The Animal Inside Us
THE ANIMAL INSIDE US… “Fear of wild animals-that has been bred into the human being for the longest time, including the animal that he harbors within and fears” (Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus spoke Zarathustra) Someone said that a symbol can never be fully interpreted, it can only be experienced This holds especially true for the …
Through the Front Door
“A myth is, of course, not a fairy story It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another To explore a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them” Ryle, Gilbert in ‘The Concept of Mind’ We are acutely living in a world where …
Is she a Kiki or a Bouba?
“…underneath this reality in which we live and have our being, another and altogether different reality lies concealed…” (Fredric Nietzsche) A few years ago a new ‘little’ Great Dane became part of the family She came with the name Kiki and from day one she could be nothing but a Kiki She was, and still …
Do we dare to dream
The most interesting effect of the Covid-19 pandemic is the subtle and not-so-subtle restlessness that now appears in the lives of everybody, slowly eating away the original surprise and alarm It reminds me of a stunning artwork by Zadok Ben-David named RESTLESS DREAMS, 1992 One of the greatest burdens of a modern person is to …
A new era of conscious understanding
A quarter of a century ago, Theo Angelopoulos made an incredible movie, Ulysses’ Gaze In the film he used a free translation from Homer’s Ulysses: “I will arrive in another man’s clothes, And with another man’s name, And you will say It is not him And I will show the signs The lemon tree in …
Rhyming with orange
RHYMING WITH ORANGE My son-in-law has a mind that often uses sharp-witted humour to expose a possible philosophical implication During breakfast coffee one morning he said: What rhymes with orange While we scanned our logical minds for an answer, he concluded with true chimpanzee wisdom: “It does not” Walking away he also concluded that when …
Mythological knowledge
Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense — the starkest Madness — In Genesis, Emily Dickinson When we are faced with a broader view of human functionality than that of a mechanical body, concepts such as consciousness, soul, and spirit stare us in the face With regard to …
Our daily bread
Our daily bread… Last week I came across a Skype discussion between medical professors of gastroenterology from leading medical schools about the growing popularity of gluten-free diets They said, for example, that 1 in 5 Americans have gone on some form of gluten-free diet, while only 1 in 100 have celiac disease, the condition indicating …
Layers of consciousnes
Layers of consciousnes… Leonard Cohen died recently, and many from at least two generations of people all over the world sighed and shared a thought or Facebook page about his death and music At the same time, in recent weeks I’ve struggled with the feeling that, although it seemed to help patients when I explained …
Circles and shadows
Circles and shadows This week a discussion by Art Caplan from the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center about burn-out in doctors was quite thought provoking He stated that a recent Mayo Clinic study showed that in the USA in 2011, 455% of doctors reported burn-out and that this has …
Medical error
Medical error “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, …
Coffee again
Coffee again While we are still under the influence of our discussions about medical research and its effect on our lifestyle, let’s look at one more example, with the help of a research paper on how coffee may be actually healthy for us all about numbers… An observational study published in Circulation, the journal …
Softening the rainbow
Softening the rainbow You had better speak in riddles for the agonies of dawn are altogether too real for the rainbow in your mind (Felix Munthali) It is time for closing the front door of an active MOMO centre and starting to clean and repack all the insights and disappointments …
Searching for a star…
Searching for a star… I grew up in a small village where the only doctor in town was the healer, general problem solver and philosopher of the community In fact, the elderly doctor and the town’s elderly mid-wife saw to the new-born, the dying and everything in between over many years, …
Death by sausage
Death by sausage At the risk of being repetitive, something that happened last week has inspired another blog article about understanding medical research The broader media enthusiastically published the WHO decision to put processed red meat into the IACR’s (International Agency of Cancer Research’s) Group 1 category of carcinogens, in this case …
Add a bit of sweetness
It seems that scientists discovered an intriguing reason why we may need our daily dose of sweet stuff A recent study done by Bushman, Dewall, Pond and Hanus found that low levels of glucose in our blood contribute to the anger we feel towards a marriage partner They recurrently measured the glucose levels in …
Also, not because
ALSO, NOT BECAUSE One of the most common mistakes we make when we absorb the masses of health news thrown at us daily is forgetting that correlation is not the same as cause Every day we see examples of this error in popular health media What is even worse is that clinicians often make the …
Angels and Apes
Angels and Apes “Instead of risen apes, we see ourselves as fallen angels” Desmond Morris Over the past thirty years I had a unique practice in that I mainly treated patients who had not found help within the orthodox medical sphere, and also did not feel comfortable in the blooming but largely pseudo-scientific arena …
garlic and cow bile
garlic and cow bile But health and disease also claim the attention of the scientist, and not merely of the physician, in so far as an account of their causes is concerned The extent to which these two differ and investigate diverse provinces must not escape us, since facts show that their inquiries are, to a certain extent, …
The unknown known…
The unknown known… We all know the saying that there is the known, the known unknown and the unknown unknown However, in bio-analysis, as in psychoanalysis, it is the unknown known that should get our attention Let me share my recent experience of the unknown known I am busy writing a series of essays on …
Three pounds …
Three pounds … Notification of two new TED lectures appeared in my inbox this week Two similarities were striking, – there were actually more similarities, but let them be ‘noise’ for creating background patterns to our personal experience – both talked about ‘three pounds of living tissue’ that decide our fate, and both the …
Name it again
