PILL VS. A BROADER PERSPECTIVEA new and improved approach to ADD can perhaps be best presented and understood in the context of a historical perspective of health care. Researchers like Richard Miles, executive coordinator of Integral Health Professional Network, have been tracking new frontiers in health care since the early 1970's. Looking back at the etiology of health care,this body of work has served to promote new thought in the design of "integral" health care curricula. Miles studied the work of Peter Drucker in his 1967 book, "Managing in the Age of Discontinuity", and observed that Drucker "was seeing that leading thinkers in all the major disciplines were questioning the assumptions on which “these disciplines were built." At the same time, Teilard de Chardin, in his book Phenomenon of Man, was suggesting that what moved life forward in biological form was not the popularly-believed phenomenon of survival of the fittest. Rather, evolution could be explained by the idea that each exterior form has an interior form and that an underlying organizing principal is found in the consciousness of that form. As biological life moves forward, he theorized, it becomes more complex and with that complexity comes greater self-awareness, a dynamic that would confirm the presence of consciousness. His overall theory was that biological forms change through a change in consciousness; thus consciousness designs the future. According to Miles research, in health-care we see this shift in consciousness traced historically through four paradigms. The first, the authority paradigm was in operation until about one hundred years ago. It was based on two premises: 1. God is punishing me (through this illness), and 2. I'm possessed by evil spirits or demons. Vestiges of this thinking are still present today in the AIDs epidemic. The second paradigm was the war or conflict model, which was based on our belief in things we couldn't see, such as germs. Disease became the enemy and medicine the hero. This outlook has been in place for about 80 years and brought about water clean-up, refrigeration, and the antibiotics that have been so successful in reducing infectious disease. Third is the paradigm based on pattern recognition, wherein a person's life style is viewed in relation to its affects his health. Thus the processes leading to health problems are investigated, with the result of educating patients to partake in better nutrition and exercise habits, for instance. During the time this paradigm has been in force, the field of medicine has shifted its focus to chronic degenerative disorders. The beliefs are promoted that in order to have good health we need physical and emotional wellness along with a purpose and will to live and that it is necessary to take control of our health through exercising personal choice. The fourth paradigm, the concept of the Universe as a metaphor, is still emerging. With this shift in consciousness, we are beginning to ask what the underlying message is in an illness, injury, or personal challenge. Operating from the premise that there is a purpose for everything that happens, our central question must be: what is it we need to pay attention to? Accordingly, it is time for us to ask what ADD is trying to tell us. Are outdated notions about ADD leading us to look for easy and costly cures (in human terms) in drug therapy rather than finding relevant and direct solutions? In addressing ADD, are we overlooking our recent evolutionary biological changes and shifts in consciousness that are still continuing? Are our preconceived notions about ADD and differences in general, blocking us from seeing the solutions that lie right within the dilemma itself? Deepok Chopra says, "With the slightest change of awareness, energy and information move in new patterns. The reason old habits are so destructive is that new patterns aren't allowed to spring into existence—conditional awareness is therefore synonymous with slow dying." When we begin to see something different, then we will do something different!
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