Mark Conrad

If you have touched into the philosophical differences between natural healthcare and the more materialistic, evidence-focused healthcare that dominates health budgets, and been surprised by the lack of any common understanding, read on for some exploration of how to span this seemingly unbridgeable gulf. Natural healthcare has many schools, with different beliefs, techniques, rituals and tools. That said, practitioners of hugely different techniques tend to appreciate the possibility that each other’s methods can work, or are at least worth practising, with or without comparative measurement studies. In contrast, the school of thought and practice that terms itself ‘scientific medicine’ says

The ‘new biology’, which became at least partially credible for most people with the defining of PNEI (psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunology) or, that thoughts and feelings affect hormones and physiology, leads us to the conclusion that intention, belief, conviction, faith, prayer etc. cannot be conveniently separated from real, physical medicine. There is of course still a major cultural challenge for the Western mind in the West for approaching ‘physical’ ailments with types of healthcare that are essentially psychotherapeutic (in its very boradest sense). It is not credible to true materialists, and must be less potent or real than interventions on ‘the body’. There