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Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: On Transcending Illness by Unlocking the Inner Gift of Healing by Robert E. Martin
Dr. Remen is Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and Director of the innovative UCSF course The Healer's Art, which was recently featured in US News & World Report. She is also Founder and Director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, a ten-year-old professional development program for graduate physicians. Recently, The Review spoke with Dr. Remen prior to her appearance on Thursday, June 12th at The Ashman Court Ballroom at 11:30 AM as part of Matrix: Midland's 25th Anniversary Festival of the Arts, Sciences & Humanities. Review: How did you first get involved with this type of holistic medicine, which at the time you started was considered groundbreaking? Dr. Remen: I have a 50-year history of chronic illness and developed Krohn's Disease at a very young age. It appeared to me as my body was going through these trials over the years that something within me was responding to my illness that gave me far greater strength than I ever dreamed I could have. Even as my body was being diminished I could feel something growing inside me beside the cancer - maybe I was growing wiser, or bigger as a person. Only there was nobody to talk to about this. In fact, it took me years to figure out how to live from this place within that had grown bigger, because everybody focused on the weakening of my body. Review: It always amazes me that people tend to separate the mind from the body, when actually they are part of the same organism. What do you feel are the biggest misconceptions that people harbor relating to the influence of the mind over the body? Dr. Remen: I have no idea, because I don't work with mind/body medicine. People always hold themselves too small and underestimate their capacities, not recognizing what their strengths are, or not recognizing the power of their humanity. People I have worked with say they never dreamed they would deal with the issues they are forced to deal with and still be laughing. Review: S o do you feel there is any 'formula' or approach that people can take in terms of overcoming afflictions? Dr. Remen: No, not at all. After doing this work for 40 years I've learned we each heal in our own way. When you try to heal in someone else's way, it doesn't go well for us. Some people encourage creative imagery or relaxation techniques, but it never works for people in the same way. We have what we need very deep inside of us and the whole thing is to get in touch with our own unique strengths & convictions. People will not have the strength to deal with adversity unless there is something inside their lives that carries great meaning - whether it be family, work, the shape of their face; it varies with everybody. But those inner motivations need to be larger than the disease in their life. Review: Western medicine often concentrates on curing afflictions of the body whereas Eastern medicine tends to focus more on preventative aspects. Do you see more of integration happening in modern medicine? Dr. Remen: For ten years now Centers for Integrated Medicine have been popping up all over the country, and the government puts $100 million a year into supporting these facilities. Over a decade ago David Eisenberg from Harvard did phone interviews with hundreds of people and asked if they were trying alternative methods for suffering associated with their illness and one out of three said yes, whether it was acupuncture or massage, or something else. This changed everything. Unfortunately, many times we do the right things for the wrong reasons. Insurance companies wanted to cover treatments and business people feared higher costs, so it opened all variety of debates. Most people realize they can't rely on anyone else completely to offer them recovery from a physical problem. They need to combine different approaches that aren't always compatible to give them the best chance to recover from something 'major'. And most people are involved with prevention of illness in some way, even if it's eating a food that doesn't have pesticides. Review: Is there anything besides diet and exercise and lifestyle that people can do to ward off illness? Dr. Remen: Prevention is more important now than ever, but it's difficult because we don't know what to do to prevent illness. For example, estrogen replacement therapy has been going on for years; suddenly these 'correctives' turn out to be dangerous. Other harmful things are not even considered a risk, such as eating processed foods, or genetically modified foods, which have not been adequately tested. People need to recognize their health needs to be cared for as much as anything of great value to them is. Review: There are a disturbing number of things that have been shown to make us more prone to illness that governments are reluctant to stop or regulate. Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel on that sorry fact? Dr. Remen: Well, you can't let the chicken guard the hen house. I work with a place called Commonweal that has a program called 'Change'. It consists of 500 non-governmental organizations comprised of people affected by disease that now realize the environmental impact and component. They are organizing and beginning to lobby and educate people to the danger of all the environmental toxicity that we are exposed to 'Commenweal' means the well being of all people and the big business interests behind these dangerous compounds are not going to influence this change. Their website is: www.commonweal.org It saddens me greatly. When I was a young doctor 42 years ago, a 45-year old woman came into the hospital with cancer and the entire staff would talk about it. Now it is far too common to find young, healthy people admitted with this disease. DDT used to be sprayed in the air for our mosquitoes when I was a child and one thing I've learned is that we are too quick with our science. It's changed the world and if you look at the world you realize every part is connected to the other. If you change one part of the connection, some other affect we do not intend will occur. That's why I hesitate to generalize about people or anything. When we simplify things, that's when we make mistakes. But it sickens me that the body concentrates its chemical burden into breast milk, and it's why organizations like commonweal are so important. Review: Insurance companies and government rarely connect the cost exacted by the environmental expense of allowing toxic compounds to breach into the population. They don't seem to realize the stress it places financially on the entire health system and our entire economy. Dr. Remen: It's a huge cost and one we can't see an end to. Insurance companies are not your doctors, yet they are telling people who are trained for years what they can or cannot do. Doctors are trained to practice medicine the best they know, only their decisions are overseen by people never setting foot into a medical school. It's a heartbreaker. Review: So, what are you talking about in Midland? Dr. Remen: (laughter). I think I'm talking bout mystery! The power of mystery and living a question. I'm talking about how to live in such a way that you recognize with awe what goes on around you. Life is larger than science and things happen that are worthy of awe. Maybe we need to know a little less and wonder a little more? How important is it to carry a question through life? We are always looking for answers to live with, but sometimes it's the questions we carry that have a set of answers that grow deeper and deeper as we proceed through life. Review: So can you fix your body with your mind? Dr. Remen: I've lived for 50 years with my disease. There's a difference between curing and healing. The reality is that curing is limited. Not everything can be cured. Curing takes years for people to learn, is the work of experts, and requires technique & knowledge. But healing is the work of your own being. Healing isn't about making a disease go away necessarily; it's about the movement towards a greater integrity, depth and wholeness in every human being. It's about appreciating the things we once took for granted, caring for pain because you know what pain is about, and that quality of becoming more of who you are as a person through the healing process. We evoke that from each other by our belief in each other, by listening to each other, our kindness to one another. Some of the most compassionate human beings I've ever met are people with chronic illness. Healing is always possible. People can be healing up the point they die and die far bigger people than they were in the middle of their lives. It is possible to have a very good life even though it may not be an easy one. I may not be able to run the 2-minute mile, but I am able to live in ways that are deeply satisfying. People need to know this. We focus on the fact that we may not have a good life because of illness, which places too much limitation on us.
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