Embodiment IS Medicine: Reclaiming the Non-Verbal Intelligence of the Body in Modern Medicine

The Silencing of the Communicative Body used to describe medicine's habit of silencing the intelligence of the body as a 'disembodied crisis'.While I find this description to be an accurate diagnosis, did you notice what happens to your body and perception when you read those words?Take a moment to slowly speak 'disembodied crisis' out loud a few times.Notice how your body responds.What happens to your breath, body and feeling as you voice those words?Speak, pause and listen to your interiority.For me, the first thing I noticed was how this description gathered my internal energy -my awareness -behind my forehead into a sharp focus-point directed outwards.To the place of cognitive focus and intellectual analysis.Cognitive analysis is the mode of knowledge prioritized by modern Western medicine (biomedicine) [1] and medical education.Naming biomedicine is important, as the silencing of the intelligence of the speaking body is a cultural habit that is unique to this specific lineage of medicine and science [2, 3].Frenchphysiologist Claude Bernard, who is widely regarded as the 'founder of modern medicine' [4] described his vision for physiology in 1878 [5] as such: I Embodiment is Medicine: Reclaiming the non-verbal intelligence of the body in modern medicine Marina 'Heron' Tsaplina 50