A note about the “tacit” understanding I mentioned above. What is unspoken and understood is that the patient has come to see the therapist/doctor for help. That for me makes it a sacred agreement. But what form that help takes, what the patient assumes they are asking for, is the thing that often requires negotiation. The patient coming in carpal tunnel syndrome might just want the doctor to “fix it.” They have walked into the treatment room with the pervasive mechanistic worldview that has taught them to think of their bodies as machines and their doctors as mechanics. The doctor with a holistic perspective must negotiate with the patient to see their condition, and thus treatment, as something not isolated to the pain in her wrist. Psychotherapists sometimes have to deal with this when their patients walk in with the same mechanistic understanding of their mind. Some expect that depression or anxiety is a thing that can be excised from the mind, removed by the therapist (mind-mechanic).

Nice ending to this post too. The human body provides an infinitely complex array of signs and information, and science is only way to see only some of it.