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Feedback and discussion about spirituality in medicine

On this page, I'll post feedback and discussion that pertains to spirituality in medicine, most recent notes first.

-- From Paul Scott on 22 April 2007 (posted Sunday, April 22 2007).

My family background is of the militant atheist school, don't give me any of that new age mumbo-jumbo crap, kind of thing. But I've moved to Berkeley, which is a world away from that attitude. I've also married into a family with lots of therapists, Buddhist meditators, The Artist's Way readers, and even Holotropic Breath teachers. I just wanted to thank you for doing what you are doing, helping people by welcoming aspects of healing that many in your field reject with absolute derision. I think our cult of reason has brought us, as a civilization, to a dangerous precipice. Our hope is not pure science or pure technology, but the marriage of heart and mind, spirit and reason.

Question: do you have an colleagues in my area you could recommend to me as a physician?

Suggestions: I am a historian and over the last five years have become increasingly interested in a subdiscipline called Environmental History. In my reading I have come across a lot of amazing work studying the impact of environmental engagement in matters of emotional and physical health. Many of the books I've been reading argue that a key to our cultural malaise is an alienation from the natural world. I thought this might be an interesting perspective to add to your website and your own practice.

Here are some books I really like:
David Abram. The Spell of the Sensuous. Best of the lot.
Gary Snyder. The Practice of the Wild. and A Place in Space
E.O. Wilson. Biophilia
Dharma Gaia. ed. by Allan Hunt Badiner.
Richard Nelson. The Island Within. and Make Prayer for the Raven.
James Lovelock. Gaia.
Leonard Shlain. The Alphabet v. The Goddess (no doubt you know him)
The Grandaddy of the all of course is Thoreau and the beautiful Walden.

Thanks again for all your work,
Paul Scott

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Dear Scott,
I agree the "cult of reason" is itself a weird kind of irrationality and magical thinking. I've never heard of Environmental History. I'm an avid reader but most often follow my passion of the moment. Currently I'm engulfed in learning Ruby on Rails, a terrific programming system for creating sophisticated web sites. Could you tell me more about Environmental History? Here's the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_history. Frankly, it makes this field sound like yet another dull hyperacademic subspecialty.

People often ask me about referring them to physicians in other areas, and almost always I draw a blank. I doubt many of my colleagues know of my perspective. Despite being Chairman of the Department of Medicine at my local hospital in 2005 and 2006, I know only a fraction of the physicians in my immediate area, let alone five miles away or in another town. Internal medicine's focus is working one-on-one in your office with each individual patient.That's why I so value the camraderie of working in a group with five other superb internists.

---Jim Gagne, MD---

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Last updated Fri, Nov 25, 2005

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