Over many years we have offered not only whole person-centred treatments for patients, but also lectures, seminars, workshops, training sessions for clinicians, in many countries. We have been rigorous in maintaining high standards in applying a biomedical approach and a story approach together.

Diverse social, intellectual, and clinical forces are encouraging unitary wholeperson-centred approaches to physical illness.

Perhaps the most startling of these influences is the existence of meaning-full disease, where we see a physical disease strongly matched to what the patient has experienced and saying has happened in their life.

Current medical models have been very useful, but lack an adequate unitary view of persons, a model that adequately embraces all disease.

A unitary view enables physicians to accommodate physical and subjective influences upon disease expression, within the same consultation time/space, as an alternative to the dominant either/or position which limits the care of physical illness.

Such an outcome presupposes physicians can overcome the inevitable paradigmatic, clinical, professional, and sociocultural restraints implicit in standard clinical practice.

This session will attract those having or desiring a mindbody attitude and practice, integrated with the best of biomedicine, and drawn to the group because of clinical experience, the influence of current societal and intellectual trends of thought, or dissatisfaction with current medical models.

The optimal outcome would be ongoing discussion, encouragement, support, and collaboration with like-minded colleagues around the development of integrative ideas and clinical skills.

There will be a warm-up process to set participants thinking as to where they are personally in relation to the topic, and an opportunity for the group to reflect together on similarity and difference. From these interactions will emerge a discussion on central concerns and topics of interest, and from there the possibilities for ongoing net-working and development.

– Brian Broom MBChB FRACP MSc(Imm) MNZAP