the idea of health and recovering the awareness that a life well lived is characterized by the ability to cope with suffering and to live life in the presence of death. We are also coming to recognize that the expectation of living life without pain and suffering is unrealistic, and that human cultures cannot afford to go on believing otherwise.
Kathleen Phalen starts from the perspective of a journalist reporting on emerging phenomena in our culture. She gives us a book different from others in its scope and presentation.
Here you will find the stories of many individuals—stories that most readers will recognize. You will also find lists of illnesses and suggested remedies, as well as new ways of thinking. Uniquely, Kathleen points out the possibilities confronting each individual as he or she copes with various symptoms, and she brings to her presentation the awareness that symptoms may be teachers and guides that each of us and our practitioners must interpret in a different way. And she also offers a solid presentation of the available research and the relationships that exist between mainstream researchers at the National Institutes of Health, physicians, and practitioners of alternative medicine, as well as an understanding of the enormous drive of the American public to recover something that has been lost but that was well known to our ancestors.
There are answers. And when you find an answer, you will also find another question. Wellness East and West is a wonderful blend of factual material, possible options, creative thinking, and personal stories. Mostly I appreciate the personal passion that I witnessed in Kathleen as she went through the process of writing this book, her excitement and passion about the stories of the many individuals with whom she spoke, her sense that something new was happening and awakening, and her craving to find a way to share a complex mix of old and new ideas.
—Robert Duggan, MAc, MA, DiplAc (NCCA), president and cofounder, Traditional Acupuncture Institute, Columbia, Maryland
In 1994 he was appointed chairman of the Maryland State Board of Acupuncture and now serves on many national health care advisory panels including programs for the NIH.
Introduction
Somewhere between the diaphanous folds of living, loving, grieving, and dying lies the hidden truth of healing. But much like the early morning's mist gently rising above the dewy ground, its simplicity eludes us. We reach out, but often in our desperation we try too hard, and the answer scatters among the tubes, needles, drugs, and heroic measures. Begging for life and healing at any cost becomes our mantra. But there are those who in recent years have asked, why? And while the answers are as individual as those exploring new healing avenues, common threads emerge: the need to examine our own beliefs about healing; the desire to connect physically and spiritually with healers; the quest to simplify; and the willingness to try alternative paths. This book illustrates how ancient Eastern remedies are being integrated with Western treatments and offers an overview of the transition that is gradually occurring in our nation's health care treatment options. It offers insight into not only patients' feelings and experiences but also practitioners'. And perhaps most of all, it shows that many people have the desire to meet somewhere in the middle.
This journey has been one of excitement, agony, discovery, and wonder. Having worked for many years as a health reporter and writer, I was very familiar with conventional Western medicine and its practitioners. I have seen the good and the bad over time. And because of this I was often disillusioned with a system that I believed was seriously failing those seeking help and guidance. This book has changed my mind. It is a book about hope. It is about love. It is about healing, not curing.
This project began when I was given a newspaper assignment to cover a story on an acupuncturist. My editors pushed me to verify all her credentials. This was in 1995, a time when people in Reading, a city in south central Pennsylvania, didn't often hear about alternative healing or such crazy ideas as moxibustion—the Chinese practice of burning moxa (mugwort herb) over an acupuncture point—or cupping—the Chinese practice of placing heated jars on the back to help restore the flow of qi (the body's energy). To further legitimize the article, I asked the acupuncturist to have a few patients available for me to interview.
I arrived at her office on a cold February day. It was icy, and I was certain no one would be there. Running a few minutes late, I flew into the front waiting area where I was struck by the number of faces meeting my astonished gaze. There were grandmothers and farmers and young people and businessmen, all there to tell me their tales of recovery. I could hardly keep pace. But all the stories had a common thread. The patients had a tremendous loyalty to Carolyn Jaffe, their acupuncturist, because they felt she listened to and loved them. She had helped free them of conditions that had plagued many of them for twenty-five or thirty years. They spoke of getting off all their medications, of getting off the breathing machine, of being able to work or play tennis or just be well. I have to admit I was overwhelmed by all the people who showed up, and finally I had to tell Carolyn, "No more people."
The story ran several weeks later in the Lifestyle section of the paper, and within twenty-four hours I personally had received nearly a hundred phone calls at the newsroom. "Do you think she can help my arthritis?" "Does that help headaches?" "I have cancer. Do you think she can help me?" Simultaneously, Carolyn's phone was ringing off the hook, and she was booked with appointments for nearly six months. Not to mention the Lifestyle editor, who got calls similar to the ones I received. It was obvious; people were searching for more. So I began researching the topic. Now, three years later, I bring you Wellness East and West. It is a compilation of the information I have gathered from around the country, of my conversations with practitioners and patients, and a limited survey of what's happening with research, the National Institutes of Health, with insurance companies, and in anecdotal studies. This is only the beginning. I am only barely scratching the surface of the countless changes and improvements happening across the nation.
Although I write about the Eastern and Western approaches to treatment and how many people have found ways to blend the two, my greatest discovery was the unifying force between the medical traditions of the East and the West. It is a meeting in the middle, in love and compassion. I learned that our healing comes from within, and that we must find ways to simplify and love ourselves. Then the force of love will radiate out from our own center.
I think in many ways that when we are sick, we tend to get lost in all the technology and drugs. Our health care dilemma could be less complex if we could rid ourselves of the barriers to treatment. And while some of the blame for these barriers can be laid at the feet of the third-party payers (insurers, managed care, health maintenance organizations) and the regulators (like the Food and Drug Administration), some of the burden is our own. We are too stressed, we eat all the wrong foods, we isolate ourselves from others, and we have been persuaded to believe that there is something inherently wrong with natural physiological processes and life cycles. Menopause is as natural for women as puberty or childbirth, yet many women fear its onset. Death is seen as a failure of our doctors. But we all will die. We need to understand that there can be healing even in disease. Granted, Eastern and Western therapies cannot provide a cure for everything. And sometimes learning to live, even with disease, is part of healing. The choice is ours; to die while living or to live each day in grace, with ease, seeing the beauty and wonder in all that is ours. We need to reclaim memories of lying in the tall grass on a summer's afternoon and watching the clouds transform from dinosaurs to witches to angels. Let's recapture the burning pleasure of doing just about nothing, remembering the days when we would go to the pond's edge to catch frogs and etch our names in the red clay or make mudpies topped with flaming dandelions. At a time when our legs were still short enough to keep us close to the ground, we knew how to live. The answer lies somewhere between here and those dreamy summer's days. It's as individual as there are people on this earth.
We need to start following our heart. To make loving, living choices. It's not an us and them thing, it's an us thing. We need to live more simply: to enjoy the intensity of a shared smile; the beauty of autumn's changing hues or the ethereal image
