Healing in the Healer’s Mirror

Mark D. Gilbert, MD,

Director, Mind-Body Medicine Skills Group Program,

Banner University Arizona Health Network,

Clincial Leader, Psychosocial Oncology ,

Arizona Cancer Center;

Associate Professor of Psychiatry,

University of Arizona

Healing in the Healer’s Mirror

“Sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Medicine at theArizonaHealthSciencesCenter”

Sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Medicine

The Banner University of Arizona Medical Center Tucson

“Sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Medicine at theArizonaHealthSciencesCenter”

I have nothing to disclose related to the content of this talk with reference to any outside corporation, sponsor, drug company or

otherwise from which I would benefit in any way from the information or discussion of the material to be discussed herein,

or an affiliation with any other entity …. other than that of love, healing and compassion.

Healing in the Healer’s Mirror

“Welcome to your flight through cancer advocacy- -please remember that in case of sudden stress, put the oxygen mask on yourself first….!”

If your dentist’s teeth looked like this…..

Would you use this dentist???

If your contractor’s house looked like this …

Would you hire this contractor to build your house??

If you as an advocate have little insight, and take little care of your mind, body and soul, and have not healed yourself … should a patient trust you in caring for her/him???

?

HEALING

*WHAT IS IT?

Healing is an intentional process by which a human being is motivated to accept their authentic life, through the exploration of internal thoughts, feelings, physical and spiritual connections- in a non-judgmental way and in a trusting environment. As the result of this acceptance, meaning and purpose transform suffering, and the individual’s perception is that life’s harmony and integrity are restored.

-- Mark D. Gilbert, MD

The Anguish of Practice:Healing requiresSelf-Awareness

Self-CompassionSelf-Forgiveness

The Anguish of Practice:Healing requiresSelf-Awareness

Self-CompassionSelf-Forgiveness

WHAT IS IT?

Hope

“To keep a lap burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” – Mother Teresa

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral”. - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Hope categories in illness:

Cure Social support Search for information Spiritual beliefs Limiting the impact of a trauma/adapting to changing capacities Living in the moment/self-transcendence

With cancer hope is often of a cure or prolonged survival, but in any illness hope may

be re-defined as:

A struggle to come to terms with the multiple losses in a changing reality.

Hope

Hiding or distorting the truth is not hope-engendering.

Hope is best engineered through honesty and empathy and by framing hope in a wider context:

* relationships, belief, control, dignity, inner peace, humor, meaningful events, achievable treatment goals

Hope

Hope is an inner force inherent in a person’s will to live.

Hope

Hope

Hope is a process of human becoming through which one searches for

meaning for oneself in relationships outside of one’s self

Hope

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the

certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

The special feeling of…

LOSS

Healing demands that one who suffers loss processes that loss,

and ultimately finds Hope.

Loss of control

Loss of self-image and self-esteem

Loss of Independence

Loss of Identity – Stigma

Loss of role in family and work - Reaction Family, Boss

Loss of people who will care – Abandonment

Loss of emotional stability - Emotional Conflicts

Loss of connection – Isolation

Loss of Life

Healing involves authenticity …

The authentic experience of the pain, anger, fear, love and meaning exposed by loss…

Anger, fear and pain are experienced with less passion through the practice of forgiveness…

Forgiveness is a significant component of healing…

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the overcoming of negative affect and judgment toward the offender, not by denying ourselves the right to such affect and judgment, but by endeavoring to view the offender (person, God, life) with benevolence, compassion, and even love, while recognizing that he or she or It has abandoned the right to them.

Let us take some time to address the topic of ‘loss’- as it has been viewed by our society, our families and ourselves…

Allow (Danna Faulds) There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in -the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. From “Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga”

Healing in the Healer’s Mirror

Atul Gawande in the new NYT bestseller Being Mortal:

“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments- which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story (your story) has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss the fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life (full of loss) may be devoted to a great cause. We have purpose larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self- which is absorbed in the moment – your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin 3 hours of bliss? Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter.”

Healing in the Healer’s Mirror

The Process of Grief: How loss Heals