Resurrecting the heart.

[Guest guest]

Jason,

 

 

In my Clinical Practice book I detail exactly how I understand treatment

according to what I believe Hur Jun is pointing to. I have published 3 20-30page

case studies elsewhere but this text does have many shorter one's such as the

one I'm posting here. If you post your address, I'll be happy to send you a

copy. The issue of what constitutes the approach of " resurrecting " the heart is

a deep one with many considerations related to cultural levels of development

and value systems and I'm addressing this in my new text that's " in the works " .

 

 

 

Complaint: Chronic schizophrenia

 

Diagnosis: Possession

 

Constitution: Spleen with wood invading earth

 

Jill was a 28-year-old woman who had been suffering from schizophrenia

for twelve years. Although attractive, her face was overly thin,

corresponding to an inability to digest a wide range of foods. In fact, she ate

very little and was unable or unwilling to take the time to nurture herself.

 

Jill had left a highly dysfunctional home as a teenager and spent several years

taking drugs and living in the streets of Chicago. During that time she had

witnessed several horrible events, which she would never discuss explicitly but

alluded to throughout the course of early treatment. Jill was a single mother of

a 12-year-old son from whom she felt estranged because she had " been crazy

during his entire life. " She worked on an organic farm, driving herself hard to

put in long days in every type of inclement weather. Although the hard work was

ultimately depleting her, she only felt safe and whole when she was in the

fields with her plants.

 

Jill's main symptoms were her inability to eat and her tendency to feel merged

with anything in her environment that made a mechanical sound. When she came for

treatment I would have to turn the space heater and lamps off in my office

because any sound would distract her. She would often sit on the floor of the

office while we talked because she felt overly confined in chairs. At the time

of the initial consultation, she had been on antipsychotic drugs including

lithium for ten years and was told by her physicians that she would never be

able to get off them. Despite the severity of Jill's symptoms and the clear

presence of possession, I strongly believed in her capacity to heal from the

moment I first met her.

 

Although completely obscured from her own awareness, I was

able to find a light trying to assert itself in Jill that I believed could be

cultivated. 26 Although this light was nearly completely obscured by her illness

and her mind was wholly chaotic, I could sense its presence deeper in her

spirit. Here was a woman possessed whose spirit was fighting to emerge. I

informed her during the first session of my complete confidence that she would

heal. Although she tried her best to test this confidence for the first two

years of treatment, I never wavered in asserting that I could see her light and

she would indeed heal.

 

Clinical Findings

 

Jill was unable to make eye contact with me and sat on the floor during the

initial portion of each treatment and stared at the wall while we talked. This

total inability to make eye contact strongly confirmed my diagnosis of

possession. Her tongue was pale with a red tip indicating blood deficiency and

heat trapped in her heart. A heart line on the center of her tongue with phlegm

in it indicated obfuscation of the heart orifice. Her pulse was bilaterally thin

at all depths with a rough vibration on the entire organ depth of the pulse. The

thinness of the entire pulse suggested blood deficiency.

 

The rough vibration in the depths of the pulse suggested severe

heart qi agitation. This finding suggested it was likely she had been present

during a terrible event such as a rape or murder.

I see this profound level of agitation when it occurs deep in the pulse as

signifying that the patient's mind cannot reconcile some event or action in life

with his or her spiritual purpose for having incarnated. The specific nature of

this event was never revealed to me during treatment, although its existence was

generally confirmed. Lastly of note was the finding of a spinning bean pulse at

her left middle position. I interpret this pulse to suggest a state of

existential terror.

 

Treatment

After the intake I elaborated to Jill my belief that we each have a destiny and

that, although her journey had been painful, it would eventually bring her to a

place of peace and balance. As I spoke, she sat on the floor and stared quietly

away into a corner of the room.

I treated Jill for over three years. For the first year she came every week and

for the second every other week. By the third year, treatments varied from once

every three weeks to monthly. The initial stage of treatment involved helping

take her out of shock and restore her spirit as the governing influence in her

life. Therefore the very first treatment consisted of the internal and the

external dragon points. The response to this treatment was simultaneously subtle

and powerful.

 

Upon taking her pulses after treating the internal dragon points, the

deep vibration I previously felt was greatly diminished. Further, the spinning

bean quality was entirely absent. Jill suggested on follow-up the next week that

she was not aware of any significant difference other than feeling a bit more

relaxed the evening of the session. However, upon leaving the first session,

something occurred that signaled to me that deep healing had been initiated.

Walking to the door of my office, Jill turned to me and, for just a moment, she

smiled and made direct eye contact with me. At this time she stated, " It is only

your belief in destiny that gives me hope. " She then immediately turned to

leave.

 

I knew from this moment of eye contact, and the light that emerged

in her eyes and smile for just that instant, that she had reconnected to the

light in her core. Now it would merely be a matter of cultivating that light

until it became the predominant influence in her life. Over the next few years,

I treated the dragon points several times with each of those sessions revealing

a new clarity in her depth. Intermediate treatments involved the cultivation of

qi and blood and ultimately zhenqi, that force that holds us humans upright

between heaven and earth. To this end the treatment of GV-20 in conjunction with

Ki-1 played an important role in her healing.

