GITTE WRITES:
As all of us in the natural and alternative therapies know, curing is a word owned by the medical establishment. Well, they can keep it. Why?
Caroline Myss, Ph.D. explains: “Healing and curing are not the same thing. A “cure” occurs when someone has successfully controlled or abated the physical progression of an illness. Curing a physical illness, however, does not necessarily mean that the emotional and psychological stresses that were a part of the illness were also alleviated. In this case it is highly possible, and often probable, that an illness will recur.”
She continues: “The process of curing is passive; that is, the patient is inclined to give his or her authority over to the physician and prescribed treatment instead of actively challenging the illness and reclaiming health. Healing, on the other hand, is an active and internal process that includes investigating one’s attitudes, memories, and beliefs with the desire to release all negative patterns that prevents one’s full emotional and spiritual recovery.“
Healing, not curing, is what we aim for in natural and alternative therapies. The School of Natural Medicine has taken this one step further and uses the word Self-Healing. The word Self-Healing points to the fact that the responsibility for your healing is with you and that only you can heal yourself. It places the responsibility firmly where it truly belongs, in the hands of the client.
The language of western medicine is a language of war. Gladys T. McGarey, M.D recounts: “I was telling my friend that it seemed to me that medicine had become a killing machine; it’s major purpose seemed to be a war on disease. The focus is on killing bacteria eradicating AIDS, eliminating cancer, controlling diabetes, etc. …. If we are going to do this killing, we need ammunition, and the ammunition in the field of medicine is primarily drugs.”
Doctors are engaged in a war battling the enemy in their patient’s body (or the body itself). The focus is on the disease and what weapon is needed to ‘win the battle’, if not the war, and so the focus is not on the patient as a person but as a combination of physical components that are in a war with each other.
In sharp contrast, natural and alternative therapies view the client (not patient!) first and foremost as a person who is given the respect as an individual with a complex mental-physical-spiritual reality. As we aim to support our clients to their birthright of radiant health we strengthen their bodies and minds with life-supporting and life-enhancing remedies and treatments. It’s living medicine, not killing medicine!
Gladys T. McGarey, M.D: “Our focus needs to change from killing to helping enhance the life process of each individual. If we do this, we’re going to need living materials such as living air, living earth, living water, and living food.”
The School of Natural Medicine uses only living medicine such as herbs, essential oils, flower essences, herbal poultices and more in a 3-year study of Self-Healing with integrated natural medicine. It is in all ways a school of living medicine.
The day after Farida arrived in Iceland to teach the open class on Master Touch Reflexology and the Naturopathic Immersion II for Heilsumeistaraskólin, she, Lilja and Gitte went to a summerhouse rest-and-work weekend. 
We enjoyed the lovely spring weather, took many walks, had lots of green smoothies and Living Food, had lot's of fun creating the retreat - the final graduation 10-day experience of the school - and enjoyed seeing photos from Farida's world adventures and brainstorming ideas for the school's future.
we confirmed the joy we all fell with being able to offer the school's teachings and truths to people here in Iceland and very much look forward to where the journey onwards will take us.
