Might it be important to assess information deficits at various times in the healing process to help people gain the accurate anticipation that they may seem to desire? I t seems important to not force information on people who do not want to hear it, so repeated assessments of just how much information a given individual feels comfortable with would be important. Healing seems to be an opportune time for growth. Evolving Beyond happened naturally for the participants in this study, but is that usual? Could it be enhanced by clinicians discussing these issues with people who are healing?
For education, if this model of healing were found to be accurate it could be used in professional training to conceptualize the process of healing. The vagueness and lack of definition of the concept of healing has made it difficult to teach the multidimensional and integrative aspects of healing, but with this model as framework, understanding could be more easily transmitted. With a framework, understanding could be more easily transmitted. With a framework to guide instruction, students could be taught to address multiple healing issues, anticipate healing needs, and assess problematic healing.
In fact, nursing textbooks do not use the word healing except in describing wound healing, yet healing is central to nursing care. Although nurses strive to capture the holistic nature of human experience, focus on physiological issues such as wound healing often take precedence. A holistic model such as this one may help to broaden that focus. Because of the lack of generalizability of the study, clinical implications must be approached with caution. A questioning of the clinical relevance of these results is appropriate to help to provide direction for further exploration of this model of healing.
If this model were to be found to be accurate, an assessment could be done with the individuals to determine their healing profile and to describe how they are managing each of the elements of healing. Could there be an optimal way to incorporate these elements into healing? With knowledge about this concept, individuals may be helped to avoid fluctuations from one extreme to the other. Individuals could be encouraged to attempt new activities, yet to observe carefully for signs of having done too much. Perhaps a person could be taught to avoid exhaustion.
Recognition and understanding of dichotomous struggles such as dependence/independence, health/illness, or control/lack of control may also be useful to help individuals achieve balance. Moreover, attempts should be often made to represent holism by a compilation of numerous parts such as physical, emotional, spiritual, social, cultural, historical and environmental. The statement is made that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, but actually conceptualizing more than summing the parts is difficult. Models such as this healing model may help to bridge the gaps and foster a more complex understanding of holism.
Another recommendation is that, a nursing or curriculum in psychology that is focused on holism could have holistic healing as one of its core components. Watson (1998) believes the trend in medicine and nursing is away from treatment and cure and toward healing and caring. A curriculum with a focus on concepts such as healing and caring that have been conceptualized holistically, could assist nursing students to attain an entirely new level of understanding of holistic health. Finally, with phenomenology as a guiding influence more explorations should be done on healing.
Individuals in the process of healing would help illuminate more important aspects of healing and it is hoped that this information can be used to facilitate development of a body of knowledge on this important subject.
REFERENCES
Achterberg, J. (2005). Imagery in healing. Boston: New Science Library. Barasch, J. (2003), Imagery in Healing. Boston: New Science Library. Barker, R. (1998). Ecological Psychology. Stanford California: Stanford University Press. Benner, P. (2002). Quality of life: A phenomenological perspective on explanation, prediction, and understanding in nursing science. Advances in Nursing Science, 8 (1), 1-14.