When caring for clients, healthcare needs to strive for not only curing the problem, but also healing the person. Too often we work on finding a cure, but that doesn't complete the healing process.
So, what's the difference between curing and healing?
Curing is how we use scientifically based treatments to address a diagnosis. This is when we do tests, exams, and workups to find out what the problem is, then we use procedures, medications, and supplements to solve those problems. While curing a disease, disorder, or dysfunction is beneficial, it doesn't fully help the person to feel fully whole, and it doesn't complete the recovery process.
Healing, however, helps the person have a sense of well-being. Healing encourages activities that bring joy and satisfaction, and has a deeper meaning. Healing highlights what the person finds valuable, and is more than getting free of disease, disorder, or dysfunction. Healing is what brings calmness, ease, and comfort.
Wouldn't you rather be cured AND healed? Does your provider, support system, and environment promote both?
Traditional healthcare has worked for hundreds of years to cure sick or ill clients. We have developed very specific treatments and procedures for certain diagnoses. We have generations worth of information for treatments that work, and treatments that don't. We have scientifically evaluated ideas, practices, and even mistakes, that have resulted in our current availability of treatments.
While we need to be cured, that isn't the end of the recovery. That isn't the fullest and most satisfied we can be.
We also need to be healed, and that isn't as clearly identified by research, statistics, trends, or experiences. Healing is very individual, and what may heal one person, may not have the same effect for another. At times, we may not have a cure for a condition, but we can still help the person to heal and feel more whole.
Healing can support and nourish a person with meaningful behaviors, and that can reduce suffering. Healing requires meaningful experiences that the person is motivated by. Healing supports the person regardless of the prognosis, and healing helps to stimulate biological responses that have the effect of feeling good and moving toward health.
Does your healthcare provider help cure you AND heal you? Do they take into consideration what makes you feel good, what's important to you, and what motivations and goals you have?
Something that would benefit the health of the entire world is the incorporation of healing alongside curing. If we were able to individualize treatments to every person that came in, how much better would people feel and respond to treatment?
How many times have you spoke with your doctor and had personal insight only to be told what was best for you? Did that help you feel better about yourself or your prognosis?
Working together with your provider, with your social support, and with your environment is an integration that can't be compromised. What's best for one person, isn't what's best for another. It's important your feelings and thoughts are valued for you to feel best about your health. Don't compromise being healed for only being cured. #snowbeastperformance
*If you're looking to learn more about integrating healing with curing, I'd recommend "How Healing Works" by Wayne Jonas, MD. This blog was written after I had finished reading this book, and much of the information written here was found there.
