Diagnosis and Prognosis: healing thoughts

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Photo above courtesy of Invisible College Facebook page

As a Licensed Spiritual Practitioner of Religious Science, it is my great pleasure to do prayer for individuals and their circumstances. One of the most requested reasons for prayer is the need for health, and the prayer is usually a desire for healing.

There are two points of view that are evident here: the medical point of view and the metaphysical point of view. When someone is suffering medically, the doctor will usually give the patient a diagnosis and a prognosis. Whenever a practitioner is asked to help the patient, he/she also offers a diagnosis and a prognosis. Both the doctor and the practitioner are treating the same physical condition but from different perspectives. Both perspectives are important.

From a medical point of view, a diagnosis is the naming of a condition that is present in a physical body. A prognosis is the anticipated outcome of the condition after treatment. Healing requires a doctor to have confidence in his/her ability to recognize and treat the condition. The healing is enhanced when the patient has confidence in the doctor’s ability and follows the treatment plan.

From a metaphysical point of view, a diagnosis is the recognizing and acknowledging of a thought pattern that causes a certain physically manifested condition. A prognosis is the expected outcome of changing the thought that created the condition. Healing requires the practitioner to have faith in his/her ability as a practitioner to recognize and treat the thought pattern. Healing is enhanced when the patient has confidence in the practitioner’s knowledge and follows a spiritual treatment plan.

When someone asks me to pray for them, I usually don’t address the metaphysical viewpoint until they are past the emotional reaction of discovering the condition. When he/she is ready, I would start introducing the metaphysical point of view by asking: “Have you ever heard a doctor say that they have done all they can do, the rest is up to the patient? What do you suppose is meant by that?”