Beginning the Journey to Healing Health

Beginning the Journey to Healing Health

July 6, 2022

Joy Stepinski, MSN

Would you like to start a journey to healing health? In order to contemplate such an adventure, let’s first explore the concept of the word “health.” According to Webster’s Dictionary (2022), there are multiple definitions: the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; the general condition of the body; and a condition in which someone or something is thriving or doing well. The World Health Organization defines health as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. (Sartorius, 2006, p. 662).” Other modern-day meanings of health are to be free from any disease or impairment; to be in a state that permits coping from demands of life; a state of balance between the individual, the social, and the physical environment (Sartorius, 2006); functional fitness; or simply an ideal state (Simmons, 1989). The most important question to consider, however, is what does health truly mean to you?

In ancient Greece, Hippocrates suggested that health was influenced by one’s living environment, the climate, and the quality of food, water, and air. In the English language, the word was derived from old English hǣlth, a word that meant to be whole or sound. The Greek meaning fits this concept well, as health was not portrayed as one cause and effect, in which often is alluded in current times.  As time progressed, however, this connotation of health as wholeness dissipated. During the 17th century, the view of the body and mind instead became separate. This change in thinking stemmed from the French philosopher René Descartes, who, according to Shapiro (2003), tried to explain the interactions of the body and mind. He viewed matter as containing the linear dimensions of height, width, and depth (Westphal, 2019), and the physical body thereby depending on the spatial arrangements of nerve fibers and organs (Shapiro, 2003). He perceived the mind as not relying on spatial differences and distinct from the body because it lacked a physical attachment, unlike the necessity of life (Westphal, 2019). The body was seen more like a machine, with doctors tasked to fixing the problems. Health and disease became opposite ends of the spectrum. When one has health, they are free from disease. Yet, when one has disease, they are free from health (Simmons, 1989).

Recent scholars devised a different notion from Descartes, stating that the “health of the body is determined by its relation to the mind. (Shapiro, 2003, p. 425).” Revisiting this idea of wholeness is well described by a nursing theory called Theory of Nursing for the Whole Person. Nursing is filled with various theories that provide a framework for establishing knowledge, ideals, and patterns in which nurses practice and care for patients. Within this theory, health and illness are also on a continuum where the opposite aspect of health is illness or lacking wholeness. The notion of wholeness involves both the internal and external environment. While the internal environment represents the mind, body, and spirit, the external refers to the living habitat, community, and relationships. The mind encompasses emotion, free will, imagination, thoughts, feelings, behavior, and intellect. The body is more of a physical nature with physiological components such as neurological, genetic, and biochemical aspects. The spirit is the eternal aspect of health and the relationship with God.  Health, like illness, constantly changes in a dynamic process. “Health is not a frozen, motionless status; rather, it is a dynamic volatile state of being that is constantly changing and seeking balance. (p. 224)” Because health is a very personal experience, “the quest for equilibrium leads individuals on a lifelong journey. (p. 224)”

Within the nursing profession, Florence Nightingale is seen as the mother of modern-day nursing. She believed that health was a key component to well-being. “Disease… is a process given by nature to clean the body from impurity which has entered into the body because one or more of body’s natural needs is not fulfilled…” (Karim, 2015). According to Nightingale, the environment played an enormous role in promoting healing. She devised canons, which described certain imperative conditions. Among these included the health of living quarters, such as ventilation and warming, noise, food variety, bed and bedding, cleanliness of rooms and walls, light, and personal cleanliness.

How does healing fit into this picture? Understanding the concept of the whole being is important to comprehend the possibilities of healing. Firth and coauthors (2015) shared that Hippocrates described healing as a process that leads to a restoration of wholeness, with wholeness portrayed as a harmony between body and soul. The authors’ depiction of healing is “a holistic transformative process of repair and recovery in mind, body, and spirit resulting in positive change, finding meaning, and movement towards self-realization of wholeness, regardless of the presence or absence of disease. (p. 50)” The word healing also stems from an Old English word, haelen, which means wholeness. Common references to healing in modern times echo the earlier thought of a process of achieving wholeness, but also can mean to cleanse grief or rise above a problem. Healing may originate from within the individual or from an external source, like a professional healer, a higher power, medicine, or herbs. Firth et al. (2015) discusses that within the literature the concept of healing has different attributes. These include a personal progression, a transformative process, innate or naturally occurring, and recovery of the mind, body, and spirit. Healing as a “positive, transformative process, progression, or journey does not occur in a single instant but evolves over time. (p. 46)” Healing may take place at the cellular level, emotional, social, psychological, or spiritual level. Similar to the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the transformative quality of healing may occur in unexpectant ways and the individual transcends the difficulty, distress, and suffering experienced into a changed being.

How are these concepts of health and healing meaningful for you? After reviewing the literature on both, I have personally come to the conclusion that they are one and the same. The word heal is found inside of the word health. For anyone fascinated by linguistics like me, the meaning of “th” that is often located at the end of several English words is literally the suffix that forms nouns from actions. Therefore, health is the noun of the verb heal. If we consider this notion, then health and healing are both a transformative process towards wholeness. The 17th century philosophers may have wreaked havoc on the notion of health by striving to separate the mind from the body and viewing the body as simply a machine. This reductionist view may have played a role in the chronic disease state we now see in the United States, with a high dependency and reliance on a healthcare system by such a sick population. Just like the age-old saying, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” health is no different. We can navigate the course of our own journey through our choices and decisions, and how we view wholeness in the physical, emotional, and spiritual sense. To be here in this place, reading these words, you are already on a journey of health and healing. You are part of a lifetime process of seeking wholeness within your own self, through your internal and external environment.

References:

Merriam-Webster. (2022). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/health

Firth, K., Smith, K., Sakallaris, B. R., Bellanti, D. M., Crawford, C., & Avant, K. C. (2015). Healing, a concept analysis. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 4(6), 44 – 50. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.7453/gahmj.2015.056

Karim, H. N. (2015). Clinical application of Nightingale theory. International Journal of Innovative Research and Development, 4(11), 225-227.

Sartorius N. (2006). The meanings of health and its promotion. Croatian medical journal, 47(4), 662–664. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2080455/

Shapiro, L. (2003). The health of the body-machine? Or seventeenth century mechanism and the concept of health. Perspectives on Science, 11(4), 421-442.

Simmons, S. J. (1989). Health: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 26(2), 155 – 161.

Swanson, C., Thompson, A., Valentz, R., Doerner, L., & Jezek, K. (2019). Theory of Nursing for the Whole Person: A distinctly scriptural framework. Journal of Christian Nursing, 36(4), 222-227.

Westphal, J. (2019). Descartes and the discovery of the mind-body problem. The MIT Press Reader. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/discovery-mind-body-problem/