Relationships heal

In the July 2024 Blog, I will quote extensively from my favourite book ‘A General Theory of Love’ in which the subject of our front-line doctors is discussed.

The authors discuss the innovations that brought an unparalleled ability to cure: x-rays, anti-biotics, vaccines, anaesthesia etc. etc. However, they note that the reasoning part of the brain has enjoyed ascendancy within medicine while at the same time the importance of the limbic/feeling part of the patients’ brain seems to have been largely forgotten.

The authors’ proposition is that illness arouses the ancient attachment machinery of limbic need. The patient who goes to the doctor for the correct test, the correct diagnosis and the right medicine also wants and needs a warm hand on their shoulder and the security of speaking with one who has been through this before.

They quote a dying patient who wrote:

I wouldn’t demand a lot of my doctor’s time. I just wish he would brood on my situation for perhaps five minutes, that he would give me his whole mind just once, be bonded with me for a brief space, survey my soul as well as my flesh to get at my illness……I’d like my doctor to scan me, to grope for my spirit as well as my prostate. Without such recognition, I am nothing but my illness.

Good physicians like good counsellors have always known that the relationship between doctor and patient is what heals. Meanwhile western medicine dismissed the older tools of healing as expendable handholding, a luxury that busy schedules could not permit.

In the USA, the authors write that ‘patients sensed the limbic void in medicine and deserted en masse while multiple other groups sprang up to fill the void: acupuncturists, chiropractors, masseuses, reflexologists, herbal therapists’ et al.  it seems that alternative medicine sees these limbically wiser settings as friendlier to emotional needs.  They provide close listening, and often the ancient reassurance of laying on hands.

Any undue emphasis on neocortical medicine at the expense of limbic resonance seems to rob the patient of that which they are crying out for, and this is often where the Counsellor enters the equation. If psychological contact is achieved and a relationship develops between client and counsellor, then the result is often that the counsellor becomes the advocate for the physician. We often encourage our clients to visit their GPs.

Finally, any good doctor will tell you that the pills do not provide the whole cure for unbearable anxiety or depression. Pills are like Plaster of Paris on a broken arm, supporting the arm while the body heals itself. It is the limbic connection with the Counsellor that helps to find the connection between the client and the self that heals. When this finally happens there is often a eureka moment which is the most fulfilling feeling to this author.

This blog contains extracts from A General Theory of Love by three psychiatrists: Thomas Lewis MD; Fari Amini MD; and Richard Lannon MD.  It is published by Vintage Books, Random House, 2001.  It is available from Amazon.