Medical Facilitation

The concept of medical facilitation (open a more extensive description of this concept by clicking on the link) addresses the need to assist an individual in processing all aspects of her/his health process.

Given the growing complexity of navigating the health care system, the need of facilitators to assist in this task is becoming increasingly apparent.

This may be an emerging role for process workers who are trained in working with symptoms, and facilitating complex relationships.

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The Myth of Procrustes
Procrustes was an ogre and inn keeper on the way to Athens (Greece's metropolis or a metaphor for mainstream consensus reality). Thus on your way to Athens you had to stop at Procrustes' inn. After feeding you he would show you your quarters. In the middle of the night he would then come into your room and cut your legs off if they were to big or stretch them if they were too small. He would make you fit the exact size of his bed before allowing you to continue your journey to Athens.

Procrustes stands for the process of marginalizing everything that doesn't fit mainstream values and beliefs.

We act on a daily basis like Procustes and marginalize aspects of ourselves that we think don't fit our inner and outer mainstream norms and values.

On an empirical basis, when using Process Work methods to help people with their body symptoms, the cut off parts re-surface in the symptom work as aspects of themselves that need to be re-integrated.

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Social and political processes of rank and privilege have been shown to correlate with the frequency and severity of body symptoms.

• The more rank a person has, the better her chances of staying healthy.
• There is an individual process of adjusting to procrustean norms and a community process in which possessing rank and privilege influences the ability to stay healthy.
• Internalized cultural norms and the lived socio-cultural dynamics of the isms (age, sex, race, etc.) have a direct impact on our bodies.

A consequence of the above is that symptom work includes work with individuals, relationships and world issues.

• While working with an individual we need an awareness of the process of modernization and an awareness of cultural dynamics as being relevant to any symptom work.
• So, for example, if we're working with a person of lower rank, there's a feeling difference between that work and working with a person of higher rank.
• We may work with them in a similar way but it's important to have an awareness of the difference and how that plays out in their stories and how they and we, working with them, interpret those stories.