Faith: Both Old and Cutting-Edge Health Intervention

Other treatment being insufficient to address his needs, the patient decides to add prayer to his treatment regimen. He is only vaguely familiar with this approach in spite of having been reared in a “religious” family. He has little understanding or past experience with faith healing. However, he is hopeful, and willing to try this.

There are numerous approaches to health maintenance around the world. The phrase complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is assigned to services that differ from the primary medical practices of the dominant regional culture. American heritage, founded upon the pursuit of business and religious freedoms (and all of its practices), minimally acknowledges many aspects of its spiritual roots. Moreover, those who provide “mainstream” medical services are educated in sciences followed by specific medical services skills training to work in the dominant medical community; excluding faith-based skills.

Faith is always integral to medical care. Patients present to doctors with the belief that the clinicians have abilities and/or access to such that will help them. Moreover, if patients engage the plans, they do so with faith, anticipating successful outcomes. Without faith in evaluation and treatment processes the only reasons to participate are obligation, lack of control or limited access to alternatives. In the absence of these limitations, patients generally have faith in their choice of providers.

Expecting a successful relationship between medicine and faith is as reasonable as believing that drinking water will satisfy thirst. Of course, you have known of this property of water for years, so little faith is required to expect for it to quench your thirst. You know about water and its ability to address thirst. However, you were not born with this knowledge. Rather, you learned about water by using it. Moreover, you may still be unfamiliar with all of its marvelous capabilities even now. Your familiarity with water and your beliefs regarding its many uses are learned, and that knowledge may continue to grow with new and repeated experiences.

You were also not born with an instinctive preference for the range of western medicine supported by insurers. By obligation and limits of access, you developed a degree of faith in that available to you; your faith based upon access and repetitive exposure to available options. Whereas, faith in CAM practices is equally lessened by your very limited repeated exposure to it.

The above logic aside, it is still important to note that while a knife (scalpel) is a well recognized multifunctional surgical tool in all cultures, it is only one of many valuable tools and only as effective as the person who is using it. Some elements of many dominant medical systems work because they are rooted in Laws of Nature. However, at times, even our best herbalists, pharmacologists, dieticians, psychological and manual therapists, physicians and surgeons find themselves beyond the thresholds of their combined abilities; the challenges beyond their well honed abilities to manipulate nature. At this point, you hope that you have not reached an impossible impasse. Rather, you hope that you have can shift to a seventh gear, aggressively engaging the faith that you already employ in other aspects of the health care system, transitioning to even more effective solutions. The relevant intervention is robust “faith healing”. However, its effectiveness as an intervention may require time to evolve (like a skill), based upon long term, repetitive faith experiences.

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