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ISIM Instituto Medicina Integrativa Mallorca

"The best way to help someone is to take it beyond the need for help"
Nisargadatta Maharaj

The role of the patient in integrative medicine

04/09/2019
Foto noticia The role of the patient in integrative medicine

Is the patient's role of traditional medicine different from that of integrative medicine? What does this new paradigm imply for the doctor-patient relationship?

Integrative medicine is a new model of patient care and, at the same time, asks this patient to be involved in the healing process. Unlike traditional medicine that makes the patient a passive individual who must wait for the effect of medications, in integrative medicine the patient understands that his body is part of his being and that his evolution has a direct relation with his mental and emotional state.

In this updated medicine that offers more technical and human resources we go from being patients that we hope to cure ourselves to be proactive patients willing to acquire the necessary tools to return to our state of health. This new scenario asks for a sense of responsibility and autonomy to inform us, learn and know our own needs.

Responsibility is literally the ability to answer to things that happen to us.

As patients we must be open to inform ourselves at all times of the different aspects that are related to our pathology. We must learn to listen to our body and listen emotionally to identify the reactions or symptoms related to our medical condition. We must become experts of ourselves.

It is also important to be aware that our life habits are fundamental when it comes to promoting or deteriorating our health: eat healthy, exercise properly for our physique, be aware of our moments of stress and the management we make of them, take care of our social relationships, collaborate so that the emotional environment in which we live with our partner, our family or alone is a quality one.

Integrative medicine is part of the new global consciousness shift that involves us all, whether professionals or patients.

At the Institute of Integrative Health of Mallorca, the professionals who assist people who approach the center want to become guides to accompany them in their healing process. We propose a less paternalistic model of the doctor-patient relationship than we traditionally know to assume each responsibility. For this, we inform and make available to people the different techniques that include not only the specific pathology but the whole being.