Western Medicine’s Superiority Complex: Toward a Holistic Approach to Illness and Trauma

By Anonymous / Fall 2021

It was three days after I legally became an adult, and the sweet illusion of freedom would soon become misleading. At this time, I began having symptoms that then, little did I know, would turn into a four-year long battle living with an undiagnosed illness. Two months into this journey, I arrived in England for university. I was excited to be in a new country and starting a new chapter, but equally terrified with these symptoms all by myself. Navigating the NHS with an obscure condition was a nightmare, on top of walking long distances around London in pain. Because of this, I moved back to Los Angeles to try to figure out what was going on. The next 16 doctors I saw ran tests that came back negative, and I was told too many times, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” with physicians giving up at that point. It was either that or they implied that the pain was all in my head. The last four years were dreadful and filled with many mental breakdowns, as I went doctor to doctor without any kind of explanation, which left me hopelessly suicidal. I also developed a severe mental illness that resulted from an inability to cope with it all.

The silver lining of the pandemic for me was the time to dive deep into research. I found online communities, podcasts, and an artist who validated my experience. But most importantly, I discovered the cause of my illness. I have a neurological condition called Psychophysiological Disorder, that resulted from an accumulation of stress and suppressed trauma growing up; it is essentially stored trauma in the body. It was hard to believe that emotions could be trapped in the body, but I came to terms with it once I read all the relevant literature. For example, the correlation between illness and trauma is evident as, “more than a third of people with fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome have high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (Schubiner 32). In addition, 80% of a sample of military veterans with PTSD have chronic pain (Schubiner 32). In a study that simulated a stressful situation, “patients with lower back pain were instructed to either suppress or not suppress anger during a stressful laboratory experiment. Those instructed to suppress their emotions reported more pain, both during and after the experiment” (Schubiner 32). In addition, a similar psychiatric condition, Conversion Disorder, is established in the DSM for Mental Disorders (the holy grail of mental health). This disorder manifests after the brain experiences a severe trauma; so instead of the brain consciously dealing with it, the emotional energy gets trapped in the body- usually as pseudo-blindness or leg paralysis. Patients with this disorder genuinely think they cannot see or walk, but because there is no damage to V1 (the primary pathway in your brain responsible for vision) or their legs, they do not have true blindness or paralysis (Durand & Barlow). Conversion Disorder, therefore, further demonstrates how repressed emotions can manifest as physical illness.

So, how could I have gone to 17 doctors in such a prestigious medical system when not a single one of them knows the cause of my symptoms, and I technically still have not received a formal diagnosis? This nightmare can best be explained by Naomi Klein’s discovery of the point of view that has been enforced for the last four hundred years by the Royal Society. In the 17th century, British royal scientists announced that the Earth, “is not a mother to be feared and revered; science has granted men God-like powers. The earth is [therefore] a machine and we are its engineers- it’s masters. We can sculpt it like a country garden, [and] extract from it whatever we want” (Lewis). This narrative that was pushed by the Royal Society sparked this hierarchical mindset that the Earth is something to use as a resource for our personal benefit. As Klein puts it, these men changed the perception of the Earth as The Mother into the Motherload (Lewis). This initiated Western ideals for mastery over the Earth (and the body) as is demonstrated in my case. As a consequence, this system subordinates already established holistic ways of healing that promote balance between the body and its environment. And prior to this, holistic medicine was present for centuries in indigenous and Eastern medicine. This narrative of mastery evidently became reality with the development of technology and tools during the Industrial Revolution; the emergence of machines allowed for the excavation of the Earth. And it is here that we see the rise of Western medical arrogance; our system that was designed by men, saw themselves as masters over the body with the mentality to be masters of the Earth. Essentially, we are stuck in a mindset that our body is a machine full of organs with buttons that need adjusting (Noonan-Gores). Instead of considering holistic approaches that acknowledge the role of the environment in our health (the mind-body connection), we prescribe pills left and right that have side effects that lead to more illness (Noonan-Gores). Pills that sometimes don’t even work but at best, treat the symptoms without the root of the disease. Isn’t it ironic that the United States has the “most money going into healthcare than any country in the world and has some of the worst statistics of healthcare?” (Noonan-Gores).

