worlds of medicine (1/5)

Since day and age, human beings have found ways to deal with ailments of all sorts. A rich variety of healing practices and systems have been constructed and deployed to cater to those who suffer, either physically, psychologically, or spiritually. 

In contemporary times, a plurality of such healing modalities exist alongside each other. Yoga Therapy is one of those modalities. However, wherever you are on the globe right now, there is one healing system that has gained dominance in the last century. This is the practice of bio-medicine. Yoga therapy, wherever it is offered, exists in some relation to bio-medicine. Thus, it is worth talking about bio-medicine.

BIO-MEDICINE

Bio-medicine is also called ‘orthodox medicine’, ‘conventional medicine’, ‘allopathic medicine’, and ‘Western medicine’. The terms ‘orthodox’, ‘conventional’, and ‘allopathic’, indicate the dominant status of this healing system. It depends on where you are located, and what your position is, which label you use. Maybe you have a different name for it, and if so, please do let us know in the comments. The world is not a uniform place.

However, bio-medicine is the healing system that gains most recognition worldwide.

Now, I would like to ask you, is yoga therapy a form of bio-medicine, or is it different? Is it different altogether, or are there overlaps?

You may be using medication, in addition to your yoga therapy sessions. You may be a general practitioner who prescribes yoga therapy. You may be a yoga therapist who refers to medical studies to back up your practices. Just to name a few overlaps. If you have ideas about the relations, overlaps, or differences (?) between bio medicine and yoga therapy, again, please share your perspectives in the comments section down below! Let’s think this through together.

MEDICAL GAZE in medicine

In this weekly blog series (5), I will make use of a concept that I think will help to think about bio-medicine and what it does: the Medical Gaze. That is: the eyes of the doctor gazing at her patient. Expect to read more about the history of bio-medicine, doctor-patient relationships, and how we are currently gazing around medically.

To those who are familiar with the ‘gaze’ as a critical term, and may be afraid I am going to bash medical doctors: don’t worry. I will not take up this term so critically as others have done.

I have to make a small disclaimer here: I am not going to speak about yoga therapy that much. Simply because at this moment I do not know much about yoga therapy – yet. That’s what I am here for as an intern at Network Yoga Therapy, to learn about yoga therapy. Nor am I a doctor. 

I have an educational background in the Humanities. From this perspective I will be discussing issues that I find interesting, that may be relevant to the growing yoga therapy network, and that I hope you will find interesting too!

Thanks for reading,

Niki