by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your 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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
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...