To clarify, I am not anti-Western medicine. Western medicine is great for operating on medical trauma, vaccines and providing fast solutions for symptoms when effective. However, this relief is often short-term and leads to harsh side-effects. Take for example, a nerve block that I had which had no effect on my symptoms and instead left my legs numb and weak; This as a result, makes walking long distances difficult. And note, I also became resistant to treatment because of the amount of time it took doctors to take my symptoms seriously and take action.

With Western mastery comes western ignorance. Thus, affecting the millions suffering from chronic illness. Writing this, I think of my father’s friend who recently died from an opioid overdose. She was hooked on them after having a similar experience as me- Western doctors were not able to find out what was wrong with her. So instead, she was generously prescribed opioids to mitigate the pain instead of tackling the root cause that would get rid of the pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she also had mind-body pain. Just from 2000 - 2013, the cost of chronic pain has skyrocketed from approximately $110 to $580 million dollars in the U.S. (Galinksy et al.). Due to the West’s arrogance, we refuse to look to the East even when the cause is unknown. Instead, physicians often become negligent and give up once they realise they can’t help you. This is not only traumatising to the patient as they’re told, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” but we refuse to step outside the box as “masters” to look towards holistic medicine for answers. Because of this, we remain ignorant of the mind-body connection in medicine. A pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, Dr. John Sarno, did not have it easy. After ruling out all possible illnesses for patients with undiagnosed symptomatology (Galinksy et al.), he sought holistical answers. He dove deep into the patient’s life experiences, eventually coming to find the subconscious’s role in physical illness (Galinksy et al.). No matter the amount of lives he changed, he was continually rejected by the Western medical community; and to this day, his peers have no affiliation with him and no willingness to step outside Western medicine to see his point of view (Galinksy et al.). In fact, Sarno has not received any referrals from physicians in his medical center, where hundreds of them work (Galinksy et al.). Another unfortunate reality for Sarno is having to argue that his work shouldn’t be considered alternative medicine to skeptics- the reality is that pain medicine is just not up to speed in the West (Galinksy et al.). Sarno’s work shouldn’t be seen as an alternative when emotions are crucial to addressing most kinds of chronic pain and illness. It is Western ignorance that is keeping it out of its place in conventional medicine.

Now that we’ve looked at the pitfalls of our superiority, let’s examine Western social structures that allow trauma to extend across generations. My grandmother was institutionalised in 1963 due to a nervous breakdown, as her husband was having an affair in Hawaii, while she was in labor with my mother. She received shock therapy like it was aspirin and had to bite down on a piece of wood to stop herself from screaming out in pain. As a consequence, my mother suffered emotional neglect from her mother, from what I suspect was resentment due to the affair and the traumatic turn of events. She also wasn’t able to see her mum for the first two years of her life. In turn, my mother developed a personality disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), from which the majority of the stressors in my childhood accumulated into my illness. BPD is a borderline break from reality that results from childhood trauma (Durand & Barlow). It’s characterised as extreme volatility and impulsivity due to a constant perceived abandonment by your loved ones (Durand & Barlow). In the era my grandmother was institutionalised, women were commonly misdiagnosed with a sexist label, Hysteria, that means “wandering uterus” (Durand & Barlow). It has no clinical relevance today, as it is now acknowledged as a sexist piece of psychological history. Whether my grandmother was diagnosed with Hysteria or not remains unknown, but she nonetheless suffered the brutal consequences of seeing women as deranged, after having a normal reaction to discovering her husband is having an affair while giving birth to his seventh child. While the sexual revolution was taking off at this time, the effects of the post-war era were evidently still in place. After World War II, women were kicked back out of the workforce, the nuclear family was born, and our country’s gender hierarchy was further emphasized (Twohig). Women were left at home to clean, cook and procreate while the husband worked to provide for the family. In this era, women’s bodies became incredibly dehumanised as their sole purpose was to do housework and be sexual objects for their husband’s pleasure (Twohig). Hence, my mother was the seventh out of eight children (on welfare). Thus, half of the population’s brain power was wasted as women were deemed useless to society and pushed to the domestic sphere (Dore). In essence, women’s bodies became “objects.. to be controlled by men and the paternalistic state” (Twohig). With all of that said, the generational pattern in my family took effect. The traumatic, societal effects my grandmother experienced due to her gender, influenced my mother’s mental illness. The volatility of my mother’s instability led to the toxic environment in which I was raised, causing my body to store an accumulation of stress, and manifesting as physical illness. Shock therapy was the horrific solution for my Grammy, but the bigger issue at hand is the patriarchal context that sparked this cycle of abuse. In this post-war era, men had more freedom outside of the home while women were domesticated as “less-than.” This is clear as my grandmother was impregnated eight times then had a husband that sought attraction elsewhere before being dropped off at the psych-ward. It’s not a coincidence that birth control and the sexual revolution became popular after the age of the Nuclear Family.

