News from the Bowen College community
Bowen College is committed to patient-centered, pain-free care. Read news from our community.
Subscribe to the Bowen College blog to read the latest updates for holistic, patient-centered care
Have we forgotten what a gallbladder is for?
In my last post I raised the broad statistical costs of the war of symptoms. But what about the impact on the individual patient? This “war” is waged against part of the body and has just a partially “functioning body” as its best outcome. That paradigm sees symptoms...
Casualties from the War on Symptoms
In my last post I left off by raising the question of what doctors can do to change the misguided and harmful obsession with symptom relief in our healthcare system. The first step may well be simply coming to terms with the situation. For most people in the Western...
There’s a Growing Unrest with Symptom-Focused Health Care
In recent posts I explained the limitations of popular current ideas of health as merely the absence of symptoms. Do doctors have a role in expanding the expectations of what is considered health? Can we broaden patients’ views on health or are we merely technicians...
What does the headache medication industry tell us about attitudes toward health?
I left off my last post promising an example that illustrated the difference between achieving good health and merely relieving symptoms. Consider the sale of over-the-counter headache drugs. These may get rid of yours symptoms, but you are still a person with...
Symptom-Free Does Not Mean Healthy
In my last post I contrasted mainstream health institutions’ attitude to health with the definition of the World Health Organization: “complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” It is evident that patients with...
What is a condition of Good Health?
Understanding the patient’s purpose in coming to you is paramount for a doctor. The Latin root of “doctor” means “to educate,” but this often falls short of the mandate. We must educate patients about their symptoms, as well as the possible causes and all the options...
Untangling the Subjective and the Objective in Diagnosis
In my last post I made the point that doctors who allowed their assumption of detached objectivity to blind them to the meaning of their patients’ objectives and objections were missing out on a valuable venue for recovering health. The patients’ objections define the...
Doctors must be open to patients’ objectives and objections
In recent posts I’ve established that patients have their objectives or agendas in their illness, which is revealed in the meaning they attach to symptoms, uncovered in their descriptions. In light of the objectives and objections of the patient, what is the role of...
When “Objective” is Euphemism for the Doctor’s Subjective Perspective
I have spent my last several posts discussing the shortcoming of standard approaches to the subjective dimension of the SOAP formula. In the next series of post I’ll address the “O”: objective! The doctor’s task conventionally is noting the patient’s subjective vision...
LISTEN to Symptoms to Know what We’re Treating
My last post recounted an experience with an MS patient who seemed to prefer her disease to being cured because of the greater attentiveness and intimacy she felt it stirred in her husband. Not all patients will be so clear about their unconscious driving forces, but...
When the Cure Really is Worst than the Disease?
Early in my practice, I saw a patient, a psychologist, who had developed MS six months prior. She arrived in a wheelchair, guided in by her husband, who was also a patient of mine. I conducted a 2-hour interview and felt fairly certain of the treatment. A mere six...
What the Patient Believes About Their Illness Matters
In my last post I introduced two patients with sequelae of polio. A male patient was looking to improve his condition so as to care for his wife who developed Alzheimer’s and a female patient want to improve her conditions so that she would not be compelled to settle...
A Comparative Study of Two Patients Sequelae of Polio.
For a second illustration of how important is a patient’s subjective meaning of their symptoms, I want to compare two different patients affected with the sequelae of polio. Both received the same treatment. I treated them both with a technique called BowenFirst™, a...
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...