From Dr. Daniel Weber

The most important part of healing is paying attention. What I mean by paying attention is the 'still focus' on a multiple phenomenon, breath, posture, patient coherence, focus of complaint or any other activity that engages both cognitive awareness and visceral sensation. This is being aware of being aware as well as having concurrent somatic perception. Paying attention engages the body/mind in an opportunity to heal and integrate. While all of this seems obvious, it needs noting that it is extremely difficult. It means processing your own experience while attempting to engage a patient in their own process. Simply said, the patient’s processes around their suffering, their pain and their desire to be free of the distress. And as you have sometimes seen many patients get so lost in their pain, they rarely even notice the practitioner. And how much can we manage this in a daily practice that is often stressful. Both parties need to be paying attention to the interchange, not only to what is said, what is not said and subjectively to what are the dynamics of the interchange. If there is no relationship, there is no healing. There are multiple experiences in the intrapersonal dynamic; cognitive awareness as well as visceral awareness times the two persons involved in the therapy. The number of action is four squared. 16 different levels of communication need attention. Stillness is another word for paying attention but carries additional issues.

I often to tell the patient that ‘fighting’ their disease only worsens the disease. Accepting the wholeness of ourselves, both by practitioner and patient has been shown in several studies, to increase QoL and increase time in remission. We need to engage in the relationship of healing, which is the exact opposite of how medicine is practiced today in the West. Paying attention to the relational dynamics not the disease means we are dealing with the underlying ‘cause’ not its expression. We also need to do this as a community for our own healing. I suggest Panaxea establish a practitioner forum for discussion of patient issues as well our own struggles. We need healing as well.

"attention, attentiveness," noun of action from past-participle stem of attendere "give heed to," literally "to stretch toward," from ad "to, toward" (see ad-) + tendere "stretch" (from PIE root *ten- "to stretch”).

*Etymological: relating to the origin and historical development of words and their meanings.