A word in your ear

One of the most important clinical paradigm shifts in our time has been the realization that neurochemistry together with the cognitive and emotional function that it supports, does not exist in isolation from the body’s immune system. The heavy two-way traffic that prevails between neuroscience on the one hand and immunity and general body physiology on the other, has in essence added the influence of consciousness into the mechanistic bio-medical model. This burgeoning science, referred to as psychoneuro-immunology (PNI), continues to validate the significant influences that cognitive and emotional activity have on illness causation and its outcomes.

For the past forty four years I have been a scholar in pursuit of the multiple facets of consciousness. In so doing I have contributed to the integration of neuroscience with PNI and thereafter pioneered the application of PNI within the clinical environment. Thus was created a new context in which the patient’s/client’s cognitive and emotional activity took center stage in the understanding and treatment of the presenting illness. My engagement over the years with patients and clients led inevitably to the development of an application, the Triangles Model, which was subsequently quantified in the form of several online diagnostics (psychometrics).

The organic growth of the Triangles Model programs and applications has paralleled the exponential expansion of knowledge and understanding in the spheres of the neurosciences, neuropsychology and psychoneuro-immunology. I have endeavored to incorporate the most current of research findings into all our applications and programs, thereby ensuring that our offering remains in step with the current understanding on a broad front. Much information has become available regarding research in the neurosciences. However, as important as the information is, a context or model supporting the incorporation of the information remains equally important if value is to be gained from engaging with this field and thereby creating an application. Consequently much time and energy has been spent on processing the information into a usable program.

I have always maintained that my work and contributions in the broad neuroscience applications represents merely my own subjective art form. It reflects just another component of the expanding collective body of knowledge and understanding and thereby becomes the substrate for others to reflect upon and to advance the process further. I feel privileged and indeed blessed that I was mentored so comprehensively in neurosurgery and in the neurosciences. For this was to afford me a unique foundation from where I was able to study and appreciate the breadth of neurophysiology, neuro-anatomy, general human physiology and eventually, the physiology of psychoneuro-immunology. I truly believe that it is essential that any scholar who chooses to study neuropsychology and/or engage with applications designed to enhance cognitive and emotional function, would need to be well grounded in the neurosciences and its integration with psychoneuro-immunology. I emphasize this requirement because we recognize today that many aspects of cognitive and emotional function are so comprehensively integrated with the immune system and general body physiology.

While there are many variables which contribute to the development of an illness, the inclusion of the variables aligned with the cognitive and emotional function of the individual, their consciousness, has chipped away at the belief that illness is entirely fortuitous. Arising out of this new dynamic is the realization that the afflicted individual would be expected to play a more active role in the appropriate interventions once the diagnosis is made. There is indeed a shift in responsibility – the interventionalist can table the pathology and apply the appropriate interventions, but the success and sustainability is a reflection of the degree of responsibility assumed by the subject. However it is important to respect that every individual is the product of their individual heritage. It follows then that the predisposition to illness and consequently the intrinsic potential for change and the evolution into a more resourceful state is also incorporated in the individual subjective ‘package’. And since we had no say in those factors which gave rise to who we would become, let there be no sense of guilt, apportioning of blame nor implications of inadequacy in the intervention. For change occurs in a space of pain where an inspiring light may illuminate the potential for a transcending path. Strive to embrace the inspiration.

Copyright reserved – Ian Weinberg 2019

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