Restoring the Self on the Road to Good Health

The Center for Integrated Health and Healing

by Suzanne Comer Bell
Smoky Mountain Living  Summer 2006

Part 2 of 2 parts

Searching for the right health care can be like a search through the mountains for water, light, warmth, and safe footing. But the trail is long, winding, and full of challenges. It seems to lead to light and rest, then you decide you’re off the trail. Back to the clearing, cross the creek. Now, try this path. Here are smooth rocks, already walked by hundreds of seekers. Nice, trusty, but not my own path. I’ll use it, but it’s not all the healing I need. Your eye catches something up ahead, off in the distance—intriguing, but how to get there? You’ll have to cross a fallen log, a natural bridge, and balance, balance, balance (wow, I haven’t done that in years! you think). Then you discover a broad place opens, a high mountain hillside, where rocks lie in patches of grass and berry bushes, mingled with cool breezes and warm sun. (Was this made perfect just for me?) Home at last, you bury yourself in a nest of grass, lean against the solid weight of quartz and granite, and let the medicines of wild adventure, private discovery, and open sky take you like a foamy bath. Overhead is the soundtrack of hawks and a sporadic, whistling wind. Time is endless, and so are the depths of healing in this simple but bravely taken experiment.

As the first installment of this article expressed, the practitioners of the Center for Integrated Health and Healing understand intensely this up and down journey toward health—they’ve experienced it themselves—and offer patients similar paths of healing that lead to wholeness. What sets the center apart is the practitioners’ openness to weave together several healing traditions to discover the best treatment for each patient. At the hub is a Board-certified internist, Charles D. Lefler, M.D., and surrounding him are highly gifted therapists in such specialties as nutrition, reflexology, psychology, acupuncture, therapeutic massage, yoga, Reiki, art enablement, and Feng Shui. This carefully monitored, multidimensional approach, plus a patient’s own intuition and motivation to heal, is what leads to premium health for a patient.

The Physical . . . and the Spiritual
To say that Dr. Lefler gives a thorough initial exam is perhaps an understatement. One patient recalled her first visit lasted a full three hours, and she was sure she’d “talked poor Dr. Lefler’s head off”! In short, there is far more too much going on to simply call it a “physical,” as all new patients experience.

For Lefler, a Board-certified internist, it is critical to be thorough in “checking out what their actual physical, emotional and spiritual situations are,” he said. He hopes to help patients see, for example, that their “spiritual health is reflected by what they consider to be their own convictions about their place in the universe, how they relate to their creator and their fellow human beings, not by some preconceived impression of what they should be or become.”

Apparently Lefler has earned a reputation among doctors in the region for his extreme care. “The doctors have a sense that I want to care,” he said, “but beyond that they know only that I have a lot of patients and that I spend an inordinate amount of time with them on their first visit. I hope they note that my patients do well!”

Lefler says some colleagues have sent him patients for whom they had no further help. “I have actually had primary care [physicians] and specialists alike refer me patients whom they felt needed more than what traditional medicine would offer,” he said.

Besides taking a holistic approach to doing exams, Lefler also takes a cue from the complementary and alternative methods (CAM) he’s invited into his practice. “A lot of alternative approaches basically allow and encourage a strongly focused personal relationship between two people when it’s happening,” he explains. “It’s different. Modern medicine is saying [the personal relationship] doesn’t even matter, but I’m saying Oh yes it does.”

This means a personal risk for both patient and doctor, which psychologist James C. Nourse, Ph.D., L.Ac., beautifully explains. “Charles believes, as I do, that a healer has to be willing to peer into, experience and resolve one's own emotional wounds,” Nourse said. “How can a practitioner require a patient to face something he/she's not willing to face? . . . The wound, ironically, is what calls up, and puts into flow, the energy for healing. The doctor's willingness to delve deeply into his own suffering is what cultivates his compassion and capacity for being a healing presence for his patients, and what enables him to join in an authentic way with the patient's suffering and with his/her potential for triumph.”

Lefler offers an example of an initial exam, which reveals much more than the patients’ external symptoms: “When patients come to see me, they have at least one if not many concerns. A grandmother might come to see me with a sore throat having just seen her grandchildren who were fighting colds. As I ask about the children, I note that she seems sad. When I ask about her own daughter, their mother, she crosses her arms on her chest and her legs and turns slightly away from me. Her body and eyes are telling me something much more than her grandchildren were sick and she misses them. She is uncomfortable with some information and will need to feel safe and loved before she will tell me that her daughter is in a troubled marriage and she is very worried and at times stifling back tears. Her ‘blues’ relate to being a mother and grandmother, not just having a physical problem—the sore throat. Treating the sore throat is needed, but more important is hearing her nonphysical pain.”

