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Med Humanities 2004;30:70-73 doi:10.1136/jmh.2002.000145
  • Original article

Transcendence and healing

  1. W Glannon
  1. Correspondence to:
 W Glannon
 Centre for Applied Ethics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; wglannonethics.ubc.ca; wglannoncw.bc.ca
  • Accepted 8 December 2003

Abstract

Healing aims to restore the wholeness of persons by restoring the unity of mind and body disrupted by disease. Transcendence promotes healing by altering or cultivating beliefs that can modulate the body’s response to pain or make sense of pain. This in turn can produce an emotional response that enables people to cope with chronic or terminal illness. I explain transcendence in terms of a monistic rather than dualistic conception of mind and body, which supports the idea of medicine as a healing art as well as a curative science.

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