Furthermore, these social structures have led to the prevalence of illness in minority groups. One such example is racial zoning’s impact on health. This was through FDR’s Housing Act of 1934, one of the rare times in U.S. history when the pendulum swung left (Twohig). President FDR created the New Deal which included the Housing Act that created 30 year mortgages with low-interest rates so lower-income Americans could own homes (Gutierrez et al.). To ensure people would not default on their mortgages, the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation initiated residential maps that created “redlining” (Gutierrez et al.). Red-lines were used to mark zones where “detrimental influences” lived which included immigrants, low-class white Americans, and most importantly, Black Americans ( Gutierrez et al.). For the HOLC, “one of the most consistent criteria for red-lines were the presence of Black and Brown people;” and it has been empirically demonstrated that “people [who] lived in red-lines zones did not mean people were more likely to default on their mortgages'' (Gutierrez et al.). Essentially, the presence of red-lines made it incredibly difficult for people to purchase a home (Gutierrez et al.). Because of this, “landlords [abandoned] their properties, city services [became] unreliable, crime [increased], and property values [dropped]” in these areas (Gutierrez et al.). These conditions remained for thirty years, “as white people [fled] to the brand new suburbs” (Gutierrez et al.). In an attempt to mitigate these effects, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968 but unfortunately, it did little to reverse the damage (Gutierrez et al.). The devastating effects of housing segregation are still prevalent today and demonstrated in Baltimore and any MLK Blvd in America (Gutierrez et al.). Due to “urban planning that benefits richer, white neighborhoods, people of color are more likely to live near industrial plants that spew toxic fumes, live far away from grocery stores with fresh food, and in places where water isn’t drinkable”(Gutierrez et al.). Moreover, they are more likely to live in crumbling infrastructure and in homes that have toxic paint (Gutierrez et al.). As a result, people of color are more likely to have higher rates of specific cancers, heart disease, and asthma (Gutierrez et al.). Therefore, segregation from red-lining has resulted in unequal living conditions, that is part of the toll multigenerational discrimination has on health.

The financial burden of living with a chronic illness, especially an undiagnosed one is a heavy toll. If you’re seeing a specialist, insurance often doesn’t cover visits or compounded prescriptions. And because of the U.S.’ history, people of color that are in these situations often don’t have the resources to pay. Fortunately, I’m incredibly privileged compared to others in my situation since I’m white, cis-gendered and receive financial help. I couldn’t imagine being a woman of color going through what I’ve experienced, without the funds to try multiple specialists; how many doctors could she afford to go to before giving up? There is also the reality of being a trans man with a uterus, trying to receive treatment for Endometriosis. This is another brutal disease out there without enough awareness as it typically takes 10 years of having it, before diagnosis. I wouldn’t want to be in that position, attempting to receive excision surgery without discrimination. It was hard enough for me to receive care, so I cannot perceive how difficult it is trying to receive help from doctors that aren’t willing to work with trans patients. Overall, when considering chronic illness, it’s important to realise how a white-supremacist, patriarchal society disproportionately creates illness for the out-group, and puts them at a financial disadvantage to compensate for it.

