In explicating the model, Active Participation includes both a active part is important for healing. It also includes the actions demonstrating these beliefs. Regaining control is one of the central features of this element of the model. When surgery occurs the belief that one is in control is temporarily lost and involvement in the return to health may help to restore a sense of control. It is possible that surgery or illness is a reminder of how fragile one’s control actually is, motivating a desire to do something to recreate an illusion of control.
It seems, however, that the participants believed there was much more to Active Participation than a need for control, whether illusion or real. It was freely acknowledged that there were parts of healing over which no conscious control was possible. There was a desire to restoring control, but there was also a desire to enhance healing. It was though that optimal healing could be influenced. It was also possible to impede progress, usually inadvertently.
It was considered the responsibility of the person in the process of healing to monitor mood, attitude, and activity level to intervene when it was discovered that a problem was developing. Achieving Balance was often an active process but it had sufficient differences from Active Participation to be considered a separate theme. Balance seems to be described by the participants as the place between two dichotomous extremes where maximum functioning occurs.
In this case, maximum healing can occur if a balance is reached between overdoing and underdoing, control and uncontrol, dependence and independence, progress and limitations, and hopes and doubts. This balance is not a static point but is constantly changing. For example, one needs to be dependent early in the healing process, but this needs to be dependent early in the healing process, but this needs for assistance changes rapidly, usually with a steady reduction in the need.
Setbacks are possible so the need to be dependent can return unexpectedly, necessitating another adjustment. It is complicated to find the place of balance at each new level of recovery and some conscious awareness is necessary until a state is achieved that will become the “normal” balance. is also changing but often in ways that can be left to unconscious processes. some examples of this are if one were particularly tired he would naturally sleep a little longer then he normally would.
Another example is one might allow oneself to be dependent in certain situations and very independent in others with the transition between the two occurring without conscious thought. Mind and body are another dichotomous pair of the balance but they have a different quality since they are not extremes of a continuum. They are two “parts” of a human that are so highly integrated with one another that it seems difficult to divide them. They feel divided at times during healing and “the balance” is achieved when they return to an integrated state or sense of wholeness.