Module 1
DQ 1 a. Mind-body connection
There exist a profound connection between the way people mentally feel about themselves and physical body health status. Human body reciprocates the manner in which people think. When encountering an abnormal state of emotion, the body makes impeccable attempts to suggest something is terribly wrong.
As a way of example, a mental disorder such as depression can also result to bodily ailments such as stomach ulcers and or hypertension among others, further providing pivotal evidence that there exists direct and subtle connection between the body and the state of the mind in an individual.
Bad emotional health has the capacity to result to diminishing and or impairment of the immune system of an individual, the bottom line being that a direct link between the mind, human behavior and physical body health exist.
Because of the extensive scholastic research that has found substantial evidence of the existence of mind body connection, virtually every leading clinic has a section dealing with mind-body health problems.
However, people can deploy alternative interventions that can result to subtle improvement of personal wellness. Alternative interventions, as opposed to regular treatment approaches do not use medicines, but rather uses body supplements including minerals, vitamins and likes to treat ailments including chronic ones.
They have found this approach incredibly effective particularly where convectional medicines proved ineffective. Eating well, conducting regular exercises and incorporation of vitamin supplements in the diet can improve personal wellness. According to the American Psychological Association, recommendation of such an approach appeared in the journal of American medical association.
Research claims that those who incorporated vitamin supplements in their diets, conducted exercises and ate the right foods posses low probabilities of cancer and cardiovascular infections and as a consequence, their life expectancy raised by 5.8 to 9.5 above the rest of the population (2009, p.21).
More often, a person who employs alternative interventions to foster his or her health wellness has a better and healthier life.
b. Self-assessment Tools
I disagree with the results of the self-awareness test tools, which entangle administration of questionnaires, which permit a person to investigate and come into possession with vital information that can function as a signal of his or her levels of stress.
The entire procedure has five levels, which upon administration; it claims that one comes into cognition of not only his stresses as previously mentioned but also aid in fostering personal wellness. A score of less than zero predicts that one is going through a condition of depleted energy.
Consequently, the afflicted person needs to visit a healthcare center for preventive emotional services. Even though, this may stand out as essential, I raise queries on the precision of the tests to warrant expenditure on emotional health concerns bearing in mind no information on physical, symptoms is required in the assessments process.
Could the tests be administrated through quantitative approaches, the results of the tests would be crucial since they have the capacity to translate to discovery of specific areas in which one may need to put amicable efforts in an attempt to ensure healthy state of emotions management.
This is particularly pertinent since people deserve to explore whether their efforts that render into a healthy state of wellness both emotionally and spiritually bear fruits.
In addition, there is the claim that, the results of the tests also aid in the personalization of strategies that can result in subtle state of emotional balance through gaining accessibility to resources deemed appropriate for ensuring incredible pursuits of wellness goals. The scoring instrument records a score of 70-85 as an indication of a cute life in terms of wellness.
The score shows that there is a proper flow of energy within the system surrounding an individual. For proper management of emotions, it is desirable for an individual to be at a position to conceive and interpret stimuli from the surroundings, flow of energy as indicated by this score, is essential for an overall condition of wellness.
In addition, self-assessment tools claim to enable people to come into cognition with their conceived values: something essential for the inculcation of leadership skills and aid in identification of personal styles of learning.
Even though this is essential since personal wellness starts with information acquisition and possession of the ability to screen out information to control one’s life in the right direction, the prescribed change of behaviors in an attempt to comply with the necessary alignments proposed by self-assessment test results is intriguing.
Behaviors that dictate the reasoning and the capacity of an individual to analyze information are deeply rooted within the societal norm. It is particularly hard to establish a common platform within which to peg the corrective strategies advocated for by the scoring instruments of the self assessment tools in an attempt to inculcate the spirit of ‘self wellness’ in an individual.
DQ2. Treatment of prevalent disorders using alternative interventions in the US
Major depressive disorders constitute one of the prevalent disorders in the US. People can accomplish treatments of the disorder using alternative interventions using techniques of the mind and the body as well as by use of supplements.
However, patients need to take into corporation the anticipated pros and cons before choosing alternative therapies as most clinicians do not advocate for substitution of Medicare with alternative interventions when it comes to complicated depressive disorder. However, they have deployed several mineral and vitamin supplements in the treatment of depressions.
According to Mayo Clinic Staff (2010), Hypericum perforatum has for a long time has been in use for treat prevalent disorders including depression even though it has remained unregistered by the United States’ food and drug administration (Para. 2).
Mayo Clinic Staff further proposes other alternative interventions such as use of SAMe and Omega-3 fatty acids (Para. 3). Body-mind connection intervention techniques such as massage therapy, Yoga or even acupuncture among others may help much to facilitate the regaining of harmony between the mind and the body: something vital for cute personal maintenance of healthy conditions.
