On Biological Medicine
Medicine and Meaning
“Modern medical science largely
considers the human body to be a kind of mechanical model, a sort of
vehicle like a car that needs to be checked by a garage every so
often.”
from The
Way Toward Health by Jane
Roberts
A driver who for some reason is in a
hurry to get somewhere decides to ‘run the red light’ at a
junction, and has an accident. Yet would we even think of seeking to
explain their consequent injuries purely as a result of automobile
mechanics, for example suspecting the possibility of ‘faulty
pedals’ or some other mechanical defect – seeing this as what
‘caused’ the car to go through the red light (and then subjecting
the car to a whole series of diagnostic tests).* This would seem
absurd to common sense – and yet it is no less absurd than seeing
the body as a mechanical vehicle – like a car – and treating
illness as something caused by a technical fault in some part of that
vehicle.
For cars also have drivers. To be sure,
the driver in our example made a choice, whereas we do not normally
think of ourselves as ‘choosing’ to get ill. Yet the driver’s
choice itself was no doubt a response to a current or overall life
situation. The driver might
have been in a hurry for some reason, for example late for work or
for a job interview. The decision to run the red light may not even
have been a fully conscious or premeditated decision – simply a
more or less aware bodily reaction to the specific life situation
itself. Nevertheless shooting the red light was a choice.
What if the same applies to illness?
Namely that there is a way in which we do not so much consciously
‘choose’ as subconsciously ‘accede’ to getting ill, albeit in
a particular life context and for particular life reasons that are
quite conscious to us: for example a pressing need to get a job –
or even a subconscious desire to use the illness as a way of taking
‘time out’ from the pressures of life and/or receiving care and
attention. Whatever the possible meaning
of the accident/illness might
be for a specific individual there is one thing we can be sure of
however – there is
such a meaning – and that just seeking, however thoroughly, for a
mechanical fault in the individual’s bodily ‘vehicle’ will
never reveal it.
Indeed even were
such a mechanical fault to be
discovered or diagnosed, it might itself be the result of a
subconscious decision on the part of our ‘driver’ in response to
a situation arising in their life journey i.e. something that in some
way drove them
to neglect that vehicle or ignore its warning signs. Simply taking
the vehicle to a garage and repairing the fault will therefore not
address its true meaning or that of its possible consequences. For
these have to do with the life circumstances of the human being and
not the mechanics or ‘biology’ of his bodily vehicle alone.
Simply to say, for example, that the driver got a dodgy vehicle with
an inherited ‘fault’, that they neglected it or abused it through
mishandling – or that they failed to put it through a regular
medical ‘MOT’ – is not enough. For the question ‘why?’
still remains – a question of life motive and meaning and not a
mere matter of some inherited biological or mechanical ‘defect’,
‘accident’, or sequence of ‘cause and effect’.
Even for our hypothetical driver who ends
up in hospital due to a serious ‘accident’ the result might be a
highly meaningful and life-changing one in a positive sense, allowing
him or her to re-think their
life and not just receive
treatment for their body. Yet this simple but basic distinction –
between the life of the human being and its expression in the life of
the human body – is consistently ignored by medical science and
biological medicine – which by seeking explanations for illness
purely in terms of defects of our bodily ‘vehicle’ blocks all
forms of research into the meaning
of illness. For even if a defect is found in the form of some
medically recognised ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’, biological
medicine cannot yet explain the cause of the disease or disorder
itself – except in terms of some genetic defect. Yet not even any
form of genetic explanation can actually explain why one individual
and not another should
contract a particular disease. For just as not everyone who smokes
gets lung cancer, and not everyone falls ill from an epidemic,
neither does everyone with an errant gene end up with the disease
associated with it.
*acknowledgement to Andrew Gara for this
significant analogy
What Biological Medicine Can’t Explain
The more biological medicine seeks to
‘scientifically’ explain illness – the more it leaves
unexplained.
Examples:
Why medical treatment itself is a leading
cause of death – ahead of cancer and heart disease.
Why most pharmaceutical drugs do not work
on most of the patients they are designed for.
Why there is hardly a single class of
pharmaceutical medication that doesn’t have as a possible or even
common ‘side effect’ a short- or long-term worsening of the
symptoms it was prescribed for.
