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Alternative Health News
Recent Report Highlights Growing Dangers of Anti-Inflammatory Medications
In the Sept. 27, 2011 posting of the Biomedical Central Journal: Family Practice, R.J. Adams and colleagues commented on concerns raised by the common prescribing of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications.
Do Dietary Supplements Really Increase Mortality?
In an article scheduled to appear in the Feb. 26 issue of DC, I provide the raw data on cardiovascular protection with statin use in the JUPITER trial.
The Big C: What Are You Doing About It?
It is the rare to meet a person these days that doesn't have a concern about cancer. Between the constant headlines, to pink ribbons on everything from planes to phones, to hearing that Aunt Stacy was just diagnosed, it is impossible to not be aware of cancer's presence.
Dr. Shi Xue-Min and the Xing Nao Kai Qiao Legacy
To the acupuncture community, Dr. Shi Xue-Min is known as a distinguished acupuncturist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a supervisor of doctoral candidates in China.
Understanding the Changes of ICD10
Recently, I have been receiving inquiries about the new codes for ICD10. When do they begin and how much of a change will they be?
Herbs: Revitalizing in Spring to Maintain Youthful Vitality
Spring is the time to revitalize and get moving, but also a time to improve our immune systems so that we can avoid wind-caused health conditions that often proliferate during this season.
The Magic of Microcurrent
In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, I found this definition of the word magic: an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source.
Using the Channel Systems of Acupuncture to Unravel the Mysteries of Disease Progression
Wind is a philosophical representation of change in the Chinese classics. It is also acknowledged as the root of all physiological disturbance. It is stated in chapter 3 of the Su Wen that wind is "the cause of hundreds of diseases."
OIG Reveals Audit Targets for 2012
Each year, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) releases its annual Work Plan for the fiscal year, which details new and ongoing reviews that will be conducted in federal programs such as Medicare.
AAAOM Postpones Annual Membership Conference, Leadership Meeting To Be Held
The decision by AAAOM to postpone its annual membership conference for one year was a difficult one.
The One-Sport Syndrome
I recall that as a kid, I participated in sports based on the season. In spring and summer, it was baseball and basketball; in fall, it was football; and in winter, it was ice hockey.
From a Different Playbook
Just to be clear, the above is not the beginning of my article. On the contrary, it is the beginning of "Seven Ways to Boost Your Income with Medical Activities," an article written for medical doctors that was posted in early December 2011 on Medscape.com.
The Problem With Statistics
I'm not sure when I began to mistrust statistics; I think it was in college in the late "'60s."
Managing Sesamoid Injuries
The word sesamoid is Latin for "sesame seed." These small bones are located inside specific tendons, where they improve mechanical efficiency by pulling the tendon farther away from the joint's axis of motion.
Professionalism, Education and Turf Wars
Most professions have discourse about the "professional." Professions define themselves in part by excluding others. I would like to briefly explore professionalism in Chinese medicine.
A Fresh Look at the Meric System and Modern Neuroscience
The use of manipulation in the management of biomechanical disorders of the spine may now be regarded as a mainstream approach across health care.
Public Health & Gerontology Groups Support CAM
Two large professional groups recently held annual meetings that featured a number of presentations about acupuncture and CAM topics.
CCE Recognition Extended for Only One Year
A storm has been brewing over the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) for more than two years. It began in mid-2009 when the CCE released the first draft of its Accreditation Standards.
We Get Letters & E-Mail
Foundation Ad Rejected by Medical Journals: No Surprise; Why Am I Still Struggling? Let's Use Wikipedia to Our Advantage.
The Integrated Components of Stability
Use of the term stability is widespread across the physical and rehabilitative medicine disciplines. Stability is generally referenced as a positive outcome we are looking to achieve in order to help alleviate our patient's presenting complaint.
Helping Pregnant Patients With Their Pain: Using the Fascial System as our Guide
Pregnant women are frequently at a loss for answers with respect to pain associated with their growing abdomen.
Balance Strategies to Improve Health
You already know how complicated the process of human balance is; but are you aware of the simple tools many providers are using to improve their patients' balance?
The Heart /Kidney Connection
Are you treating health conditions related to or affected by love? This past November I taught at the Pacific Symposium, a large educational conference put on for our industry by the Pacific College in San Diego, Calif.
How Chinese Medicine Can Save Western Medicine
Our country is struggling to reduce the cost of healthcare while simultaneously improving its quality and accessibility. I see a partial solution: use Chinese medicine in Western healthcare settings.
News in Brief
Protecting Our Nation's Heroes From Back Pain; Texas Chiropractic College Partners With PA University; AECC Student Awarded Scholarship by FICS; Palmer Toys for Tots Drive: Nearly $2,000 in Donations; New Career Path for Foot Levelers' Jamie Greenawalt; ChiroTouch: $25,000 to FCP; New Face at CLA.
Speaking in Code
At this point, I am certain everyone is aware of the CPT codes for billing acupuncture. However, there have been some recent cases where it is clear that not everyone is following the clear-cut rules on how to define and use these codes.
Chiropractors Storm the Capital
On Oct. 29, 2011, a rare early winter snowstorm struck the East Coast of the U.S., blanketing the nation's capital in white. In Washington, D.C., it was the heaviest October snowstorm in history.
Some Inflammatory Remarks About Manipulation
There is an anonymous quote which reads, "An archer cannot hit the bullseye if he doesn't know where the target is." In the case of some of chiropractic's detractors, that seems to have been the case when it comes to vertebral arteries.


