A new vision of medical care: An interview with complementary medicine pioneer Rudolph Ballentine, M.D.

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A new vision of medical care: An interview with complementary medicine pioneer Rudolph Ballentine, M.D.
Ravi Dykema

As medicine moves into the 21st century, complementary or alternative practices and conventional practices are beginning to collide. Meanwhile, a surfeit of complementary practices has left patients with many options—and, often, some confusion about which ones to choose. Here, Ravi Dykema, publisher of Nexus, interviews Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., author of Radical Healing (Harmony Books, 1999), about meshing diverse medical practices, creating a collective language and the nature of illness as a personal transformational process.

Trained as a medical doctor at Duke University, Ballentine became intrigued by the workings of mind-body medicine and looked beyond conventional medical models in his search for understanding, drawing on the wisdom of traditional healing systems—especially Ayurveda, homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, European and Native American herbology, nutrition, psychotherapy and bodywork. He created and is the director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in New York and has written a number of books, including the classic Diet and Nutrition. He is also a practicing physician, psychiatrist, herbalist, Ayurvedic practitioner and homeopath.

RB: I am concerned that the field has become rather fragmented. People are using different approaches, each of which has validity and effectiveness. But the consumer is left to figure out which is the right approach and how to put them all together. To a certain extent, that's okay, because the journey to healing is a very individual one. But it would greatly facilitate the healing process for everyone if the practitioners had a clearer sense of how different approaches meshed, and to what extent they share similar goals. I want to encourage a dialogue about integrating different therapeutic approaches so people don't feel like they're jerked in a lot of different directions.

RB: Suppose you go to a chiropractor for a headache. He may tell you, "It's because you need to have an adjustment of the vertebrae in your neck." Then you go to a nutritionist who says, "No, it's because you're deficient in vitamin B6." And then you go to a homeopath who says, "Oh, no, you need a dose of belladonna." Then you go to an acupuncturist who says, "No, your chi flow is imbalanced, and there's blood congestion in your head." Meanwhile, you're trying to put all these pieces together, and they just don't fit.

RB: Suppose I have a headache. It may be partly due to tension in the back of my neck, which is a result of thinking too much, of trying to control everything around me. That tension has pulled one of my vertebrae out, which has created pressure on the nerve roots and contributed to the headache. At the same time, the concentration of energy from thinking all the time has created the kind of blood congestion in my head that the acupuncturist is talking about. This is all related to using up too much vitamin B6 because of all my stress and tension. And it's true that belladonna has to do with brain congestion, so that would help me too.

But what my headache really means is that I need to understand how I'm living my life. I need to learn what I can do differently so that I don't need the chiropractic adjustment or the extra B6 or the belladonna or the acupuncture to relieve blood congestion in my head.

There is a way for a group of practitioners to clarify for you what is at the root of your illness and how you can live differently to avoid creating these symptoms. What we don't need so desperately are practitioners who are trying to fix things. What we do need are practitioners who will shed some light on what we're doing and how we're living. This is the greatest healing they have to offer, I think. When they can work together, they won't create as much apparent chaos and confusion in patients' minds.

RD: It sounds like you're looking for something along the lines of the communication we see in allopathic medicine, where the practitioners speak the same language.

RB: Yes and no. Allopathic medicine does offer the patient consistency, but it's at the cost of depth. We want to be able to communicate with each other, but we don't want that level of constriction and narrow focus. It's a huge challenge, to be able to have both of those: depth and richness meshed with a common language. First, we need to understand the shared principles among different schools of complementary or alternative medicine without sacrificing the depth and richness of each one. My experience is that there are several themes that are common to the major schools of complementary medicine. One is that healing is about transformation, rather than restoration. Transformation here means moving from the way we've been living and the consciousness we've been holding into something new, so rather than going back to where we were, we come out of the healing process a different person.

Illness is an indication that we're stuck, and our transformational journey has ground to a halt. Symptoms begin to appear, and they always reflect in some poetic language the very issues that we need to address in order to move on to the next step in our transformation. When we approach illness with the idea of simply removing the symptoms, which is what we do in conventional medicine, we miss the transformational opportunity. That's tragic, because something inside us will still be crying out to take that next step. The suffering doesn't really end simply because our obvious and superficial symptoms are removed. Our underlying suffering, which is the feeling of being thwarted in our life's journey, remains. The focus of allopathic or conventional medicine is far narrower.

