F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." As I began my journey in China, studying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the capacity for integrating a Western-scientific medical paradigm, I felt a keen sense of contradiction. While much of traditional healing practices make intuitive sense to me, my trained logical response is based largely on the Western analytic medical culture in which I was raised. I noticed also a mirror of this contradiction in many of the patients, as well as doctors, who I observed throughout the practical application of my studies; because although the two systems of curing and healing complement each other in many ways and various circumstances, the theoretical basis of both are inherently contradictory. I struggled particularly with the question of whether we can, and how to integrate the tools that have grown out of these opposing theoretical understandings of the body, health, and ultimately, the universe.
The way a society handles illness is a reflection of how they understand their world; in the same way that our identities are the stories we tell about ourselves, the way we heal ourselves is an application of a larger story our community tells. By making use of a certain medical approach, we implicitly accept the story behind the practice, and hope that it will work in our circumstance. Physician and author, Louis Mehl-Madrona writes, "Within any healing art, whatever else we do, we treat by telling a story," he goes on to discuss the "impossibility of separating treatment from the stories told about the treatment, the audience hearing the stories, and the context in which the stories are told." However, as has been pointed out by psychologists, Buddhists, and scholars in the field of consciousness, our identities are comprised of a multitude of stories, some of which are contradictory, that we employ at different times and under various circumstances. Both story-telling and "the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time" are inherent in being members of human culture.
In my attempt to understand TCM and my struggle to reconcile Eastern and Western healing and curative practices, I was forced to look critically at these two broad stories. In my reading and class lectures, as well as clinical observation and private discussions with TCM doctors and my Tai-chi master, I continually relied on my meditative practices to reflect on my skepticism and alternatively, my blind-faith. There were moments of which I gradually became more aware and appreciative, where I noticed a shift in my mind; a swapping of stories, when one became less applicable, less useful, and another rose to prominence. These are the moments, so frequently unrecognized, where so much potential lies. Rather than urging two stories into compromise, as seems to be the prevailing method of "integration" both in Western and Chinese institutions, perhaps we can encourage a fluidity between the stories, a mutual respect both for the strengths of the other, and the shortcomings.
By relentlessly engaging with the borders and points of contention between Western medicine and Chinese healing, I was able to settle into a space not of overlap, but of allowance. My language study gave me various insights into the culture that tells the TCM story and challenged me to confront my own mental blocks in connecting to the community in Kunming. I was more able in this quarter than in the Fall to connect to other people working in the areas of radical healing, and narrative and transformative medicine with the help of the LinkedIn online professional network, and a few friends. With the knowledge and experience I've gained here, I will continue, in India, my work of integration through embodiment and will begin an exchange between community and land, and the telling of a larger story of holistic health of mind-body, community and environment that can emerge through that interaction
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