Ayurveda and systems of medicine
http://www.samkhya-ayurveda.org/ayurved_frame.asp
The Ayurvedic system of medicine, being 5000 years old is one of the oldest Traditional Systems of Medicine known to mankind. During this period Ayurveda has developed into one of the most complete systems for health care. Based on eight main disciplines (internal medicine, surgery, psychology, etc.), from a larger association and mutual relationship several schools have developed such as the internal medicine (Classical Ayurveda), psychophysiology/psychology (Sattva Ayurveda), dentistry (Dant Ayurveda), animal healthcare (Pashwa Ayurveda) and plant healthcare (Vriksh Ayurveda). This means that in Ayurveda the same holistic perspective of human existence is approached from different angles.
A complete description of the Ayurveda System is given on the website of the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy, Central Government of India in New Delhi. Here we provide a link to the resources available at this central site.
AYURVEDA - Dept. of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy
Sattva Ayurveda
Sattva Ayurveda or Science of SELF works from within to instantly reveal a person’s inborn nature on all levels of experience, physically as well as mentally. Opposed to being linked to socially and psychologically induced tendencies, the totality of our awareness and learning which is revealed through diagnosis and linked to our natural mental makeup, serves to empower. The acknowledgement of our natural rhythm of functioning leads to an increased quality of life, health, motivation and performance. Enabling us to breach our own invisible barriers.
Inclusive Science & Healthcare
INTRODUCTION
We spend much money and effort on healthcare and yet the system doesn’t produce the results expected. Healthcare is changing. It needs to. People aren’t satisfied and in all the discussions about healthcare reforms, the focus is almost solely on how to pay for the healthcare system and how to give more people access to it. No doubt these goals are very important, but there are deeper issues to be considered when thinking of health and healing. When most people think about health they merely focus on how not to get ill. We need to go beyond this limited view and re-examine what health really means. It is not merely the absence of disease.
We need to reexamine the ‘client – doctor’ relationship and their ‘contract’, we need to look closely at the individual responsibility for health, review our emphasis on acute care, and look more closely at what could be achieved through preventive medicine, traditional and complementary approaches. New modes of interdisciplinary research should result in greater insight in the inner healing mechanisms, the complex interaction between the client, healer and the healing techniques, and the connection between healing systems from a greater perspective.
The
new and integrated form of healthcare should open the dialog between different
healthcare systems to explore their interaction in solving afore mentioned issues.
INCLUSIVE SCIENCE IN HEALTHCARE
Modern scientific health models are very much based on reductionism as most scientific views don’t incorporate our subjective experience. However, more and more scientists come to the conclusion that there is a need to incorporate consciousness in our health model. This is because health problems seem to be related to people’s inability to process the objective reality on subjective levels of experience. But is this not the result of our own disconnection from our own subjective reality by adopting a consensus or socially accepted view of what reality should look like, our expectations?
Henceforth our conventional healthcare model has been one in which healthcare systems exist as disconnected or separate entities. Therefore, conventional approaches in medicine and even psychology are only able to help people when it concerns their interaction within the objective world. Beyond that, the current health model doesn’t go.
‘Inclusive Science in Healthcare’ is based on an integrated three dimensional health model which integrates the subjective and objective realities as a whole. Within this model, consciousness views the whole of reality as inter-connected sub-realities.
Viewing
health from this perspective resulted in the description of an integrative,
interdisciplinary or unifying approach to conceptually and practically
integrate different healthcare systems: traditional, alternative, complementary
and conventional which simultaneously view health on the levels of psycho-emotional-,
energetic- and physical experience. The resulting conceptual integration and
interdisciplinary health model and connected theory thus go beyond categories
to connect with afore mentioned systems and approaches in medicine, eastern and
western psychology and human development science.
OSPI
This 3D health model was named: ‘Open Systems Perspective for Integration’ or OSPI(1) for the reason that it offers an open perspective to which dissimilar systems may connect up. As briefly mentioned before, the starting point in OSPI is consciousness. Consciousness is the zero dimension which is made explicit as part of this model as it ‘perceives’ everything as a whole. When we view at reality from this consciousness perspective we may see all of the interconnected sub-realities on both the subjective and the objective levels of experience. We may consequently also see all seemingly dissimilar systems of healthcare as part of the interconnected sub-realities which we perceive. Furthermore we may differentiate between how conventional healthcare works on an objective level of experience while complementary/alternative and traditional healing systems emphasize working on subjective levels. We may even differentiate between the different subjective levels (psycho-emotional, energetic and physical) on which these healing systems work.