Module 2
DQ1. The concept of holism
Written by Lai and Hsieh, the article ‘Alternative Nursing Interventions for Facilitating Holistic Nursing Based on Eastern Philosophy reveals how the concept of holism entangles a belief or a perception that people have that one cannot explore the existing characteristics of systems sufficiently through the exploration of parts characteristics alone (2003, p. 14).
The article defines the concept of holism as all those practices and approaches that contribute to overall healing of a person as a whole.
Since the initial use of the concept by Jan smut, a South African diplomat, people have coined the concept in both conventional medicine and alternative medicine. In the conventional medicine, the concept treats psychological, biological and social factors as equally vital in the sphere of vigorous health and wellness.
The implication is that any disharmony in any of the constituent element of the entire system causes devastating effects on the system in wholesome.
Alternatively, in alternative interventions, people apply the holistic concept to place incredible concern to the significance of an individual’s emotional, spiritual constituents, mental and or physical sub elements contribution to the entire individual’s health and the process of healing.
A comprehensive study of the identified sub elements is vital especially while coupled with the belief that a whole system stands out more crucial than all of the parts of the entire whole added up together (Lai & Hsieh, 2003, p.17).
Eliopoulos, on the other hand, outlines osteopathy, unani medicine, reflexology, homotherapy, chiropractic medicine, nuropathetic medicine (2010, p.56) among others, as some of the examples of holistic alternative interventions to ailment treatments.
DQ2. Martha Rogers’ philosophy on holism, “The Science of Unitary Human Beings”
The Science of Unitary Human Being theory forms the platforms on which therapeutic touch nursing concepts predominantly depend. The theory is a product of Martha Rogers work in 1975: Seeds of Conceptual Frame Work. The theory advocates for a shift from the old medical models to adoption of new nursing models.
The theory in addition, posses challenges to the conventional nursing models which are seen as reductionist and analytic and entangles approaches that entails breakdown of nursing challenges and then subsequently rearranging them logically (Adams, 1993, p.1).
Science of unitary being theory, considers human beings as fields of energy but rather, they do not possess energy by themselves (Adams, 1993, p.1).
The theory also considers the environment, which constitutes the home in which the human live in as being in a continuous state of change. Humans and the environment consequently interchange energy as the changes take place between the two. Lastly, the theory considers the force of universal order as the substantive force, from which all the energy field emanates.
A professional living in an environment, which has the capacity to influence the fruits of the procedure, comes in handy in conducting a therapeutic touch. Since the health professional is part of the environment, consequently the professional in one way or another is a key contributor of the overall TT process success.
The application of the philosophy of Unitary of Human Beings in nursing practices, results to complex interactions with the intervention of therapeutic touch (TT).
People regard therapeutic touch as entailing interactions of varying energy field in which the responsibility accorded to the medical health practitioner entangles promoting pain reduction and bringing about feelings of the relaxations to the patient (Adams, 1993, p.1). Consciousness of the medical practitioner, as repercussion forms an essential component in the entire patient’s mental process of relaxation.
According to many scholastic views, the theory of science of unitary human being lay theoretical basements for transfer of energy deemed vital in TT. To unveil the efficacy of vivid interactions existing between the two clinically, demand a substantial and critical scrutiny of terms such as ‘pattern’, ‘field’ and ‘energy’ which are utilized throughout the Rogers’ theory.
With regard to Rogers’ theory, during the course of the administration of therapeutic touch, the practitioner conducts balancing and replenishment of energy by inculcation of strategies, which are facilitative of regulation of processes of environment and human. However, many scholars, antagonistic to Rogers’s theory considerably criticize the interrelationship between environmental and human energy.
They claim that Rogers deploy abstract terms with the principle intention to cause perception of existence of such a relationship. In addition, definitions and explanations coined from TT interventions do not concur with Rogers’ definitions. Overall, the concepts of the theory of Unitary Human Beings and TT concept turn out neither precisely analogous nor congruent.
Consequently, anti-Rogers claim that the advocates of Rogers’s theory should not place a claim that Rogers’s theory provides subtle ground on which to peg the therapeutic interventions theoretical perspectives. The opinion of TT interventions as not employing direct touch or use of chemicals, hikes interrogatives on its exact mechanisms of operation.
Perhaps, this may explain why the modern interventions have resulted to the deployment of modern physics concepts in an attempt to provide amicable explanations of the exact criteria of action towards therapeutic touch.
References
Adams, J. (1993). Therapeutic Touch-Principles and Practice. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 1(1), 1-3.
American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Eliopoulos, C. (2010). Invitation to holistic health: A guide to living a balanced life, (2nd ed.).Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Lai, H., Hsieh, M. 2003. Alternative Nursing Interventions for Facilitating Holistic Nursing Based on Eastern Philosophy. Alternative Nursing Interventions, 2(1), pp 13-19.
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2011). Depression: Alternative Medicine. Retrieved From https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007