As practitioners we are taught from the get go about anatomy, physiology, and everything in-between. We are trained in how to diagnose conditions within our scope of practice and also to detect abnormalities that may need specialist referral. To a certain extent we are conditioned to make a diagnosis based on the patients presenting complaints and our physical findings. Over time we become well honed machines that mix and match symptom algorithms with patients presentations and spit out a number of differential diagnosis based on those algorithms.
Its all good and well but we often forget the very thing that is driving most of what is presented in front of us and we tend to loose focus and treat the disease entity and not the person thats walked through our door looking for our help.
I recently read a very interesting paper by Wallden & Chek titled: The ghost in the machine – Is musculoskeletal medicine lacking soul? Its a thought provoking paper and I suppose one that came to me at a time when past, present, and future are top of mind in the greater scheme of consciousness. Two lines that absolutely resonated with me were
“…researchers in the field of human consciousness estimate that between 95-99% of human cognitive function is unconscious…”
“Pain is a conscious experience. As such, pain can be viewed as a mechanism that brings the unconscious to our awareness.”
What determines this unconscious? Thoughts, beliefs, behavior, attitudes of ourselves, people around us, things we read, watch, listen to… So are we not merely creating an existence based on algorithms formed by our unconscious?
Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Whilst at the Admired in Africa conference and Photo Fair a few weeks back I had the privilege of some deep conversation with a few of my photography friends and that really has provoked a sense of wanting to ask more, questioning more, but most of all also being more mindful.
What is fear, why do we avoid things? What is that anxious feeling that drives so many of our decisions or lack thereof? Are they unconscious, irrelevant, irrational maybe? What effect are these unconscious processes having on our health as individuals if 95% of our cognitive function is governed by them?
The paper really is worth reading in its entirety as there are so many nuggets…
Ill leave you with this:
“Pain is not an object we can “do something to” it is an experience we can seek to assist the patient to make sense of.”
Original article available HERE.
