Why are we neglecting healing?

Over 10 years ago, while describing a model of medical practice based on the four pillars of health of the Māori Model of Health, Te Whare Tapa Wha, to my then-medical-student son, Matt, he replied, “That’s great, Dad. That’s Curing vs Healing. I’m writing an essay on it at the moment”.

Our medical students and now younger doctors are taught about patients healing by finding wholeness and integrity in their lives despite chronic disease, which generally can’t be “cured”. I wasn’t, and maybe you weren’t either.

But what if there’s more to healing than that? What if people can heal themselves from Type 2 diabetes. Because they do. What is the science behind healing? What are the answers to medicine’s fundamental questions, What is health? What is disease? What is healing and how do people heal?

This session is repeated at 2.05