March 15, 2012
March 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012-03-15 Blog In the beginning of this journey I am reminded of TS Eliot, The Four Quartets, “We shall not cease from our exploration And at the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. For forty-two years I have been practicing in Discovery…before there was integrative medicine…I been practicing as my father taught me. He would say, “God made the body to heal itself.” This healing position from a man who was a gynecologist and surgeon, practicing “first do no harm” and “to treat in order to prevent.” Surgery was the action of last resort. As my first teacher I learned from him, nutrition and vitamin therapy, no medication unless is was absolutely necessary and then for the shortest time required. He taught and practiced from the position of psychosomatic medicine. What he taught 30 years ago is accepted now. Ninety-eight percent of illness is psychogenic in its origins. So with this beginning blog…I return to these original teachings. The actual scientific foundations of what is known today as Integrative Medicine or Integrative Healthcare arose in part from the work of Milton Erickson the father of modern hypnosis and hypnotherapy. His student Ernest Rossi wrote in 1986 about mind body connections…from there was/has been an exponential explosion of research and data. My thought is to return to the foundations of Discovery discussing the implications for today’s students in Integrative Healthcare as well as for patients seeking control of their own health and preventive care. In the early formation of the treatment protocols we use in our practice, the first step is always a starting place with self-discovery. So if we consider this….discovery is always a process beginning in a development of self-awareness. What am I experiencing? What does it mean? What is the purpose of what is happening? What do I do with my particular perspective and view of the universe? To quote the character Hugo in the award winning film Hugo, “If you lose your purpose, it’s like you are broken.” There is a process in self-awareness where we begin a process of recognition of our brokenness, our limitations, our gifts…and from this ability to think about ourselves and our meaning in the place we find ourselves right now…this moment. So let’s begin with this question….which will lead into others and this blog will unfold. Where are you now….right now…this moment….at the beginning of this journey? It does not matter much what age you are….questions we ask in our teens open up the pathways for our future selves. If you are at mid-life and you have come here looking for something…then return to your beginning and ask these questions. Your answer is the first step on this invisible path unfolding under your feet.
Volume: 2, Issue: 1
August 8, 2011
As Posted on Sun, Nov. 06, 2005 The MS Sun Herald
The cities we rebuild will reflect the people we are inside
We are going to rebuild The Pass. I keep having these images overlaying in my mind. The old village… the destruction I see… and shimmering over it a new place like a mirage or spirit place yet uncreated! A place of possibility where we can create a new village more in keeping with what earth should be, what loving caring people are when they come together. Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 7
August 8, 2011
Life Choices
September’s Feature Article…
Most women look in the mirror every day and hate what they see.
What is even worse is that most of us also hate how our bodies feel, work, and move; our energy levels are often low and, no matter what we do, it seems that changing our body’s appearance (as well as the level of health of that body!) seems far beyond our power to influence.
I see and hear this in my office daily. Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 6
August 8, 2011
Masks and Illusions
Ask Dr. Quinn…
Dear Dr. Quinn,
I am a 35 year old woman with three children. I have recently been diagnosed with poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). I am taking Lupron prescribed by my physician, and my menstrual cycle is regulating. But I feel tired and depressed all the time. I quit my job three months ago because I just did not think I could go to work every day, and my husband has just changed jobs. All of this has affected our relationship as well. Do you have any suggestions? Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 5
August 8, 2011
Managing Stress
“Menopause Management”
As little as fifty years ago, this title would have been useless. Nobody needed menopause management!
The “why” is crucial for today’s women to understand.
As an example: My grandmother died in her sleep the month before I was born, in 1945. She was forty-three years old! Now, I can look at photographs of her, and I actually have her medical history through stories that my mother told me. What I surmise is that she had some hormonal/insulin disorder (she had multiple miscarriages and her body appears to have had the characteristics of what we call polycystic ovarian syndrome today). Contemporary research has found the connection between these disorders in younger women and subsequent cardiac dysfunctions in midlife. In one study, virtually 100% of women developed cardiac disease within the 17 years of the study. Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 4
August 8, 2011
Mind/Body/Spirit
Organic Structure: The Underlying Nature of the Thing
By definition, in art the way “all of the parts fit together” creates the art of a thing. So this is with persons, and we seem to forget this all the time… By definition, in art the way “all of the parts fit together” creates the art of a thing. So this is with persons, and we seem to forget this all the time. The way all of our parts fit together is our organic structure. It is this underlying structure that those of us who heal body/mind seek to understand. Happily, it is what the person questing to heal the self also seeks.
In illness of the body, brokenness of spirit, and emotional pain, what is at odds is some part of the underlying structure. It is usually not the symptom we see (although the symptom is what usually presents and brings the patient in for treatment); rather, it is the deeper dysfunctioning of the structure or underpinnings of the patient physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually that precipitates what we call illness. Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 3
August 8, 2011
Gynecology of the Mind
Managing Menopause
I had a call this week from a 35-year-old woman wanting to know at what age she should begin menopause management. My answer to her forms the substance of this article.
In psychotherapeutic terms, mid-life begins at approximately age 35 for women; this is probably the impetus for my caller’s “seeking.” Medically, a woman in her mid-thirties is in the period called “advanced maternal age” if she is trying to conceive and suffering from “premature ovarian failure” if she begins menopause at this age. This is the terminology; the way in which it fits with the fluidity of women’s health and the liquid shifts and changes of a body is an entirely different matter.
The answer to the question is complex and simple. Menopausal management begins in adolescence! Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 2
August 8, 2011
Why Do You Really Want To Lose Weight?
This may be the fundamental question each of us has to answer regarding any decision to lose weight. But there is a more fundamental one to answer that we seldom think to ask. Why did I gain the weight in the first place?
If we are really looking for the answer to the original gain, then we have to understand how and why we became the way we are. I am forever teaching that “everything that we say, everything that we do, everything that we create is a self-portrait.” I mean absolutely everything! We use everything as a metaphor for self and then express our self through the metaphor. Read more
Volume: 1, Issue: 1
August 8, 2011
Infertility
Conflict Between Mother and Daughter (Parent and Child)…
The pattern between the mother and daughter often affects fertility for both. A woman’s fertility is more than her reproductive system. When there are reproductive disorders, the conflict often becomes focused on the internal organs rather than on what may be antecedent to the disorder. More and more we find that there are issues which are multigenerational, affecting generation after generation within the family. The energy of the family becomes expressed in patterns of genetics, lifestyle, communication, and choices that are either expressed or so hidden that they become very subtle in their expression. Read more