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Anthroposophic Perspectives In Primary Care, Ira S. Cantor Md, Steven Rosenzweig Md

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

A core challenge of contemporary medicine is to integrate the technological successes of biomedical science with a comprehensive under-standing of the physical, psychosocial, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of health and illness. Toward this end, bridges are being created between conventional medicine and alternative systems of healing which reflect a holistic model of the human being. Even when both conventional and complementary approaches are used side-by-side in the same patient, they remain separate in their basic assumptions and goals. Today's mechanistic disease model is cut off from such notions as life-energy, consciousness, and spirituality, so integral to many alternative paradigms. Anthroposophically …

The History Of The Present Illness As Treatment: Who's Listening, And Why Does It Matter?, Herbert M. Adler, Md, Phd

Department of Family & Community Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: The history of the present illness (HPI) is examined as a narrative communication that has the potential to be therapeutic.

METHODS: The general principles that influence the therapeutic potential of the HPI are induced from participant observation of personal experience and natural observations of conventional social interaction. These principles are corroborated by evidence from cross-cultural healing practices, clinical experience, and experimental psychology.

RESULTS: To facilitate a therapeutic HPI, the clinician should convey a sense of safety, sensitivity, affective competence, and cognitive competence. Furthermore, the effective clinician joins the patient in coprocessing the illness experience.

CONCLUSIONS: The (HPI) is not …