Posted on

Finding a biological self

FINDING A BIOLOGICAL SELF

“If a man devotes himself to the instructions of his own unconscious, it can bestow this gift [of renewal], so that suddenly life, which has been stale and dull, turns into a rich unending inner adventure, full of creative possibilities”

Marie-Louise von Franz.

 

Anxiety and depression originate from a basic denial or misunderstanding of our own inherent identity. This influences the course of many of the diseases that are on the foreground in modern society. Unfortunately, most of the time medical practice leaves little time or scope for the exploration of the subjective aspects of individual disease patterns.

However, anyone working with patients in everyday situations is aware of the fact that health and illness fluctuate and follow unpredictable patterns that seldom respects the statistical mean of medical descriptions. We need to find a model that defines health and illness in a way that allows for limitless individual diversity. The problem is that it should also present us with enough consistency for each patient to describe a personal biological self within definable parameters of health and well-being. Fortunately, modern medicine is moving closer to a theoretical model based upon the understanding of matter and biological systems in terms of quantum physics and chaos mathematics. This newer model of biological systems is probably more true to the real world, and may create a better background against which doctor and patient can describe disease patterns and therapeutic possibilities.

In ordinary language: we need to use a model of health that is based on a particular person’s own biological self and not on a mechanical image created by limiting statistical instruments. Yet we have to find enough consistency to define and maintain general well-being. Although this is an idealised view that is still impossible to achieve in collective medical structures, we could prepare the way by changing our mindset and build a personal image of our biological self. Such an individual bio-self could then be a starting point in all our negotiations about health. This may force the medical world to acknowledge that health is more than physical processes explained in terms of anatomic and chemical abnormalities and eventually opens up the way towards a more comprehensive definition of health and well-being.

 

Read the full article here:

Finding our biological self.
Posted on

Searching for soul

 

Searching for soul

 

“You could not discover the limits of soul, even if you travelled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth of its meaning.” – Heraclitus

Because our identity forms a template for our system’s organisation and shapes the basic patterns of interaction with the outer world, we have to accept that our personal health and healing depend on all the elements of our inner self, including a highly subjective or inexpressible ‘sense of being’. Modern medicine, as pure science, gives little attention to this aspect of patient care and is in danger of losing soul.

In bio-analysis we define five functional dimensions or fields of activity to explain and integrate the multifaceted organisation of our biological system. Apart from a bodily structure and its physical survival, there is the rhythmic control of growth and adaptation, as well as an intelligent assessment and organisation of all dynamic processes. These three dimensions of our system are synchronized by means of a fourth functional dimension, which revolves around the development and protection of a unique identity. Such an identity is crucial for the survival and evolution of distinct individual creatures, and especially in complex, highly conscious beings such as humans.

Because we have developed such an involved type of consciousness, our sense of identity ranges from basic bodily sensing, to the experience of a personal identity or ego, to our association with an esoteric essence of being. In other words, although we recognise our body and its unique structure, and we’re always aware of a personal self during direct and highly individual self-experiences, there is also in the background a more mysterious sense of self, an intuitive awareness of comingling with a world that exists beyond our personal boundary. We also have, in other words, a highly subjective perception of an expansion into a collective, everlasting existence.

This particular aspect of our identity is difficult to define, but nonetheless important enough to have formed the core of …

Read the full article here:

Searching for Soul.