RB: Generally, it neither acknowledges nor works toward a transformational process. That's not true in all of medicine. I had a great teacher in medical school, and I asked him if he had been able to teach what it was he did with patients. He looked very sad and shook his head, "No." What he was teaching was disease management. But what he really did through his bedside manner and through his own intuitive process was something transformational, but that he didn't teach. Conventional medicine is really about symptom management and suppression. When the issues try to push forward and press for resolution, the medical system is designed to push them back down again, out of view.

At one point in medical history, some psychiatrists took issue with that and decided we should bring up issues and deal with them. Over a period of time, those psychiatrists were replaced by others who use medication to suppress again. In the conventional model, medication removes the crisis, but the underlying problems remain unaddressed, so healing doesn't take place.

I'm not criticizing physicians or psychiatrists. They offer people what they ask for. In-depth healing isn't easy. And we get sick because the very issues with which we need to deal are the ones that are most difficult for us to face. A doctor who will give us a pill and help us push them back out of sight looks appealing.

RD: Compared to other animals, it appears that humans get sick a lot. Do you think we're accepting a high level of illness?

RB: Absolutely. We think "normal" is being chronically ill. Everybody's on medication. It used to be odd if someone had a chronic disease like diabetes or lupus. Now, many people are living with an illness. What I'm suggesting is that most of the systems of healing around the world have the concept that disease is not the normal state, and that we develop disease when our life's journey, our personal transformational process, has been derailed. The way you eliminate disease is by getting back on track with your life. There are exceptions, because people use disease in different ways. Some use it as part of their transformational process. But generally we don't need to be stuck in disease. We can pick up the signs immediately, make the shifts, learn the lessons and move on. We don't need to hang out there and let the disease become more and more severe. I see this happening with my patients more often now. They're getting serious diseases that used to be considered fatal. They'll play around inside for a while, and then they'll say, "Okay, I get what this is about. I let it go. I'm moving on." Then they're fine. This didn't happen 30 years ago. I think we're beginning to get over this disease thing, and realizing we don't need to hang out there and wallow in it.

RD: The new attitude you describe sounds like a change in people's ideas about their illnesses, and not so much a change in doctors' thinking about illness.

RB: That's why I call it radical healing. It's a fundamental shift in how we're looking at the whole question of medicine and illness. It's not something I invented. The concept has been around for thousands of years—we just lost sight of it for awhile. Now, we're seeing it in a new and even more profound way, using the mental clarity and rational faculties we've acquired in the last few thousands years. And that's also a very radical step.

RB: It's a huge concept to communicate, and it defies a simple definition, but I'll quote some of the concepts I discuss in the introduction to Radical Healing. "This kind of radical healing requires letting go what is familiar and stepping into the unknown." You can't transform into something new if you step into a space that is known. Then it's not new. You really have to step into a previously unknown state of consciousness and way of being in the world, and that's kind of scary. "Healing may mean challenging belief systems and daring to break taboos. Healing is about getting past the ego, though that's what our culture is built on." True healing may challenge belief systems and break taboos. That won't happen in conventional medicine, which is all about reinforcing conventional ways of thinking. Healing, and stepping into the unknown, are also about getting past the ego. So much of what illness is about is the ego's clinging to the things it thinks it needs to support it, and much of what we regard as success is the accumulation of things that support the ego.

"Healing involves reconnecting with lost aspects of oneself, some of which exist in other than our familiar reality." That's another radical idea—that there are other realities. Any shaman would say, "Of course there are—that's where I work," but conventional medicine hasn't even considered that there is such a thing as another reality. Also, "Healing oneself is an indispensable piece of healing of the whole planet. Our darkness is a part of the net that holds us all captive." This is what I mean by the dominant paradigm. It's hard to heal as long as you are intent on remaining a part of a system that doesn't work anymore. And the system in which we are involved is destroying the planet, and is systematically destroying life. How can you heal and remain part of that? If you're going to really heal, you have to step out of that and begin to create a new collective consciousness that is healthier for the planet, and that's called healing the planet. These two things are inextricably intertwined.

