Læknablaðið - 01.06.1961, Page 36

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LÆKNABLAÐIÐ
individual’s total life situation.
This ineans comprehensive
diagnosing, and on that basis
more accurate prognosing re-
garding our abilities to help a
patient fulfill the tlierapeutic
ohjectives we feel we have more
realistically set for ourselves
and our patient.
To help a person move to-
ward greater physical and
psychic health is helping him
move in the direction of self-
realization. To he able to help
a person move in that direction
implies that tliere is innate in
every human heing an urge to
realize himself as a human be-
ing, and as the particular lium-
an heing he is. This is a basic
assumption in Horneý’s theory
of human nature and of ther-
apy.3) She assumed that the
urge toward self-realization is
not only on the side of the pati-
ent seeking help, but also on
the side of the therapist aspir-
ing to lielp his patient and to
grow himself in and through the
experience.
Tliis philosophy of therapy
and lience of prognosis in
therapy, and of the objectives
possible of attainment in thera-
pj% are based on the premise
of a human urge toward liealth.
This premise contains in it two
crucial assumption. One is that
there is an urge in all human
heings that moves in the direc-
tion of health and the second
is that we have some ideas
about what we mean by liealth.
The urge toward health implies
several other notions, namely,
that while moving toward
liealth, the human oi’ganism
tends to maintain itself as a
wliole, as a unity, and secondly,
that a person may in fact be
moving in the direction of
greater sickness, while preserv-
ing himself as a whole and witli
the urge of health still in evid-
ence. Tliis can be called a stra-
tegic retreat. Old clinicians
often have said tliat the road
toward hecoming healtliier
could be by way of a severe
neurotic or psychotic episode.
Such people in the courseof their
illness, gain respite, work
through some of their prohlems
and grow through this period
of struggle and pain. You are
all familiar with the notion of
spontaneous cure. Tlie know-
ledge of sucli occurrences recalls
to us again and again that in
all human beings there is some-
thing that ever urges them back
and beckons tliem toward a
fuller life.
The notion of an urge toward
health is as ancient as liunian
history. You will find it in prac-
tically all reglions, ethical and
philosophical systems. Over
3000 years ago, it already ap-
peared as chit in Hinduism,
somewhat later as lising in
Chinese philosophy and as