medicine of purpose
what is our concept of medicine?
It’s simple. A vision that places it in the general picture of Life and Health.
Life and Health are essentially a Purpose: without Purpose, any living being would lose all meaning and would fall sick and die.
Those who live to a ripe old age are usually strongly inspired by Purpose, of whatever nature.
The “quality” of their purpose does not seem to matter, rather its “density”, that is, to what extent said purpose pervades a living being, bestowing sense and meaning.
Therefore, a child who is strongly motivated to become a hairdresser, or a farmer, or a head of state is more likely to live a long and healthy life (and even to realise their ambition to become a hairdresser, farmer or head of state) than a child with no such aspirations or self-awareness.
The formation of such a purpose is usually accompanied by (or is the consequence of) an enthusiasm for life received from positive role models from a very early age.
We will not deal at any length with this aspect either: for now we will try to identify a connection between the reasons behind long and healthy lives and initial motivations in terms of care and affection that enable a person to find their own identity and enjoy giving rein to feelings and emotions.
The first question to ask a person who is affected by some form of discomfort or disease, according to Medicine of Purpose, is exactly that: what is the purpose of your existence? And moreover, when was the last time you felt happy, the last time you loved, or felt loved?
The Universe of Purpose and Emotions is at the heart of physical manifestations of wellbeing and illness.
Psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI) studies have already brought back to the system, detailing the scientific mechanisms of a process that begins at a psychic and emotional level and that involves the immunological aspect by modifying neurotransmitters and the hormonal system.
Prolonged hormonal imbalances lead to immunological imbalances and, in time, to the onset of serious pathologies.
This is the situation when looked at chronologically.
Medicine of Purpose, while using PNEI to explain organic evolution over time, does however consider Origin and Purpose, vital spark and terminal disease, from a Kairological and not Chronological viewpoint. That which is and that which will be have remained unchanged from the beginning. Our very existence can be seen as a constant mutation, a series of transformations or, at any given time, as the unchangeable constant of an ongoing existence.
And so, for example, examination of the mineralogram of a hair, or of the hormonal system, or analysis of the trauma and emotional blocks suffered by a young person, will offer precious indications as to their destiny. Such destiny cannot be placed chronologically at a later point in time, but will already be fully manifest when the patient is listened to with sympathy and compassion. The physician who examines a patient in these terms will participate in the unfolding of the patient’s destiny as a human being, and naturally to their personal realisation.
Clearly, nothing could be further from some of the most common practices currently being used. To mention just a few:
– the application of bureauocratic and mass-produced treatment protocols instead of clinical measures based on the individual;
– Persistent and aggressive treatments using costly and ineffective drugs in clinical situations already deemed to be beyond hope;
– The search for scientific shortcuts, such as DNA manipulation, in an attempt to combat the cancer pandemic instead of using science to modify the type of development which has led to the pandemic itself.
individual vs collective purpose
Besides the chronological dimension, Medicine of Purpose also brings into discussion the boundary between individual destiny and collective destiny. There can be no division or separation between the two concepts because an individual is fully realised when their aspirations, their search for significance can be placed in a dimension, not only in a collective sense of place and time, but also of the very evolution of the species to which they belong. In order to be lifesaving, Purpose cannot be individual, but must be ontologically interdividual and the action must be collective: I am also my neighbour and my neighbour is also me. While an action must needs be be supportive: when one living creature suffers, be it human, animal or plant, every living thing suffers with it.
It therefore follows that Medicine of Purpose must widen its horizons from individual diagnosis and treatment in the here and now, and from responding to an individual pathology, to individual, collective and environmental diagnosis and treatment, in a time range that includes Origins and Purpose, by attempting to solve the mystery of Purpose having always been intrinsic to Origin and Origin being contained within Purpose.
An individual who is ill often needs to recover senses which have been lost or never found. Medicine of Purpose must be able to reintegrate a person into a life flow. This is why Medicine of Purpose will not only make use of strictly medical knowledge, but will also use that deriving from philosophy, naturopathy and biophysics.
Medical specialisation is indespensible when intervening in situations requiring advanced and highly specific knowledge of organs and pathologies and in the performance of surgery. But it is not enough in the context of a new, far more generalised form of medicine, which looks at the subject in its entirety.
Pathologies of the present day
As we said before, environmental and emotional influences can affect people’s health and , in time, give rise to diseases, sometimes very serious.
The first thing to do to counteract this, the first act of Prevention, is to indentify the causes and remove them.
Modern medicine and science are moving in the exactly opposite direction, by ignoring the causes and concentrating on new discoveries. Since it is, unfortunately, generally accepted that the current development model cannot and must not be changed, there is an implicit acceptance of the status quo and, above all, acceptance of the fact that physicians and scientists should keep to their own limited field, ever more specialised but separate from the wider context.
Physicians know that cancer is caused by an erratic lifestyle and environmental pollution, but they fail to include the removal of these elements among their aims. They adapt to a system that creates more and more new drugs that are unable to prolong life to any great extent, and even then, only at the cost of great suffering (chemotherapy and radiotherapy). This does not mean that no progress at all has been made, indeed, there has been a major reduction in the mortality rate thanks to preventive screening, particularly in the case of lymphomas, breast cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia and cancer of the cervix, to name but a few. But other tumors that are still treated with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy continue to claim innumerable victims. Among these are lung cancer, cancer of the liver, pancreas and stomach, and others.
Indeed, if we look at the death rate of cancer sufferers nationally or worldwide, we see that it continues to rise despite the massive investments in research and equally massive production of drugs. These deaths almost always occur after a year or two of suffering, mainly due to highly toxic and debilitating treatments.
Physicians who fail to consider the causes of a pathology and do nothing to change them, preferring to administer a drug recommended by those at the apex of their profession, drugs that are notoriously ineffective in the long term, are in fact betraying their noble profession and failing to make full use of their own life potential.
As yet, no new discovery has been shown to abate the pandemic of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular or autoimmune diseases or psychological pathologies.
The reason for this is because medicine has been “separated” from the other sciences that contribute towards a complete sense of existence, both on an individual and collective scale.
Individuals are Origin and Purpose, each individual is strictly related to every other. Ignoring their origin, purpose and relationship with others means neglecting their cure.
Medicine is not, as has become the practice in the western world, the merely bureaucratic application of protocols and directives dictated from on high, but the all-embracing art which considers the wellbeing of mind and body as the starting point, not only as the premise for a happy individual existence, but also as a key principal for social coexistence. A society composed of increasingly sick people is destined itself to sicken.
Prevention and Lifestyle must be perceived in such terms, otherwise they will themselves become specialist subjects disconnected from the general concept of existence.
The first step must always be the indentification and removal of the causes of disease, be they individual or collective, emotional , cultural or environmental.
Does this mean that physicians should become psychologists, philosophers, biophysicians, social scientists, economists and dedicated, hands-on environmentalists? The answer is yes.
Failing to play a global role in solving problems and treating diseases leads to the alternative of renouncing our very existence. If we persist in the current medical practice of specialisation and hyperspecialisation, which has become the norm over the last fifty years and more, in the all-too-near future, doctors will be replaced by androids programmed automatically to apply set protocols according to the relative diagnoses and state of advancement of the disease. And they will surely be more efficient than their human counterparts.
Taking back control of our existence and or our planet, both currently being threatened by the greed for profit of the few, is the duty of us all and, first and foremost, of doctors and scientists.
