Kuno Van Der Post

Missing Links in Healing

'Missing Links In Healing' is a broad introduction to natural healing principles, used effectively for centuries but now largely forgotten. Many of the problems we associate with modern healthcare are both avoidable and unnecessary. The answers to better, safer, more rational healthcare aren't to be found in the next great medical breakthrough. They exist in understanding the chaotic general behaviour of complex living systems, and levering it to therapeutic advantage. The author examines some old ideas about healing alongside modern ideas from chaos theory. He explains how this knowledge went missing, warns against taking shortcuts, and explores the immense politics of healthcare. He discusses the various factors that have made modern medicine - for all its technical brilliance - less than complete. He shows that so-called alternative medicine often suffers from the same problems, and tells us what we can do about it. The author defines health as independence, and is concerned at the general trend in healthcare towards dependence and repeat business, not just in medicine, but in the mainstream of the so-called alternative offerings. The body usually doesn't need fixing: it is already perfect, and through disease it actually chases survival. Health is the default state, and healing is automatic. The job of the healer is to clear the way for recovery, and then navigate the natural healing processes that follow. This book is for anyone with an interest in healing - doctor, nurse, patient, alternative therapist or health-conscious layperson - but especially for the next generation of natural health practitioners. The author has worked as an osteopath in three countries, and believes that much has been lost - or deliberately taken away - from training and clinical practice right across the healthcare spectrum.