Somatic Awareness as a Vessel for Embodying Health: Medical School Education's Missing Piece
Somatic Awareness as a Vessel for Embodying Health: Medical School Education's Missing Piece
Issue Date
2004
Authors
Rubin, Debra
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Abstract
Medical school training promotes an objective, materialistic, mechanistic view of health and the body. However, we need a holistic model of health that views the body as a repository of innate wisdom and a vessel for healing on all levels—body, mind, spirit, and soul, for both individual and planetary health. Cultivating somatic awareness is the cornerstone of this model and the critical first step in self-care and the embodiment of health. This paper draws from the wisdom of Somatic Psychology, Holistic Health, and Yoga to revise the unique role of the body. This theoretical framework lays the groundwork for the future development of a workshop for medical school students to explore cultivating somatic awareness as the key to embodying health.