Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
The healing process.
Tables
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From your experience, how do you define healing?
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Would you describe what you believe occurs in healing?
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Looking back over your life from childhood to the present, can you think of a particular experience that has greatly influenced the way you consider, feel, or act regarding healing or the function of healing within medical practice?
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Would you share a personally profound experience of healing in which you were involved as a physician?
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In your experience, what makes an individual a healer?
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What recommendations do you have for educating and training allopathic physicians to be healers?
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Respondent Definitions Themes Subthemes Story line: Healing is the personal experience of the transcendence of suffering. Cassell “Making whole again” Wholeness Transformation Kubler-Ross “Becoming whole again” Wholeness Loss/Isolation Saunders “Finding wholeness” Wholeness Suffering Inui “Well-being and function” Narrative Continuity Siegel “A state of mind” Narrative Personal Hammerschlag “A harmony between the mind, the body and the spirit” Spirituality Reconciliation Stephens “A spiritual experience” Spirituality Transcendence
The Article in Brief
Background: Medicine is a healing profession but until now, the profession has not defined �healing.� The purpose of this study was to develop a definition of healing based on interviews of leading figures in medicine and holistic health.
What This Study Found: Healing can be defined as �the personal experience of the transcendence of suffering.� Wholeness, narrative (the patient�s life story), and spirituality are a part of healing.
Implications:
* Suffering can cause the person experiencing it to feel separate from herself/himself and from society. By sharing suffering, doctors and patients can create meaning and reduce the sufferer�s feeling of separation.
* Doctors can be better healers by recognizing, diagnosing, minimizing, relieving, and helping patients go beyond suffering.
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