis, whether the results were positive or negative for alpha-feto protein, she would know what she was dealing with, and the issue. of fear of the unknown no longer would be present. She made an appointment for the following day, received the news that the results were negative for AFP, and her diarrhea promptly disappeared.

Teach Principles of Healthy Living and Preventive Medicine

The counseling relationship also encompasses the role of the patient as an active participant in the healing process. The nature of the doctor-patient relationship is complementary. When disease is viewed as the enemy, randomly striking, then the doctor performs heroic acts on the sick individual who has taken on the role of the powerless victim. In contrast, when disease is viewed as a lesson, never random, ideally the doctor takes on the role of teacher and mentor, and the patient becomes an active participant in the healing process.

Dr. Norman Shealy and Caroline Myss have identified eight dysfunctional patterns in people who become sick. (9) They are as follows:

1. Unresolved or deeply consuming emotional, psychological or spiritual stress within a person's life.

2. Negative belief patterns that have control over a person's reality.

3. The inability to give and/or receive love.

4. A lack of humor and the inability to distinguish serious concerns from the lesser issues of life.

5. Ineffectively exercising the power of choice in holding dominion over the movement and activities of one's life.

6. Not attending to the needs of the body. Additionally, how well an individual attends to the emotional, physical and chemical stresses of life is strongly connected to the degree of vigor and stamina in the physical body itself.

7. The "existential vacuum" or the suffering that accompanies the absence or loss of meaning in one's life.

8. The tendency toward denial. The inability to face the challenges of one's life and neither acknowledge nor consciously recognize what it is that is not working in one's life.

Their conclusion is that people directly participate, either consciously or unconsciously, in the creation of their own reality, including the reality of health. Attitudes, emotions, beliefs and an awareness of one's spiritual self are the tools that are used in the process of the creation of health. Once this level of awareness is attained, it becomes difficult to allow negativity to go unchallenged in one's life since the consequences of disease are understood to be a very real potential outcome to negative emotions.

When my best friend of 25 years told me she had uterine cancer and was scheduled for a complete hysterectomy in five days, I cried. This was not simply a problem of a diseased organ. I believed the cancer was the result of all the fear and insecurity she had experienced over the past 20 years from living on the edge of poverty. I saw the diseased uterus as a physical manifestation of a deep and enduring emotional crisis. We cried together as I spoke to her about the lack of self-worth she has felt as a result of never having any financial power, fear of never having enough, fear and insecurity when her husband refused to get out of bed and go to work for months at a time. This cancer was caused by her powerlessness and resentment at never having any impact on the emotional climate of her marriage, and living with a man who could not address her emotional or sexual needs. For the first time in 20 years, I called him "a two-toed sloth," and from our sobs, a little laughter emerged. I begged her to take personal responsibility for her healing seriously, to do the inner work needed to resolve these issues, and to find her source of personal power, lest the cancer reappear in another area later in her life.

Returning to the counseling relationship, the physician is not responsible for the quality of a patient's health or how successfully a patient heals. The physician is only responsible for providing the best education, the best utilization of appropriate technology, the best treatment of symptoms with the least harm and the best guidance. The responsibility for healing lies with the patient. It is in the participation with one's own health and healing that the patient must find the inner road to self empowerment, responsibility, inner wisdom and love.