Academies for Unitive Healing
Asklepios,
the ancient Greek god of healing.
This detail from his temple in Epidaurus
reminds us that the Hippocratic
tradition,
and thus western scientific
medicine, evolved
from a spiritual/psychological concept of healing.
The partially restored Tholos at the Epidaurus site may have been the site of a sacred well.
Towards a Meaningful Medical Philosophy:
AAKH !
Medicine is the Art of Applying Knowledge to Healing;
Medical philosophy is the study of what that means.
Perhaps those definitions are too succinct, but they do give us a handy acronym for talking about the philosophy of medical practice: AAKH !
AAKH is very appropriate, for it is the sound of the groan (see the upturned eyes?) heard these days when someone proposes to talk about philosophy, especially "medical philosophy."
But perhaps it is appropriate for another reason, too. AAKH, spoken musically, can be the sound of enlightenment, as a new insight opens one to a new sense of meaning in some aspect of life, especially the life dedicated to medical practice and the healing arts.
The green references below link to The Pleromatics Project, the author's website dealing primarily with the psychological and spiritual aspects of the modern search for meaning. These linked sites especially overlap with the "Academy's" healing concerns.
- Art -- skill, creativity; creativity as inner dimension; honoring tradition; relationships between symbol and art; ritualistic aspects of traditional healing; restoring creativity involves reopening inner connections with Self (healing the wound between ego and Self)
- Applying -- the bridge of action, right action, the ethical dimension; values from principles; duty(ies) towards ourselves and others, and especially towards those who look to us for help
- AAKH spiral: Experience with healing refines the art and yields new knowledge, which influences concepts of duty: knowing what works and what to expect from an action; knowing what to do and how to do it -- which leads in turn to new experience and new knowledge, and new challenges to old concepts of duty
- Knowledge -- science, method, reason; empirical as well as experimentally confirmed, psychological as well as physical; theory of knowing; constant resynthesis of worldview; integration of all knowledge, not just biological -- it must be interdisciplinary -- and must rest on our best understanding of reality. Knowledge as that of which we have become conscious (individually & collectively); medical art must be based on the whole of human experience.
- The Knowledge Base: A Medical Reality Check
- Pleromatics: [Home] , [Definition] , [Method] , [Principles] , [Postulates] , [Synthesis]
- Physical reality: [Nuocontinuum] , [Nonlocal Reality] , [Time-Reality] , [Homeostasis] , [Life-systems]
- Psychological reality: [Jung] , [Edinger] , Spirituality: [Eastern] , [Western]
- Healing -- restoration of integrity, oneness, soundness, wholeness; life-systems theory; role of nonlocality; for patient and practitioner
- Modeling the All: [Complete Article] [Medicine and Healing]