True Integrated Medicine
“Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.”
–Count Leo Tolstoy (Russian Writer and Philosopher, 1828-1910)
“The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole.”
–Plato (Athenian Philosopher, 428-348 B.C.E.)
Have you ever woken up in the morning with a feeling that something’s not quite right, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it? That is the feeling that we get if something is out of place. Our minds and our brains have evolved with a remarkable ability to pinpoint things in external space: it was once an important survival mechanism. As we became more complex, those same systems began to be able to tell when things were out of place in our internal environment as well as in our relationships. We are social animals and most of the cognitive systems of the brain are designed to aid and abet our social interactions.
The key to health is to have all of our systems working in harmony. It is absolutely true that 70% of human illness is a result behavior born of bad choices. We make those bad choices when we stop listening to our bodies and heeding our hearts.
People love to place us in categories. I am constantly being asked why all my work contains three parts: cutting edge conventional medicine, natural medicine and self-help. I’ve had people in the publishing business say, “Well, is it health OR self-help?” For me, the answer to that is yes!
We cannot attain health and wellness unless we have done some work on ourselves; we cannot heal ourselves and others unless we have something with which to do the healing. If we are fearful, and moving haphazardly through life with little self-control, it is hard to pay attention to your body, mind, relationships, subtle systems or spirituality. A physician too distracted to focus on and respect another person is unlikely to help him or her get better. A therapist without a strong sense of self would find it hard to help a troubled mind, and a spiritual teacher who had no personal experience of the Higher Realms of existence and no clear moral compass, could devastate the spiritual well being of a disciple.
When we talk about Integrated Medicine, people usually assume that we are only talking about integrating different types of treatment. Yet that is only part of it. We are also aiming to integrate the individual: to enable every aspect of the person to be acting in harmony. When all of our systems are in harmony, pulling together in the same direction, when they are listening to each other and communicating with each other, there is a free flow of energy and we achieve a state of coherence.
And it is this coherence that underlies our sense of health and well being.
For coherence is the key to resilience.
“The patient must combat the disease along with the physician.”
–Hippocrates (Greek Physician, c.460 B.C.E.- c.377 B.C.E.)
“Those whose consciousness is unified abandon all attachment to the results of action and attain supreme peace. But those whose desires are fragmented, who are selfishly attached to the results of their work, are bound in everything they do.”
–Bhagavad Gita
Dr. Richard G. Petty, MD is a world-renowned authority on the brain, and his revolutionary work on human energy systems has been acclaimed around the globe.
He is also an accredited specialist in internal and metabolic medicine, endocrinology, psychiatry, acupuncture and homeopathy. He has been an innovator and leader of the human potential movement for over thirty years and is also an active researcher, teacher, writer, professional speaker and broadcaster. He is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking and best selling CD series Healing, Meaning and Purpose. He has taught in over 45 countries and 48 states in the last ten years, but spends as much time as possible on his horse farm in Georgia.
