Creating a healing protocol

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Creating a healing protocol

I have been teaching Integrative Medicine to medical practitioners for a very long time and at the end of each teaching programme there is always the question around developing a protocol specific to each client. The conventional medical model makes it easy for doctors. There are basic protocols based on the clinical diagnosis of the disease and the nature of the symptoms that the client wants relief from. Specialists in particular have very clear guidelines to follow. Provided they follow these guidelines they are fairly safe from litigation.

Integrative doctors walk a much more precarious path. Their guidelines are not based on protocols as such but require a deeper insight into the background of the problem and the underlying dysfunctions rather than the diagnosis. Their view is wider and the road towards a protocol much more uneven and complex, and this is why protocols don't work well for Integrative Medicine.

How do Integrative doctors go about developing specific protocols for each unique client?

I recognize that in the following discussion I am taking an idealized view of protocol development, for the simple reason that each practitioner has had different training, has different time constraints for a consultation, and different tools that they use in their practice. Nevertheless, there are some principles that are the background to protocol development.

What is the priority?

Clients generally make it clear what their priority is but integrative doctors may not see it the same way. For conventional doctors this is the simple stuff. If you have pain, then let's give you a pain pill, either an anti-inflammatory or a migraine pill or Panado or aspirin. If your priority is angina, then again there are good symptomatic approaches or a referral to a specialist.

Integrative medicine has a different issue to deal with. Treating the pain is clearly not dealing with the underlying issue, and so the question becomes more complex. How long can you tolerate the discomfort while we deal with the underlying issue. Do you, the client, understand the difference between symptomatic treatment which can come with side effects, some even life threatening, and what IM practitioners are trying to do, that is improve health, so that health can then do the healing which it is generally well equipped to do. Healing is natural and if not happening, then can we remove the blocks to that healing process. Those blocks can be complex and include emotional, psychosomatic, genetic, toxic and many other blocks to function.

There is a common understanding that acute conditions need conventional approaches, and chronic conditions can be managed very well by IM practitioners. My experience is that this is not entirely true. My acupuncture experience has revealed astonishing and very rapid improvement, and even cures, in many painful conditions. I have personally had a remarkable alleviation of very acute serious back pain with an cranio-osteopathic medical practitioner. I have also seen amazing results in acute conditions with homeopathic injections given IV or IM. A great deal, I believe, depends on how much pathology is present. Natural approaches can't move pathology easily, and this can take time. This is when drugs are really useful, and why an IM medical doctor who can bridge both domains is often the best person to visit.

What do clients want done?

I have learnt over time that not everyone coming to me wants just to get rid of some illness or symptom; rather, what they want is to have someone listen to them, really listen. A great deal of our discomfort is actually not the body problem but the mind problem. So many people ache today because of loneliness, poor communication with a partner, stress at work, lack of confidence and fear of losing a job. It's not really the headaches or lower back problem that is the real issue, but the client's inner space, where thinking and emotions are often driving their unhappiness.

The doctor that takes out a prescription pad for an antidepressant, a sleeping pill or any other symptomatic management is really not doing the job of a healer, but the work of a machine, coughing out a protocol. The client however is not a machine, and prescription medicine to treat symptoms in these circumstances is machine-based medicine, leaving the client very often with that empty feeling of not really being heard.

What choices are available

Every IM practitioner has a different arsenal available. Some have trained in homeopathy, others have experience in herbal medicine or nutritional medicine or Ayurvedic medicine. Many have had an acupuncture training, and may use Chinese Traditional Medicine. Some of my students have even specialized in Breathwork or some manipulative or non-manipulative hands-on techniques.

There are also a range of various tools available to IM doctors which are used as diagnostic tools, or can be used to treat conditions. These include ozone therapy, Rife treatment, Intravenous nutritional therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, low-energy laser therapy (Comra), red light therapy, magnetic and sound therapy.

In general, all these approaches are safe, do not have serious side effects (if any) and are supportive to the body's healing ability. That is the key to these approaches and choices .... They support health, open channels and allow the healing process to move.

Drugs or natural remedies

When I returned back to medicine after a six-year break, I decided to see if it was possible to practise good medicine without drugs, which seemed to me at the time as powerful and even dangerous. The only drug I used in those early days was penicillin for serious infections. Over the years I learnt to respect for some drugs that were clearly useful, and even the seriously toxic drugs could achieve symptomatic relief and make some people's lives livable.

Nevertheless, my choice is always natural remedies where possible. Of course it is not a question of one or the other. Drugs and natural remedies can be easily combined. They do not contradict each other. Drugs are powerful chemicals which block biochemical pathways in order to achieve symptomatic benefits. Natural remedies in general support healthy functions and in this way help the healing process. They generally don't clash, but what can happen is that when natural remedies improve function the drug action is intensified so that the drug's side effects can become more obvious. Under these circumstances the doctor needs to reduce the dose of the drug and not stop the natural remedy because they think it is interfering with the drug regime.

Integrative doctors understand this and will generally reduce the drugs while they add more natural remedies to move the healing process forward.

Changing the story

Practitioners that have the time and interest understand the importance of working with the client's story. Most clients come in with a bad story and sometimes even a life-threatening story.

Ill-health is a bad story. For example: 'this could become cancerous'; 'it's going to cost a lot of money'; 'the disease may cause problems in relationships'; 'it's difficult to concentrate on work', 'I'm tired all the time'. These are important issues and need to be listened to with deep compassion.

Changing that story does not mean that the client should dismiss the apparent problem and focus only on that which is good and helpful. That's not that easy to do.

This is where my definition of ill-health can begin to make a difference: 'Ill-health is the voice of health asking for help'. So what is the message of the ill-health? What is health asking for? In what way can I respond to these symptoms in a creative way?

Holding a bad story you become a victim of circumstances...a 'poor me' story. The moment you begin to ask questions around the meaning of the ill-health, the call of the body-mind for deep listening and loving response, then you begin to participate in the healing space. Participation is being asked for here and this can change everything.

The dance

There is something of a dance in the doctor-patient integrative relationship. A seasoned practitioner has by now developed a great deal of humility in the knowledge that they are dealing with such complexity that generally most of their work is intuitive and deeply respectful of their interaction with the client. This is the dance of listening, feeling and working their way through the spaces provided by their knowledge limits, the client's journey and a sense that grace may answer the call for help. Outcomes are not guaranteed and the way forward must be negotiated with both care and trust in the divine order of things.

Lifestyle management

Apart from the 'dance' described above, a good practitioner will check out lifestyle issues. This is probably more important that the prescription. Discussing dietary issues, sleep patterns, exercise programmes, spending time in nature, just being in a quiet space for 10-15 minutes a day, meditation, listening to music, dance and breathing sessions, hugging, sports and art time, singing in the car, massage and saunas, and a range of other stress releasing moments. All this is essential for healing optimization.

Bringing science and spirit together

The power of prayer, miraculous healing, the placebo and nocebo effects, mind body research all point to some deep domain in which healing can be initiated. While some of these effects are rare occurrences, they are consistently documented internationally. Each prompts a reevaluation of consciousness -- not merely as a passive awareness but as a dynamic healing force capable of catalyzing transformation. Strange how few scientists are prepared to do this research, firstly because there is not much finance available and secondly because this is quite a taboo area. If mind can affect matter, and if this process can be more consciously activated, imagine how this could shift the way we think about reality.