Why the majority of patients seen by
doctors are made up by what they call ‘the worried well’ – in
reality ordinary people who really wish to share psychological
problems – life problems – with a professional, but wouldn’t
think of going to see a psychologist.
Why ‘successful’ drug treatment or
surgery illness often precipitates mental psychosis or precedes the
emergence of new symptoms just as serious as the original ones.
Why the greatest danger period for the
mental and physical health patients occurs after finishing a’
successful’ course of medical treatment and being told that they
are well.
Why social isolation is a greater risk
factor for health and lowers life expectancy more than smoking, diet
or obesity.
Why support groups for women with breast
cancer patients have been found to double their life expectancy.
Why support from a spouse dramatically
improves survival rates from heart transplants.
Why so many illnesses occur after or
often on the exact anniversary of significant life events – such as
bereavements, the end of a relationship, the start or loss of a job,
taking an exam, retirement or even just going on holiday.
Why there is an 80% correlation between
stressful life events and the onset of an illness in the two years
following those events.
Why the chances of simply getting a cold
are increased by life difficulties or disappointments, in particular
those to do with employment or relationship problems.
Why the incidence of previously
widespread, common and dangerous diseases was decline long before the
use of antibiotics to treat them or the use of mass vaccinations to
prevent them.
Why a study has shown that only 3.5% of
the decline in mortality from infectious diseases can be attributed
to drug treatments.
Why chemotherapy for all types of cancer
is still used even though it has been shown by countless reports and
admitted by many cancer specialists to be ineffective even in
increasing life expectancy, and why death rates from cancer have
actually increased with the increased use of chemotherapy.
Why, despite the Nobel Prize winning
‘discovery’ that the ‘cause’ of stomach ulcers was not
‘stress’ but a specific bacterium it was then found that between
one and two-third of the world population carry this bacterium in
their stomachs without developing ulcers.
Why 20-40% of children and 10% of adults
carry the tuberculosis bacillus without contracting tuberculosis, and
why only a minority of those exposed to the bacillus will develop TB.
Why children allergic to household dust
at home showed no allergic responses when this dust was distributed
in the hospital rooms.
Why Whitehall civil servants who are
given orders by their superiors have twice the chance of contracting
diabetes than those who give them their orders.
Why counselling for cardiac patients can
prevent recurrence of heart attacks or even reverse arterial
blockages, and why half of all heart attacks occur in people with
normal cholesterol levels.
Why patients whose surgeons talk to them
whilst under anaesthesia are at less risk of dying, and why patients
whose surgeons openly discuss post-operative pain before surgery
experience it less.
Why someone with sensitive skin can work
for years with materials they are sensitive too, and yet only develop
allergic reactions when emotional problems in their relational life
flare up.
Why soldiers whose armies suffered defeat
in battle were more likely to develop dysentery or typhus.
Why autopsies of thousands of young and
otherwise healthy soldiers revealed atherosclerotic plaques of the
sort generally associated only with older people, long-term smokers
and others thought to be at risk of heart attacks and strokes from
developing these plaques over time.
Why ‘placebos’ or fake surgery can be
just as effective as ‘active’ drugs and real surgery.
Why people smoke, take illegal drugs,
over- or under-eat, eat foods ‘bad’ for their health.
Why off-the-counter medications and
legally prescribed drugs are a cause of greater and more widespread
addiction – and often more difficult to come off – than illegal
drugs.
Why people become obsessed with changing
to or pursuing supposedly healthy ‘lifestyles’ through diets or
fitness regimes – yet without ever really examining their lives as
such and the health of their relationships.
Why both medical journals and the press
are full of reports of new medical research and newly discovered
dangers or aids to health – without ever asking what it means to be
‘healthy’.
Why doctors will always ask patients ‘how
long’ they have had a particular symptom but almost never ask WHEN
it started, let alone what was going in the patient’s life at the
time – or in the days, weeks, months or years before the symptoms
or symptoms appeared.
Why patients given home treatment after a
heart attack have a lower mortality rate than those given impersonal,
hi-tech hospital care.
Why patients with severe dementia,
inability to speak and move – or despite almost complete
destruction of their brains through cancer – have often been
observed to sit up, move their limbs and speak with total clarity and
rationally in the hours preceding their death.
Acknowledgements:
Why People Get Ill?
by Darian Leader and Michael Cornfield, Hamish Hamilton 2007, for
several of the examples included.
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