Finally, "Healing is the purpose of our lives." If you go to a doctor, the approach is, "Get me well so I can go back to my life." Here I'm saying that healing is what your life is about. This transformational process is actually a healing, and you can get so good at it that you don't ever get sick. You just keep going through healing after healing after healing before the symptoms develop, and you're healthy because you're constantly transforming.

RB: It's difficult to do any profound healing work without dealing with sexuality. There are so many techniques and approaches to sexuality. Some techniques in the Tantric tradition, for example, involve redirecting sexual energy. But you can't redirect sexual energy if your sexuality is unconscious and repressed. You need to gain a clearer awareness of yourself as a sexual being, feeling your sexual feelings clearly and sometimes acting them out to clarify them. If it's done the right way, if you have the right kind of support and the right kind of consciousness and preparation, acting out can help you understand yourself as a sexual being. If it's done under the wrong conditions, your sexuality becomes more repressed—especially if it's accompanied by pain. But even more important is having the support to deal with the pain and to integrate it, rather than splitting it off.

RD: If sexuality is so central to healing, shouldn't it be one of the tools of the new holistic practitioner?

RB: I think so, and I'm finding that people are a little more willing to deal with the issues of sexuality consciously. In past decades, most therapists have dealt with sexuality by talking about it, but it's not a head thing. But sexuality is still a controversial and sensitive issue. I think we have to find ways to address sexuality that honor a patient's autonomy and safety, while allowing us to deal with and explore it openly. We need to learn how to use sexual energy in a way that's not destructive.

RD: What would it take for the professional community to integrate different complementary medical systems?

RB: Two things must happen. First, all of the practitioners—acupuncturists, homeopaths, chiropractors, osteopaths, herbalists and everyone else—need to be conversant in a common language. This acknowledges and establishes terminology for shared principles. Second, we need to develop a generalist who acts as a coach or guide, to help patients figure out their course of healing. We need to focus on integration, so the patient can get their arms around their healing journey and understand how the different pieces fit together. The patient needs to do some of the integration themselves, but we can make it easier on them.

RD: Let's take the case of the headache. How would integrated medicine look? How would the person find his or her way through that forest?

RB: Here's an example. I offer six to eight different approaches in my practices, so I'll ask my patients on an intake sheet to check off their relative level of interest in these different approaches: Ayurveda, homeopathy, nutrition, yoga, meditation, you name it. I don't totally rely on their level of interest, but it's important to involve the patient. This healing journey is their creation, so it must engage them to explore and make discoveries. Suppose, for example, a patient wants to work on dietary issues. I might ask, "Why would you choose those foods, and what does that say about your personality?" I think that's the most practical way to start right now—consider what people feel drawn to, and then expand from there.

RB: Relatively few, compared to conventional medicine. The existing research paradigms have not been suited to holistic treatment, because they isolate one thing and try to study it independently. We use a combination of approaches, so we need to develop research paradigms that allow us to look at the synergistic effect of a number of interventions simultaneously. A new kind of science needs to evolve.

The function of science is to develop theories based on the data, and when new data comes up that violates the old theories, drop them and develop new theories. Medical science particularly has been doing the opposite. When new data doesn't fit, they discard the data and keep the old theories. So science has become moribund, and a lot of it is almost obsolete because it isn't keeping up with new data. Science will have to go through light years of change in a very short time. In the course of that, we might need both the shift in science and the recognition of the valid interventions that haven't been considered as even medical.

RB: There might be some discontinuity in the whole medical field. Medical schools have been so slow to assimilate what's new, that they're out of step. Given their organization and lack of flexibility, I don't know that they can meet the challenge. They may just disappear. Medical schools are relatively new anyway, and they may not survive this shift. Rather than trying to update the training facilities in existing medical schools, students may end up doing their basic training on-line, and then working with practitioners in the field. I used to think the system could be refurbished and changed, but now I'm beginning to think that probably isn't going to happen. It's been too slow and there are too many quarrels over turf. I don't think we have time for that any longer.