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Massage Today
February, 2002, Vol. 02, Issue 02

Compassion and Integration

By Keith Eric Grant, PhD, NCTMB

The Cartesian dictum "I think, therefore I am" has left us unbalanced, in that we know things but know little about living, about compassion, or about our needs and the needs of those around us.

... Instead of avoiding or rationalizing our feelings and sensations, we need to hear them as information that can guide and heal us. These points of discomfort are doorways that we can use to begin living in our body. Living in our body means experiencing life through our feelings, sensations, and interactions and not simply from our projections and memories. When we begin to open to and live in our body, whether through pain or joy, a whole new universe of alternatives becomes available to us.

- Richard Strozzi Heckler3

Seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes is often blamed for the split between mind and body within modern culture and society. Descartes argued convincingly that mind and body are separate and that mind is the primary value.7 Modern philosophers seeking to give the body back its due have reflected on a number of the outcomes of this separatist perspective. 7 They ironically note that blind allegiance to the tenets of western science has overemphasized the visual and undervalued the vital, living aspects of people. In particular, those aspects pertaining to bodily feelings of emotion, movement, and touch are downplayed. In simple terms, what is not easily objectified by sight has not invited western scientific study and has been given low cultural priority. As a societal consequence, we have lost much of the felt-sense of the connection between body, emotions, and life itself. 2 We have become increasingly disconnected, both from ourselves and from our ability to feel empathy and compassion for the emotions and needs of others. 3 It is in helping to restore these lost links to ourselves and others that massage can extend an influence to so great a goal as planetary healing.5

In considering the healing of our split selves, I'm going to journey even further back in time than the 17th century of René Descartes - back to the 12th century that was the source of the Arthurian legends of the search for the Holy Grail (i.e., a cup or chalice). The Grail story begins with a vision of the Grail appearing before the Knights of the Round Table. The knights answer this call to adventure, not as a group together, but in the new European model of each seeking their individual way.

So the knights entered the forest at the point they had chosen, where there was no path. If there is a path, it is someone else's path, and you are not on the adventure. ... You can get clues from people who have followed paths, but then you have to carom off that and translate it into your own decision, and there is no book of rules. ... This is a wonderful story; that which we intend, that which is the journey, that which is the goal, is the fulfillment of something that never was on the earth before - namely, your own potentiality.1

- Joseph Campbell

One of the central themes in the Grail legends is the myth of Parsifal. 1,4 In this myth, there is an enchanted castle that can appear and disappear. You only find the castle by invitation. The lord of the castle, the Fisher King, is the hereditary keeper of the Holy Grail. In many aspects, this legend of the keeper of a sacred vessel predates even this specific myth, going further back into Celtic mythology. 6 At some previous time, a black knight, symbolic of nature, challenged the Fisher King. Although the Fisher King killed the challenging knight, he was wounded in the thigh or genitals with a painful wound that would not heal. Metaphorically, in killing the aspect of nature within him, he also destroyed his generative or creative side and could find no peace. Since the countryside itself was tied to the state of the King, it too became a barren wasteland.4,6

Parsifal, starting as a deliberately uneducated boy, acquired the status of knight, and came eventually to the Grail Castle. Because he listened to social form (a knight should not ask unnecessary questions) rather than to his own compassion, he held back his questions and initially failed in his ultimate role of healing the Fisher King. After five more years of wandering and reflecting, he is given an unprecedented second opportunity, this time asking the questions that demonstrate his compassion and magically heal the King. In the end, Parsifal himself becomes the next keeper of the Holy Grail.

There are many kinesthetic realms in which we gain proficiency through practice. Within these realms, we often cannot consciously follow our moment-to-moment responses, yet still can gauge the overall impact of our actions. Even the inputs to which we are responding are often liminal (at the threshold of perception) or subliminal. Musicianship, dancing, skiing, martial arts and massage are all at least in part within the class of such endeavors. What becomes important are our intent, our connection to others, and our learned unconscious interactions. Among these, it is by compassion and touch that we can seek to heal the splits between our minds, spirits and bodies.

"We are all bodies - sensing, moving creatures, wonderfully simple, wonderfully complex. We draw, we write, we walk, we dance. We are sound-makers and song-makers. We are creatures of habit, but also creatures of change, creativity, and curiosity. We are all these dimensions and more, potentially and actually. In the flesh, down to and into our bones, we are all bodies."

- Maxine Sheets-Johnstone7

References

  1. Campbell, Joseph, 1990: Transformations of Myth through Time, Harper Perennial, ISBN 0-06-096463?4.
  2. Gendlin, Eugene, 1982: Focusing, Bantam Books; ISBN: 0-5532-7833-9.
  3. Heckler, Richard Strozzi, 1993: The Anatomy of Change, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, ISBN 1-55643-147-3.
  4. Keleman. Stanley, 1999: Myth & the Body, Center Press, ISBN 0-9343-2017-9.
  5. Myers, Thomas W., 1997: Massage Therapists are Planetary Healers, guest editorial, Massage Magazine, March/April (available with permission at www.mckinnonmassage.com/articles/myers_planetary_healers.html).
  6. Ogden-Korus, Erin: The Fisher King, www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/arthurian_legend/grail/.
  7. Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine: 1992: Charting the Interdisciplinary Course, in Giving the Body Its Due, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, ed., State Univ. of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-0998-8.
Click here for more information about Keith Eric Grant, PhD, NCTMB.

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