 

Outcome During a treatment session three and a half years later, Jill revealed

to me that she had taken herself off all medications and had been free of them

for six months. She had not wanted to tell me until she was sure she was free of

them for good. She has now been living free of medication for sixteen years and

has been able to hold a regular job. She has married again and has a 3-year-old

baby girl she loves dearly.

 

Six years after I had finished treating Jill, I received a letter from her that

I quote from here.

 

I wonder if you ever knew

what comfort

you and your Chinese medicine brought to my life,

to my heart?

How could I ever thank you

for all that you taught me?

For all that you believed I could be

I truly

have

peace and joy

– JILL

[Guest guest]

Lonny,

your case studies are my favorite part of your books.

They show that you place a lot of attention to your patients as more than

just patterns,

but as complex beings with the capacity to evolve in ways that touch the

core of why we practice.

 

I think that " bed side manner " is just as important as scholarship and

technique

and looking into the Shen of our patients through their eyes, complexion,

voice and pulse are profound. This is the Living Word... living Spirit

that surpasses textual analysis and is the reason why most of these

experiences have historically been spoken to a few, rather than written for

many.

 

Thanks for sharing,

K

[Guest guest]

, <johnkokko wrote:

>

> Lonny,

> your case studies are my favorite part of your books.

 

 

Thank you John. The three length case studies include analysis of the first ten

treatments sessions. My goal was to transparently explicate my entire method and

vision. These might be the three most detailed case studies ever published in

the medicine.

 

When we consider, " the spiritual practice of medicine " it's all important to

consider the developmental stage of of the culture and the patient in

relationship to the culture. For example, what constituted the cutting edge of

the spiritual practice of medicine in early animistic cultures would hardly be

cutting edge right now. What was once the leading edge is now old news. To me

Spirit always exists at the leading edge of a culture or individual's

development. What was spiritual to the early Daoists (purple meme: everything is

animated by spirits) was quite different than what Spiritual would have been for

a Confucian (blue meme:The One right way)), a Scientific materialist (Gaia, god

is nature/physics), a pluralist (green meme) (You have your truth, I have my

truth, I'll take one teaching from column A and one from Column B, Never

Judge!Every point of view is equally valid), A holistic/integral thinker

(yellow: Systems theory, evolution, transcend and include.), or, someone at a

cosmocentric form of development (There is one process in this universe, it's

not about me, and I'm responsible for moving it ahead in this incarnation).

 

In my Clinical Practice text I wrote a 40 page chapter, " Cognitive Styles in the

Practice of " where I presented the 4000 year history of the

medicine in relationship to the stages of cultural evolution that have been

identified. Chinese medicine never meaningfully differentiated cultural stages

of development as a source of conditioning which is a recognition that could

only take place at a global level of development.

 

In terms of treating patients its very important to recognize their own level of

cultural development. For example, I was recently the expert witness for the

defense in regards to a malpractice case. The practitioner had been treating a

very simple Christian women with a history of mental and emotional problems and

had been teaching her meditation and recommending that she attend Sufi retreats!

What would have been Spiritual for her would have been to merely hold her to

actually live up to the value system she was already professing to believe in.

One can only meaningfully change when they are striving to fully embrace and

live the Truth they have already seen.

 

 

 

I read a detailed case study recently by a practitioner involved in a

" psychospiritual " approach to healing. There wasn't a single value expressed in

the presentation of this case that could not have been fully elaborated in 1970.

TO me, that's a very, very long time ago and, as I said, what was Spiritual then

at the leading edge of development (where Spirit is always to be found) runs the

risk of just creating stagnation now and reinforcing the narcissistic addiction

to feeling states, process, and consuming experience.

 

My new text will outline an entirely new value system for healing that has moved

very far beyond the green meme, pluralistic, egalitarian, value system regarding

what constitutes the " Spiritual practice of medicine.

 

For now I'll write less here and get back to writing the book!

 

Regards, Lonny

[Guest guest]

Thanks so much for posting your case study, I look forward to reading it

this evening. I will send you a private e-mail with my address and hopefully

I can read more of these...

 

 

 

Case studies, IMO, are the intersection between theoretical discourse and

the clinic. We all should strive to document our thinking and results via

case studies. This not only gives us an opportunity to reflect and evaluate

our methodology but also allows us to share our ideas with others.

 

 

 

-Jason

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Lonny

Sunday, April 11, 2010 6:09 AM

 

Resurrecting the heart.

 

 

 

 

 

Jason,

 

In my Clinical Practice book I detail exactly how I understand treatment

according to what I believe Hur Jun is pointing to. I have published 3

20-30page case studies elsewhere but this text does have many shorter one's

such as the one I'm posting here. If you post your address, I'll be happy to

send you a copy. The issue of what constitutes the approach of

" resurrecting " the heart is a deep one with many considerations related to

cultural levels of development and value systems and I'm addressing this in

my new text that's " in the works " .

 

Complaint: Chronic schizophrenia