The Heilkunst map for patients of ALL modalities
I’ve recently mapped out some of the basic outlines to the whole Heilkunst approach to treatment in my series on the three jurisdictions, in order to give patients a clearer understanding of their own treatment. Not only does this map apply for each individual patient who is coming to see me for treatment, but in its broadest form, it is the map for ALL modalities of treatment, including all natural approaches, as well as conventional medicine.
The meaning of Heilkunst, when looked at from this broader level, gives us a true method for evolving our healthcare system to be truly integrated. Currently, the conventional system gives most of its referrals internally, to other specialties of conventional medicine, and occasionally out to a natural practitioner in limited circumstances, perhaps a Naturopath, or an acupuncturist. Likewise, practitioners of natural modalities tend to refer amongst each other, and occasionally to a conventional doctor for a specific purpose, such as a need for drugs or surgery.
There’s lots of implicit value in such informal liasons and professional relationships between practitioners, but there is an even better form this could take, if the broader implications of the Heilkunst map would start to be integrated through all modalities. Rather than referring out when the practitioner gets “stuck” in a case, an understanding of the Heilkunst map could allow all practitioners to refer their patients to a sequence of practitioners on the basis of where the patient is in their treatment, and the logical course of treatment they need to move from point A to point B to point C in their health.
This may or may not sound like much of a difference to you, but the key point here is that a comprehensive map allows for the most efficient form of patient-centred medicine, rather than a practitioner- or modality-centric healthcare. As I’ve also written before, the higher goals of health go beyond the simplistic definition of removing a symptom (which just about any modality can do). This shifts the reference point instead to the overall state of health of the patient, and how to continually increase that, while the removal of symptoms is a welcome byproduct of this larger goal. A focus on the smaller goal of symptom removal reinforces a mindset of battle between the modalities, for which one will have the privilege of treating the symptoms, and in which the patient is not best served.