Now, you might be thinking, haven’t I tried integrative physicians who incorporate holistic ways as well? Of course, I tried many. However, I found that many integrative doctors in the West aren’t thoroughly educated enough about holistic treatment, and don’t provide their patients with the resources and education they need. There are doctors who intend to incorporate holistic medicine, but aren’t successful because it’s not something of value in the West. It shouldn’t be the case that I know more than my doctor about the cause of my illness. Even the best holistic doctors here aren’t fully aware of the mind-body connection, and the role of trauma. And if they do know about the link, they aren’t properly educating their patients on it to take it seriously enough. One of my doctors actually suggested, “maybe it’s anxiety” and simply wrote a referral to go to Mindfulness after getting off of a six-month waiting list to see her. This is why we need a holistic rehabilitation of the system that I will touch on later.

Like Klein said, we need to tell a different story. The narrative should not be Man (science and technology) above nature, but Man in coexistence with nature (Twohig). In regards to the medical sphere specifically, we need to stop seeing the body as a machine with intentions to master it. A huge issue with Western medicine is that it aims to treat the symptoms and not the root cause of the illness; thus, a boomerang effect occurs, where the symptoms are just temporarily masked. When this happens we run out of options- doctors often become negligent and imply that there is nothing that can be done to heal you. This often sends patients into a suicidal state as they cannot imagine living the rest of their life ill. If it weren’t for all the research I’ve personally done, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was back there after the ineffective Western procedures and medications I’ve tried.

My point overall, is that we have to get out of this “West is the best” mentality. This doesn’t take away from the West’s accomplishments. However, we have an ethnocentric lens that is preventing us from seeking better solutions, and keeping our chronic illness population in a horrendous state. To do this, we need more educational reform within healthcare that promotes awareness of unconventional conditions. The medical community needs to hold each other accountable for staying up to date on new illnesses that emerge. They should educate each other, whenever they witness a new condition that they have not experienced before. This could look like a newsletter that they are obligated to subscribe to, to stay vigilant of the rise of new symptom presentations. This should also include properly researched causes and treatments for it. If a physician is not familiar with a condition in a new patient, they need to go back to this newsletter and their community, and ask if any other physician’s have experienced it before. If physicians did this, it could prevent patients from going years and (even a decade) without a diagnosis and treatment. Lastly, physicians need to stop instinctually resorting to pills if there is a holistic equivalent for certain conditions out there. Patients need to hear all their options that range from conservative to liberal treatment possibilities, so they can make an informed decision about their future health. It is especially important that patients receive a thorough education on holistic ways of healing because of its stigma in Western medicine. And not just being presented with little hope that it might work. When patients and doctors are properly educated on natural ways of healing, we have the power and incentive to not only go down this route but stick with it, because we know it works for others around the world. All this considered, we hopefully won’t have any more young women overdosing on opioids or suicidal patients left with no hope.

Works Cited

Dore, Mary, director. She's Beautiful When She's Angry. 14 Nov. 2014.

Durand, Vincent Mark, and David H. Barlow. Essentials of Abnormal Psychology. Cengage, 2019.

Galinsky, Michael, et al., directors. All the Rage: Saved by Sarno. Amazon Prime, 2017.

Gutierrez, Maria Paz, et al. Housing Segregation and Redlining in America. NPR, 11 Apr. 2018.

Lewis, Avi, director. This Changes Everything. Klein Lewis Productions, 2015.

Noonan-Gores, Kelly, director. Heal. Amazon Prime, 2017.

Schubiner, Howard, and Michael Betzold. Unlearn Your Pain: A 28-Day Process to Reprogram Your Brain. Mind Body Publishing, 2019.

Twohig, Niall. “Hierarchy.” Systemic Analysis for Everyday Life.

Twohig, Niall. “The Pendulum of History.” Canvas.