Name it again After enduring one of the typical medical silences (see my blog on a heedful silence), myalgic encephalitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) suddenly found a new voice when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its 235-page report at 11 am on February 10th, 2015, after nearly a year of investigation http://wwwiomedu/Activities/Disease/DiagnosisMyalgicEncephalomyelitisChronicFatigueSyndromeaspx Let’s …
A year of doubt
A year of doubt “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubt” (Bertrand Russell) Empirical research sometimes gives us a decisive sense of knowing This affords us the confidence that our advice to patients is accurate enough …
Blackberry pancake
Blackberry pancake This morning during my regular walk in the forest with my dogs, I picked black berries Once home I made pancakes with the berries, using eggs, gluten free flower, nuts, seeds and water This I ate with honey and freshly brewed coffee All the way I felt like truly being in the …
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Question or answer
QUESTION OR ANSWER I often ask myself whether I achieved anything in spending a lifetime trying to treat medical conditions that are’ all in the mind’ and thus ‘not treatable’ Day after day I was faced with the fact that I do not have any absolute answers for the many symptoms that related to the …
Tough as bone
TOUGH AS BONE “A trembling in the bones may carry a more convincing testimony than the dry documented deductions of the brain” (Llewelyn Powers) Is there a link between osteoporosis and our will to live Can we prevent severe osteoporosis with an energetic earth-related philosophy of life What is the relation between our bones, …
Coffee with or without chocolates
COFFEE WITH OR WITHOUT CHOCOLATES Earlier I made out a case for chocolates, even for my dogs Now it’s time to say something about the worldwide companion of chocolates: a good cup of coffee Every weekend I scan as many as possible of the abstracts of articles published the previous week in medical journals …
Food for gut, brain and soul
It is difficult not to get confused about what to eat when we follow proper medical research, let alone what the popular media make of this research The food we need for healthy brains does not always coincide with what we need to reduce inflammation in our gut and perhaps also our blood vessels …
Talking about health
‘About that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent’ (Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations, 1953) Since medicine defines disease according to technology and statistics, there is an ominous silence about those aspects of illness and disease that cannot be described in terms of physical processes We block out anything that cannot be handled …
Unconscious world of smell
We all know that smell is more directly linked to our emotional life than any other sense Neuroscientists now think that we actually respond much more to our sense of smell than we are aware of during our interaction with others What will this new research and our reasoning about it do to the …
Science and pseudoscience
We live in world where there is a precarious balance between science and pseudoscience To quote from Scientific American:”Placebo effects can arise not only from a conscious belief in a drug but also from subconscious associations between recovery and the experience of being treated—from the pinch of a shot to a doctor’s white coat Such …
The Loss of Sadness
Depression is one of the most common defence mechanisms that our mind uses to protect the inner organisation of our system It decreases energy exchange when our body needs all its resources to survive attacks from the outer world or when our inner organisation itself becomes a threat to our coherent identity However, …
The newest fashion..?
The present fashion in preventative medicine is vitamin D So suddenly every third research study is about Vitamin D (remember when two decades ago it was vitamin C) The main reason for this is the fact that Vitamin D levels can be measured in the blood stream and as such presents researchers with a tangible …
When is it too much..?
The most difficult decision to make for both patient and doctor is whether medication is truly necessary or whether it is a case of merely suppressing symptoms that, although they may cause discomfort, are also part of a normal healing process When it comes to preventative medication a true clinical indication is even more difficult …
How weird is reality..?
How will the ability to second guess our genes via an epigenetic map fit in with the greater acceptance of randomness in the physical world Modern medicine, with the help of bio-physics and computing capacity, already creates incredible possibilities for us to increase our ability to predict and control our health Maybe we should learn …
Is common sense healthy..?
So now we may safely add peanuts to our coffee and chocolates and still be healthy Combine this with fresh air and sunshine and it seems that we can return to what was a commonsensical life style to previous generations http://wwwmedpagetodaycom/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/50257 http://heartbmjcom/content/early/2015/02/06/heartjnl-2014-306663shortrss=1 http://wwwnewscientistcom/article/mg22029470700-fresh-air-and-sunshine-the-forgotten-antibioticshtmlpage=3#VQbGkY6Ud8E
Following your inner self.
Integrated medicine and biodynamic healing have lost their foothold in modern medical science and landed in the quagmire of poorly researched alternative approaches On this website we aim to create a Matrix of Multiple Orientations that respects the value of scientific research while incorporating those aspects of medicine and healing that are often excluded from …
Will we cope with total control..?
Soon, when a doctor looks at our epigenome and predicts our future response to the world we live in, his (or her) advice will be much more than just what to eat and how much exercise to do The question is: Can we cope with so much prediction and will we be able to …
Will we now talk about ME?
As predicted in our blog there now suddenly appears a buzz about ME or CFS or SEID Here is a small sample of the activity in medical media http://phoenixrisingme/ http://wwwsciencedailycom/releases/2015/01/150113204351htm http://wwwbmjcom/content/350/bmjh227/rr-24 http://wwwiomedu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2015/MECFS/MECFS_ReportBriefpdf http://wwwinvestinmeeu/ http://solvecfsorg/research-digest-january-2015-high-interest-in-mecfs-shown-in-journal-rankings/ http://wwwsciencedailycom/news/health_medicine/chronic_fatigue_syndrome/ http://wwwmedicalbriefcoza/archives/feel-the-burn-mechanism-a-culprit-in-cfs/