If our disease is one from which other people seem to recover and we don’t, we may be stopping ourselves from getting better.

If nobody is able to recover from a particular disease then presumably that disease is too powerful for any human healing mechanisms.

If a few people defeat the disease perhaps their immune systems are operating more efficiently than ours.

Why?

What might compromise our own healing capabilities?

The body is always trying to cure itself of both physical and psychological imbalances.

This natural “homeostasis” has guaranteed the survival and evolution of the human species.

The biological mechanisms for achieving this are complex.

They’re already built into the human organism – we don’t have to know how they work nor make them work.

However, we might have to learn how to stop hindering them.

If we use the simple example of a splinter which has gone deeply into our foot. The body pushes the splinter to the surface, usually with some inflammation, and then expels it.

It does this because we’re healthier when we’re free of the splinter, and our biology is programmed to have us be as healthy as possible. The splinter may have been there for a long time.

In the case of a psychological problem, the same need of the human organism to be as healthy as possible initiates processes which try and resolve the problem.

We will be directed, often out of our awareness, towards a set of circumstances which may assist us in expelling the “psychological splinter”.

When we place ourselves in a situation which could help us to sort out an unresolved issue, that situation is “representing” the issue.

It’s very important that we understand what “represent” means, otherwise we try and change uncomfortable situations without availing ourselves of their healing potential.

“Re-present” means presenting again, bringing the incomplete matter up again. Pronounced with the “present” component of re-present to sound like “present” as in present time, re-“present” means that the old issue resurfaces in the present time in order to be dealt with, i.e. it is ….. re-“present”-ed.

Physical and psychological diseases or discomforts try and work themselves out of the body and mind in order for us to be as healthy as possible.

If we aren’t as healthy as we could be, this process is probably being interrupted or curtailed.

In order to recover, we consciously and subconsciously go searching for situations in which the underlying matters can be resolved further.

To resolve a recurring or lingering illness we might benefit from investigating what past events it may be representing or re-“present”-ing.

This is an inquiry.

Here’s the wonderful thing about an inquiry. There are no answers to it.

It’s ongoing, and it allows for new perspectives and realisations as we proceed.

It’s never complete.

If there are matters in our past causing us irritation, they may be trying to work themselves to the surface so as to be completed.

The current illness is one way of doing that, bringing into the present something from the past which is unfinished – a “psychological splinter”.

If a disease is easily managed by our immune system and is cured, then there’s no underlying need demanding re-“present”-ation.

It will not be “re-present-ed” because it’s already finished or past. If the underlying issue is not completed, then the current illness gives the issue a contemporary vehicle capable of being used to further complete the issue.

This is pro-survival.

We will explore in great depth during the m3health Program how an illness which is representing itself is fulfilling two imperatives.

The first is to reaffirm the opinions and beliefs of the sufferer which lead to the illness in the first place, e.g. “I’m a hopeless case. There’s nothing I can do.”

The second is to provide a set of circumstances in which to resolve the disease, e.g. “There’s got to be something behind me suffering for all this time.”

The m3health Program provides a framework in which the “psychological splinter” can work itself to the surface and be expelled.

Illness which represents an underlying problem is not going to be cured whilst the matter remains unfinished.

The issue keeps seeking out situations in which to place the human organism so that renewed efforts are made to resolve it.

Physical complaints bring up psychological issues, such as left over sadness, for example – and psychological complaints nearly always have physical symptoms attached.

An old emotional or psychological problem may be represented by a new physical or emotional “re-presentation” of itself.

There’s no rigid boundary between the physical and the psychological, and physiologists acknowledge that they’re interdependent – or different representations of the same thing.

If you have a physical problem which won’t go away it may well be related to a psychological problem which won’t go away either.