Spirituality & Medicine: An Integrated Approach

Spirituality &Medicine:An Integrated Approach

Spirituality and Medicine Overview • What is the correlation? • 20th century start – Belief a psychosis (Freud et al) • 20th century surprise – Consistent positive correlation (Handbook of health & religion) • Why is there such a correlation? • Emotions affect our physiology (Benson’s findings) • Emotions affect our anatomy (Neuroplasticity) • A Vedantic model for mind-body interaction • How does this affect us? • Caregivers can be sensitive to and supportive of patients’ beliefs • Patients can find meaning and strength in suffering through their beliefs

20th century start notions Science and spirituality are at war. Religious belief is a disease that science will cure

Handbook of Religion and HealthOxford University Press, Harold G. Koenig (MD), Michael E. McCullough (PhD) and David B. Larson (MD)reviewed more than two thousand published experiments that tested the relationship between religion and everything from blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and stroke to depression, suicide, psychotic disorders and marital problems.

Handbook of Religion and HealthOxford University Press, People who attended a spiritual program at least once a week lived average seven years longer than those who didn't attend at all.

Handbook of Religion and HealthOxford University Press, Religious youth showed significantly lower levels of drug and alcohol abuse, premature sexual involvement, criminal delinquency and suicidal tendencies than their nonreligious counterparts

Handbook of Religion and HealthOxford University Press, Elderly people with deep, personal religious faith have a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers.

Handbook of Religion and HealthOxford University Press, Koening’s Conclusion: "A high SQ faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all means, educational levels and ages."

“For religion, God is at the beginning; for science, God is at the end.” -Max Planck

Why? Herbert Benson: The Power and Biology of Belief

“The idea that the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity is, I believe, the most important alteration in our view of the brain since we first sketched out its basic anatomy and the workings of its basic component, the neuron.” - Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself

Vedantic Model of mind-body interaction Three levels of being: Body :: Hardware Mind :: Software Soul :: User

Gross Body Area pervaded by consciousness Outside World Subtle Body Soul Eye Subtle Eye Brain Normal Vision

Area pervaded by consciousness Subtle Body Outside World Soul Subtle Eye Gross Body Brain Eye No sight NDE Vision No Activity at all

NDE with miraculous healing The Case of Anita Moorjani

Applications for caregivers Be sensitive to spiritual concerns of patients Eg Dietary concerns Be supportive Eg. Carl Jung

“Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.” - Carl Jung, Psychotherapists or the Clergy, chp 11)

Let spirituality bring purpose to life “You know in the West we have built a large, beautiful ship. It has all the comforts in it, but one thing is missing: it has no compass and does not know where to go.” - Werner Heisenberg to Albert Einstein

Let purpose to living bring passion to healing He who has a Why? in life can tolerate almost any How? – Nietzsche Man’s Search for Meaning – Dr Viktor Frankl

Be open to learning from all sources “There is no quicker way for a scientist to bring discredit upon himself and upon his profession than roundly to declare – particularly when no declaration of any kind is called for – that science knows, or soon will know, the answers to all questions worth asking, and that questions which do not admit a scientific answer are in some way non-questions or ‘pseudo-questions’ that only simpletons ask and only the gullible profess to be able to answer.” – Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist

Let spirituality and medicine join hands Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein

An integrated approach to caring Let all the human energies – scientific and spiritual; physical and mental – be channelized for healing and living.

Spirituality & Medicine: An Integrated Approach