Education and demonstration – Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-08
2002-12-24
Rovnak, John Edmund (Department: 3714)
Education and demonstration
Psychology
Reexamination Certificate
active
06497577
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to systems and methods for analyzing emotions and promoting healthy emotional habits. The invention is applicable within the fields of emotional intelligence and/or health promotion and disease prevention.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, there are two views of medicine and healthcare, an allopathic approach, and a holistic approach. Allopathic is a term applied to a system of therapeutics in which diseases are treated by producing a condition incompatible with or antagonistic to the condition to be cured or alleviated. Typically, an allopathic system focuses on the identification and cure of disease.
The allopathic approach is generally associated with Western philosophy and approaches medicine with a mechanistic approach based on a reductionist model rooted in scientifically based empirical data. This approach currently dominates the attitudes of physicians toward health and illness. Thus, allopathic medicine, as it is researched and practiced today, is deeply rooted in critical scrutiny and every theory, treatment, and medicine, is rigorously tested, evaluated, and scrutinized, before it is accepted as legitimate.
Although some aspects of the allopathic approach can be traced to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the allopathic (or biomedical) model began in Europe with the Scientific Revolution of the 1500's. This approach emphasizes the study of the sciences as a basis for medical training. Therefore, the allopathic model seeks to understand something or predict an outcome through questions that are asked about a subject.
Based on this widely accepted philosophical view, western medicine considers the mind and the body to be separate and fundamentally different. Thus, the allopathic model leads to an ultimate separation of the mind from the body. Furthermore, allopathic medical treatment attempts to construct a completely scientific description of nature in which there is absolute certainty. In this manner, the allopathic model attempts to predict and control diseases.
Allopathic medicine tends to view the human body as a machine that is capable of being analyzed and understood in terms of the arrangement and functioning of its parts. Diseases are viewed as a malfunctioning, on a cellular or molecular level, of the biological mechanisms that enable the machine to operate. Thus, a doctor's role is to intervene, either physically or chemically, to correct the malfunctioning of a specific mechanism. In essence, an unhealthy person is likened to a well-made clock whose parts were not functioning properly.
The reductionist model states that a complex phenomena can be understood by reducing the phenomena to its basic building blocks and identifying the mechanisms with which the phenomena interacts. In allopathic medicine, the basic building blocks include organs, tissues, cells, Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), etc.
Empiricism is the principle that the practice of medicine is based upon practical experience rather than theory. The empirical method is used when scientists make experiments and draw conclusions from data collected from the experiments. In allopathic medicine, the empirical method is used to test and research, for example, pharmaceutical products, treatments, procedures, and DNA, in hopes of providing proof or verification by means of observation or experiment.
The use of the above-described allopathic model has produced dramatic improvements in areas such as nutrition, hygiene, treatment of environmental and infectious diseases, and trauma management. For example, the acute infectious diseases that plagued Europe and North America in the nineteenth century and that are still the major killers in the Third World today have been replaced in the industrialized countries by illnesses that are no longer associated with poverty and deficient living conditions.
However, the current diseases of industrialized countries are diseases of affluence, which are primarily chronic and degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. These diseases are caused by (or closely associated with) lifestyle and behavior problems such as stressful lifestyles, rich diets, drug abuse, sedentary living, and the environmental pollution that is characteristic of modern life.
Although the allopathic model has been extremely successful in certain realms, it nevertheless has severe limitations. For example, the allopathic model fails to consider certain behavioral, mental, and spiritual aspects of disease and illness.
Thus, the second predominant view of medicine and healthcare is the holistic approach. Holistic is a term applied to a system of therapeutics that emphasizes the organic or functional relation between parts and the whole. Typically, a holistic system assumes that a person constitutes a single biological, psychological, and social unity that includes physical, nutritional, mental, emotional environmental, social, spiritual, and lifestyle aspects. Thus, diseases can be effectively treated only when the interrelationship between the mind, the body, and the spirit are considered.
The holistic model includes a number of factors, such as, for example, dealing with the root cause of an illness, increasing patient involvement in the treatment process, and viewing patients as wholly integrated systems of mind, body and spirit.
The holistic model has come to include natural healing, alternative medicine, and complementary medicine. Natural healing usually refers to the use of physical healing techniques that are not accepted by allopathic medical practitioners to cure disease and/or illness.
When these holistic principles are applied by a healthcare practitioner, it is usually called holistic medicine. Holistic healthcare practitioners attempt to use a person's symptom(s) as a guide to find a root cause of a disease or illness. Then, a form of treatment is selected that utilizes and complements the person's natural healing system.
Often, holistic medicine is called alternative medicine. The term alternative medicine generally refers to techniques that are not accepted by allopathic medical practitioners. These techniques include, for example, non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques, such as medical herbalism, acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, massage therapy, naturopathy, homeopathy, Reiki, and the like. The precise definition of alternative medicine is constantly changing as new techniques are developed or accepted by allopathic medical practitioners. Alternative medicine is most often associated with specific techniques that encourage healing and not with techniques for adjusting the person's lifestyle habits.
The term complementary medicine (or “wholistic” medicine) is often used by allopathic medical practitioners to describe the use of alternative medical techniques in conjunction with allopathic medical treatments. Typically, in complementary medicine, the alternative medical techniques are used to supplement the primary allopathic medical treatments. Complementary medicine often proposes that properly chosen holistic healing techniques can heal both acute and chronic illnesses.
Since the 1970's, healthcare consumers have become increasingly dissatisfied with the allopathic, scientifically based, medical system. Healthcare consumers have become increasingly dissatisfied with the rising cost of allopathic medicine, the lack of availability of healthcare providers, and our “high tech” approach to healing. Furthermore, because healthcare consumers are no longer preoccupied with survival needs and acute infections, they desire a higher quality of life and treatment for chronic illness. Thus, healt
Kaufman & Canoles
Rovnak John Edmund
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