Reflections: turn toward wellness--what remains to be done?

A hypothetical visit by a figure who represents the ideals of Hippocratic Naturalistic Medicine is used as a strategy to enable the reader to examine certain aspects of the issue of wellness. As the invited guest speaker before and imaginary gathering or convention of health professionals, this mythic figure represents a wellness ideal against which the current state of the "wellness approach" to health care can be critically examined. Where has the wellness orientation made progress, where has it gotten bogged down, and where must it ultimately go? Though the spirit of the wellness orientation to human health has obviously made enormous progress in the past few decades there still remains much to be done. This quasi philosophical discussion represents an attempt to critically examine some of the areas which the wellness orientation must begin to address.

Death: Bridge between science and spirit.

It is argued that contemporary health science, being part of a general cultural trend toward the materialism of scientific rationality, has reduced human health to a system of machine-like events. This philosophical trend has had the indirect effect of excluding the human spirit from playing any significant role in our understanding of man's health and well-being. The recent effort of biomedical science to extend this materialist philosophy into the area of human death and dying is examined in the context of this ideological trend. It is suggested that the trend has brought about an ever-widening conceptual gap between the realms of spirit and matter. The issue of bridging this contemporary conceptual gap is discussed in terms of recent research findings that suggest that the human brain may be capable of intergrating the logic of two seemingly irreconcilable ways of thinking into a whole which is enriched from the presence of both. This holistic possibility is discussed in the context of the philosophies that support the existence of spirit and matter.

Right-and left-brain approaches to death education.

Some recent advances in the understanding of brain function are considered in terms of their potential impact on death education. The notion of right- and left-brain cognitive styles is examined in terms of the pedagogic impact it may have on an individual's capacity to understand and therefore be educated on the subject of death. The idea that the human brain (mind?) relates to death in two diametrically opposed ways is discussed and a holistic death educational format is proposed based on the synthesis of these two oppositional styles.

Interaction between narcotic antagonist (naloxone) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in the rat.

LSD administration in rats elicited a diphasic reaction consisting of a brief excitable period ( up to 8 min) followed by a prolonged catalepsy (8 min-1 h). While the cataleptic response was antagonized by a single injection of naloxone (given 30 min after LSD administration), pretreatment with naloxone shortened the excitable phase and potentiated the catalepsy.

An analysis of 70 years of morphine classical conditioning: implications for clinical treatment of narcotic addition.

A review of all morphine classical conditioning studies performed since Pavlov reveals significant shifts in methodological and conceptual thinking during the past 7 decades. These shifts have tended to obscure the fact that a great deal of basic data are still needed before morphine classical conditioning can be understood. These data are needed to help clarify the relationship between drug conditioning and drug addiction. Recent evidence, for example, suggests that once morphine autonomic conditional reactions are established, they are highly resistant to extinction. The inclusion of these types of data in any conceptualization of drug dependency would appear to be of help in the formulation of new clinical approaches to this problem.