This
consciousness or ‘Client’ perspective is further elaborated upon in SELF(2)
(Self-integration through Empowerment, Lifestyle and Feedback). The theory and
practice of SELF, as a practical application of the OSPI health model, results
in an advancement in the Self-integration. The basis of ‘Information Medicine’(3).
INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
In
order to solve the issues mentioned earlier in the ‘Introduction’ there is a
need for Interdisciplinary Research based on OSPI aiming at describing:
1) human development on a subjective level of experience and its
interconnectedness with objective reality, 2) the healing mechanisms,
3) the complex interactive system between client, his/her environment, the
course of life, the practitioner, healing techniques and methodologies, 4) the
philosophical approaches in 'Inclusive Science in Healthcare' as connected to
the various healthcare systems and 5) the application of healthcare
interventions. This is done by taking into account different modes of research
already available in the various systems of healthcare.
BENEFITS
Training in ‘Inclusive Science in Healthcare’ may help practitioners and students of traditional, indigenous and complementary systems of healing to integrate their work in a modern healthcare environment, help practitioners and students of conventional medicine in the integrated use of traditional, indigenous and complementary therapies and help the general public in understanding the integrated use of different healthcare systems. ‘Inclusive Science in Healthcare’ forms the basis for development of new strategies in regard to research, multi-axial diagnosis, counseling, coaching and therapy. The means through which a client may gain access to knowledge and assistance in a process of self-integration, according to one’s ‘real’ needs on all levels of experience. ‘Inclusive Science in Healthcare’ offers new ways in which clients and practitioners may work on an equal basis towards health on all levels of experience.
POST
GRADUATE COURSE
In September 2004 a Post Graduate course: 'Inclusive Science in Healthcare' will be available. If you are interested you may apply by sending us an e-mail with your motivation and detail resume.
Please send to: info@f-ism.org
QUESTIONS
For your questions about 'Inclusive Science in Healthcare' you may send your enquiries to Chandrasekhar Monsanto.
Please send to: chandrasekhar@f-ism.org
(1) Open Systems Perspective for Integration (OSPI)
A theoretical open unified conceptual approach which describes all levels of subjective experience from a larger 3D perspective, starting from consciousness. OSPI describes the interaction between the client and practitioner, the connection with the healing practice, including diagnosis and therapy, and its organization. The absolute reference point from where human development is studied and described is consciousness. The zero dimension. This integration perspective enables to make correlations between systems in order to interactively use these (seemingly) dissimilar systems of healing. From an OSPI perspective any therapeutic intervention serves to empower the individual client whom chooses to use its effect for Self-integration purposes.
(2) Self-integration through Empowerment, Lifestyle and Feedback (SELF)
Is a practical implementation of OSPI which focuses on the physic-psycho-emotional development or Self-integration and assistance therein by practitioners. The basis of its practice is feedback, self-knowledge, self-responsibility and self-activity. Unlike psychology it focuses on feeding back information to individual clients about the subjective levels of experience: physical, energetic and psycho-emotional for the purpose of internal navigation and integration. It does this through means of multiple techniques for ‘process diagnosis’ which describe the dynamic nature of the subjective experience. Instead of being applied as a spot-check at the beginning of a consultation, ‘process diagnosis’ is applied throughout a session. The continuous feedback and its contextualization, result in self-recognition through self-knowledge. The basis for the working out of traumatic experiences and the breaching through of pathogenic patterns and reflexes. The latter were developed through (inter)dependency relationships. Self-integration enhances and activates the self-healing capacity and develops a sense of self-responsibility and self-activity. From the physic-psycho-emotional perspective of a client a practitioner describes the complex interaction between the client, his environment, the course of his/her life, the healer, the healing techniques, and the interaction between healing systems.
(3) Information Medicine
Is a form of medical practice whereby physical diseases are healed by activation of the self-healing capacity of mind and body. This is done through the use of diagnosis and feedback of information on subjective levels of experience. This breaches through pathogenic patterns and reflexes.