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Business as Usual Misses too Much Prevents Optimum Patient Care
In my last two posts I introduced the case study of a 67-year-old whose subjective experience of her diagnosis was continually ignored by the objective assessment and plan of a health care regime that was oblivious to her story of her injury. (Reviewing the past two...
You Can’t Kill Pain Where There Isn’t Any
In my last post I introduced the case study of a 67-year-old whose subjective experience of her diagnosis left her so unsatisfied that her story of the incident actually changed. (Rereading the prior post might offer a helpful refresher.) This was just the beginning...
A Case Study on the Incongruence of Subjective and Objective Assessment of an Injury
I promised over the next several posts to explore some examples of the innate knowledge in the meaning that patients’ read into their illness. The first is a 67-year-old female who fractured her patella bracing herself from a fall. When first interviewed, the patient...
The doctor knows best? Relinquishing our power.
In my last post we looked at how the subjective description of a patient’s condition actually embodied much more knowledge about a patient’s condition than is commonly recognized. This could be a valuable resource for a doctor. How does such knowledge actually fare...
A patient’s subjective knowledge knows more than you might think!
I concluded my last post emphasizing that the patient’s subjective presentation of symptoms does not exist in a vacuum. I pointed out that patients often describe what their condition based on what they “feel” is happening, or with fear of what they “think” is...
Subjective patient perspectives are a valuable diagnostic resource
In an earlier set of posts, I’ve addressed the SOAP formula (Subjective, objective assessment and plan) which is supposed to inform doctor note-taking with new patients. In the next set of posts, I want to explore the subjective-objective aspect of the SOAP formula...
The Meaning (and Importance) of the Meaning in Symptoms
My last post concluded by raising the importance of meaning in treatment. Having patients share their interpretation of what their symptoms mean is the most effective way of helping them regain their health. Implicit the self-diagnosis is the solution. My experience...
Treat Individuals, Not Diseases!
By this point, anyone who has been following this series of blog posts will realize that an integrative approach to health is necessary, encompassing the patient’s full understanding and commitment to therapy. Treating a “disease” without treating the person who...
Do Doctors Opt for the Easy “Solution”?
What is the doctor’s role in the disillusion of patients suffering in pain? Does our failure to fully disclose the subtleties of dealing with pain, opting for the easy short term “solution,” play a destructive role? Research in psychoneuroimmunology shows the...
Understanding Pain Requires Understanding the Mind-Body Connection
In my last post, I discussed how understanding the mind-body connection enables doctor’s to better LISTEN to symptoms. Toward the end, I cited the case of pain as an illustration. Today I want to explore that topic a little more deeply. Consider the experience of...
Symptoms will speak to us, if we’re ready to LISTEN
The term “prescription” requires exploring the patient-doctor relationship. It should reaffirm the doctor’s purpose, opening up the healing dialogue. My conviction is that the body’s symptoms call upon us to LISTEN: they’re trying to say something. This is true of...
Getting the Mind-Body Connection Right Provides the Essential Theoretical Framework
My last post warned of the dangers in treating the patient’s symptoms as an inventory of body parts to be discretely assessed. An antidote to this misguided thinking is in recognizing the mind-body connection. Understanding the factors which may have contributed to a...
Patients are not a collection of body parts
Having considered the subjective and objective aspect of the SOAP process, today I want to discuss the last two parts of that acronym: the assessment and plan steps. I’ll lean on current research in psychoneuroimmunology and pain to illustrate that the categories used...
Avoiding the Misuses of Objectives in Healthcare
In my last post, as part of an examination of the SOAP concept, informing doctor note taking for initial patient interviews, I explored the meaning of the idea of “subjective.” Today I’ll look at the next term in that acronym, “objective.” I actually call into...
The Subjective in the SOAP: What We Know about Symptoms
Over the next few posts, I’m going to introduce you to four key ideas that we have to understand to make a path to a better health care approach. These are the “SOAP” (i.e., Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan) notes doctors take during their initial patient...
Healthcare Has to be Personal to Work
The new paradigm in healthcare that I’ve been discussing in this series of blog posts is sometimes mistaken for simply alternative modalities of practice. The choice of modality is not unimportant, but neither is it a panacea for sound practice. Valuable as was my...
My Experience of “Disease” as a Personal Journey
In my last post, I began a discussion of the paths that lead us to the new healthcare paradigm. There I discussed the personal experience of a disenchanted law student who discovered that justice through the law wasn’t all I’d initially thought it cracked up to be....
The New Healthcare Paradigm as Social Justice
In my last blog post, I discussed the emergence of a new paradigm in healthcare and some of the opportunities it was beginning to open up. Such important changes in how people think, feel and act are not expected to come out of nowhere. So, from where has all this new...
Embracing the New Healthcare Paradigm
In my book, What Patients Don’t Say, If Doctors Don’t Listen, I discussed how the day-to-day challenges of our practices can wear down the initial inspiration to heal for many healthcare professionals. It doesn’t need to be that way, though. There is a new paradigm,...
Greatest Challenges of Pain
The problem with pain is that most people who experience it are convinced of its presence and when as a therapist you suggest that there may be a way of changing your relationship to it, they can feel threatened. The first threat is personal; in that, they may fear...
Great Expectations and Discouraging Experience: The Practitioner’s Inspiration
Most doctors and healthcare practitioners enter the field with great expectations and a strong desire to help people. Many have a personal story, often of a family member or relative who suffered. Whether or not they died or were “saved,” a light was turned on because...
How Well Do You Understand Pain?
The problem with pain is that most people who experience it are convinced of its presence and when as a therapist you suggest that there may be a way of changing your relationship to it, they can feel threatened. The first threat is personal; in that, they may fear...
Bowen for Four Legged Friends
Bowen isn't just for humans, it is spreading into the equine world as well. And why wouldn't it help the whole body naturally rebalance, repair and heal itself, regardless of whether the body has two or four legs? As it is with humans, when one area of our fascia...
Part 3 – My Practice & Bowen Therapy
Explaining Bowen Therapy to patients isn’t always easy. How do you explain the astounding results one can achieve with such a gentle treatment?
Brynn Bicknell has found that a patients receptivity to Bowen changes with age. When she has treated young athletes that range in age from 14-17 years old, she finds that they are more interested in the results than understanding how the therapy works.