Bringing Balance to our Healing
Health care is big business...the biggest. Health care is the single largest US industry, with health care spending in the United States reaching $2.4 trillion in 20081,2. In 2006, health care provided 14 million jobs1. Between 2006 and 2016, health care is expected to generate 3 million new wage and salary jobs - more than any other industry1.
Patients pay for health care. But they come to us for healing. Health care is an industry. Healing is an art. Practicing an art requires patience, on the part of the patient and the practitioner. The health care industry does little to promote patience. Our patients, out of ignorance, often prefer the quick fix.
Patients come to us in pain. When the pain is physical, we attempt to quantify it using a scale. Some come to us in emotional pain from losses they have suffered from a disability that has robbed them of their independent lifestyle. All pain makes us impatient. We want the pain to be gone. And we'll do most anything to have someone take it away.
The difficulty comes when practitioners allow health care to trump healing. Health care may take away the pain temporarily, but it often leaves the problem - the root cause. If you leave the root, the symptoms will return: the same symptoms at greater intensity or worse symptoms. The original practitioner may not be around to witness this phenomenon. Perhaps the practitioner moved on to a different facility. Or, when the symptoms return, the patient may choose a different facility hoping to find a practitioner who will offer longer-lasting relief.
Standing in contrast to health care, healing doesn't use alleviation of symptoms as its only benchmark for success. Healing works slowly and encourages patients to embrace their symptoms as teachers...to learn from them. Healing looks at the big picture, not settling for pain-free when a cure is available.
If you have been a therapist for any length of time, you have treated the casualties of the health care industry - those who have been allured by the quick fix. Some patients are veterans of the quick fix war. Without realizing what has happened, some practitioners have been drafted to the health care army while they aren't looking. The only antidote to the quick fix is the art of healing.
Do you occupy one of the wage and salary jobs in the largest US industry or are you an artist weaving the tapestry of healing?
1 US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
2 National Coalition on Health Care