About Self Healing
"Healing" is sometimes treated like a dirty word in medicine. Some feel the term smacks of mysticism and quackery. Yet healing is a natural property of life. Healing happens because our integrity, at every level from the cellular to the psychological, is constantly challenged by life's changes, and we, like all living organisms, need to maintain a steady state in order to thrive. Without innate abilities to restore, replenish, and repair, life could not go on. In many ways, life itself is a continual process of healing, of moving toward balance and wholeness in the midst of change.
There are many ways you can help or hinder this natural process. The quality of food you eat can profoundly affect your ability to heal, as can the air you breathe, and drugs or medicines you take. Rest often supports healing, as does appropriate exercise. Your environment and social relationships also have important effects on your health, as do your thoughts, your feelings, and the way you use your mind. This website and the information and tools it offers are about the mental aspects of healing - the effects of your thoughts on your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. We can teach you specific ways to use your imagination and will to cooperate with your body's natural desire and ability to heal. We have designed these tools for you whether you have a chronic or serious illness, or are primarily interested in health and wellness.
You might say that all healing is "self" healing since healing is a built-in property of all living systems. A surgeon can sew the edges of a wound together, but cannot heal the wound. and an antibiotic can kill bacteria, but if the body doesn't respond with a vigorous immune response, then the infection will not be eradicated.The processes that stimulate and guide the ability of the body to repair itself from a wide range of injuries, illnesses, and insults are unconscious and automatic. In a sense, none of us know how to heal consciously, yet all of us know how to heal in the sense that plants, insects, animals,and all forms of life have healing abilities.
The Healing Mind is dedicated to helping you take a more active and effective role in your own health, because YOU are your primary healthcare practitioner. The health professionals you hire are there to help you recover if you fall ill or have an injury, and they are important members of your healthcare team. You are the captain, however, the one who decides how you care for your body and your health on a daily basis, and the choices you make ultimately have much more to do with your health than anything your professionals will do. The Healing Mind is here to help you learn how to better care for yourself and your health, and learn to use your mind/body connection to help you do that.
This excerpt from my first book will give you a better idea of what mind/body skills have to offer you in your quest for better health. Guided Imagery for Self-Healing was designed to teach you the process of using imagery for healing, and is applicable to almost any health related issue.
Marty Rossman, MD
Events
Research
Health Professionals
Welcome to the Health Professionals area of The Healing Mind website. From here you’ll have access to our current research reviews, our most frequently asked questions about mind/body healing, and our community of over 300 health professionals with expert knowledge in relaxation, guided imagery, hypnosis, meditation and other approaches to mind/body health. As you explore our site, you’ll see that we have assembled an impressive group of leading authorities in mind/body medicine and healing (add link to them?), and are making their expertise available to you and your patients in usable and practical formats. Along with free research reviews, topical audio blogs, and other current information about mind/body healing, you’ll also find dozens of products and programs addressing a wide range of health challenges and illnesses.
As health professionals, we know that stress is a significant factor in the majority of health problems we see in our patients. Even if stress hasn’t caused the problem directly, it can often amplify or complicate a health issue, and of course health problems are stressful in themselves. Doctors and other health professionals have been telling patients for years to relax, but many of us don’t take the time--or have the expertise--to actually teach people relaxation and self-regulatory skills. The Healing Mind was created in order to provide high quality, evidence-based materials that make it easy to learn how to reduce stress, relax the body and mind, and use the power of mind/body connection to move towards better health.
Wisdom
We intend this area to provide access to our expert health professional community and the combined wisdom of many world renowned experts in Mind Body medicine. These experts and hundred’s of health professionals offer their thoughts, insight and comments on recent events and trends, new tools and products and significant research results.
What Is Imagery, and Why Is It Important ?
What exactly is imagery? Essentially, it is a flow of thoughts you can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. An image is an inner representation of your experience or your fantasies — a way your mind codes, stores and expresses information. Imagery is the currency of dreams and day-dreams; memories and reminiscence; plans, projections, and possibilities. It is the language of the arts, the emotions, and most important, of the deeper self.
Fighting for Health?
Most mind/body types I know, including me, are pacifists. We don’t like violence, we don’t like aggressiveness, and we don’t like invasive medicine when there are alternatives. We seek to heal, to bring together, to be present to what is happening; to be accepting, non-judgmental and “trust the process.” We like to believe that the universe is unfolding as it should, and when we don’t understand why there is so much suffering in the world, we try to keep our faith in a higher order, a meaningful unfolding, and shake our heads at how little we understand about the mysteries of life.
What if I have trouble imaging at all?
Nocebo (negative placebo) effect is mediated by neurochemical pathways
Researchers in Turin, Italy studied subjects with experimental pain whose pain increased in response to suggestions. They found that the increased pain felt by these “nocebo responders” could be blocked by drugs that interfered with specific biochemical pathways in the brain and stress response axis. The importance of this is twofold - first, that the response to suggestions is mediated by physical biochemical pathways, and second that anxiety about medical procedures can increase suffering, just like reassurance, relaxation, and positive expectations can reduce suffering. Physiology of nocebo response