Life Force
What do you understand by the concept of “life force”?
What is the relevance of “life force”, as you have defined it, for the possible future integration of osteopathy into UK health care provision?
Life force as a concept is an ambiguous notion which is more of a philosophy than something that has a physical entity. It is for this reason that Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) have an inherent problem in practice within the UK health forum. Predominantly due to the lack of scientific evidence available at present. The argument mostly centres on the word “holism”. Holism is a central characteristic of alternative medicine (Fulder 1995) and commonly recognised as the unity of mind, body and spirit and it has been influential in attempts to redefine health. However this concept of vital force causes a great deal of controversy in medicine, as whilst it is used extensively in traditions of healing systems, in orthodox science they are disputed and too evasive for biomedical scientific institutions to grasp.
Life force to me is many different ideas; embryonic stage of life; breath, state of mental health; physical health; energy fields surrounding and within the body; and spirituality (religious and non-religious). It is a notion that has been around since the beginning of time that has evolved with time and with man. It creates a purpose for rituals and aids cultural development also giving a person/community something to believe in, for example, the way Egyptians prepared bodies of their Pharaohs in order to preserve their spiritual life force. (CBO LRP 2)
Where does this life force come from then? According to many ancient philosophies the living body (human or animal), radiates warmth and energy. This energy is the life force itself, and assumes as many names as there are civilisations.
The Taoists call life force energy Chi (Qi) and charted its movement through the body. Indian yoga adepts call it Prana and used it for
What is the relevance of “life force”, as you have defined it, for the possible future integration of osteopathy into UK health care provision?
Life force as a concept is an ambiguous notion which is more of a philosophy than something that has a physical entity. It is for this reason that Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) have an inherent problem in practice within the UK health forum. Predominantly due to the lack of scientific evidence available at present. The argument mostly centres on the word “holism”. Holism is a central characteristic of alternative medicine (Fulder 1995) and commonly recognised as the unity of mind, body and spirit and it has been influential in attempts to redefine health. However this concept of vital force causes a great deal of controversy in medicine, as whilst it is used extensively in traditions of healing systems, in orthodox science they are disputed and too evasive for biomedical scientific institutions to grasp.
Life force to me is many different ideas; embryonic stage of life; breath, state of mental health; physical health; energy fields surrounding and within the body; and spirituality (religious and non-religious). It is a notion that has been around since the beginning of time that has evolved with time and with man. It creates a purpose for rituals and aids cultural development also giving a person/community something to believe in, for example, the way Egyptians prepared bodies of their Pharaohs in order to preserve their spiritual life force. (CBO LRP 2)
Where does this life force come from then? According to many ancient philosophies the living body (human or animal), radiates warmth and energy. This energy is the life force itself, and assumes as many names as there are civilisations.
The Taoists call life force energy Chi (Qi) and charted its movement through the body. Indian yoga adepts call it Prana and used it for
References: Fulder, S. (1995) The Impact of Alternative Medicine on Our Views of Health, Journal of Contemporary Health winter: 24 vol.1 Fulder, S (1996) The Handbook of Alternative and Contemporary Medicine NHS Confederation (1997) Complementary Medicine in the NHS: Managing the Issues, Research Paper No.4 London: NHS Confederation. Sharma, U. (1995) Complementary Medicine Today: Practioner and Patients. Routledge, London. Coulter ID (1999) Chiropractic: a philosophy for alternative care, P38-46, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford. Greaves D.(2004) The Healing Tradition: Reviving the soul of Western medicine. (p135-148), Radcliffe Publishing, Oxon Svoboda R., Lade A Wood C. (1998). Subtle Energy and the Vital Force in Complementary Medicine IN: Examining Complementary Medicine (p124-p137). Edited by A. Vickers. Stanley Thormes (Publishers) Ltd, Gloucester.