Talking It Out
This patient might then be referred to Dr. Nourse, who occupies a small, well-lit room upstairs—private, though near the kitchen. He, too, is accustomed to reading initial comments and gestures to understand a person’s psychological and spiritual well-being.
So, to approach Nourse with a seemingly innocent comment like, “Sure wish it’d quit raining,” might take you a little deeper than you’d imagined on your first psych consult.

“Rain—dampness—is one of the climates recognized in Chinese medicine, both externally and internally,” Nourse explains. “If you’re under the dominance of dampness inside, you can feel sluggish, low energy. It depends on how you relate to that. A lot of people have come into my office complaining, ‘This rain, when is it going to end?’

‘Well, what do you mean?’ [Nourse responds].

‘It’s so depressing,’ [you say].

‘Why is it depressing?’

‘Well, it just is.’

‘Let me get this straight, what you’re telling me is that you can’t feel good because there is too much water in the air.’

“Then we get into the area of what are their personal beliefs and interpretations of this, and then we’re into the psyche.”

Nourse and his wife, reflexologist Judith Nourse, who also practices at CIHH, have a long history of interest in nontraditional forms of healing. “I studied Classical Chinese Medicine with two of the remaining masters of this knowledge, Sean Christiaan Marshall, D.Ac. and Tran Viet Dzung, M.D.,” Nourse said. “Judith is trained in, and is continuing to train in, the esoteric Feng Shui tradition of Grand Master Lin Yun, with a focus on the spatial energetics of health and illness.”

Recently, Dr. Nourse received his license in acupuncture and offers this treatment to patients at CIHH and at his home office in Hendersonville. “Acupuncture facilitates the process of change at a deep level,” Nourse says, “whether that be physical or emotional.  Chinese medicine is not just a medical tradition but a wisdom tradition. The ancient Chinese physicians peered deeply into the phenomenon of being human. They didn't have mechanical technology.  They had only the technology of deep introspection. Through that method, they perceived truths about the human condition, including the processes of health and illness. Their work constitutes a 5,000-year longitudinal study.”

What is acupuncture, exactly, and how is it performed? “The human body is not only a material object but also a field of energy,” Nourse explains. “Acupuncture, or the insertion of thin needles into points [along energy channels in the body], is the most common means of treatment used in Classical Chinese Medicine to establish balanced energy.”

Nourse’s interest in Chinese medicine reflects his reverence for the practices of primitive cultures. “Chinese medicine has a way of understanding the connection between mind-body-spirit-environment that is highly ‘advanced’ when compared to Western understanding,” Nourse says. “Acupuncture [has] . . . deepened my understanding of [patients’] struggle and offered me a new way to help them achieve harmony on all levels.”

Still, one might wonder, What does Chinese medicine have to offer those of us living in western North Carolina? For Nourse, the connection is seen in another question: “Why do so many people retire here in the mountains?” he asks. “Maybe beauty is more compelling as a value in old age. The stuff we strive for earlier in life is largely about ego development. As we age, we become more cognizant of universal values. We know we're temporary, and we revere the eternal—the mountains, the ocean, the big factors in our lives that symbolize Eternity.”

Inevitably, however, people begin to lose that connection and the burst of good health they experienced. “People make a geographic move to the mountains,” Nourse says, “and it works for about six months and then they find themselves depressed again. The geographic cure wasn’t the solution. Then they are forced, maybe for the first time, to take an inward look.”

Again, the mountains can help, says Maggie Crow. They connect us to the ancient natural rhythms we long for. Just as there are many changes in the sky and weather in a single day, she says, so a person’s internal needs are multifaceted and pain can have many sides. Along with Maggie, Drs. Lefler and Nourse see not just interesting metaphor here but real connections between one’s health and one’s experience of the natural world. To get out in the day’s weather means we can see a reflection of our bodies and selves. In the mountains, we can experience the early morning mist and fog, which one doesn’t get in the city. And at night, we can experience total darkness, whereas in cities, it never gets completely dark. To have these experiences of completeness in one day and night is to have the opportunity to stay in touch with ancient rhythms, and heal through them.

Stand close to a waterfall, and physiologically you know something is going on to relax and restore you. Falling water releases powerful energy and negative ions in the air, the doctors explain, and these ions have a calming effect on anyone in their mist. Moreover, says Nourse, “the sound of falling water on a massive scale tends to create a high frequency of alpha brainwaves, which is associated with peace of mind, relaxation.”

But What about Disease?
Some patients come to Dr. Lefler with a serious illness for which they’ve researched possible cures. Rather than claim complete authority on which treatment to prescribe, Lefler allows patients to share ideas and make choices for their path of treatment. This revolutionary, partnership approach has had actual, positive results in Lefler’s practice.

“I had a patient with proven metastatic cancer involving the lymph nodes under his arm,” Lefler said. “His oncologists had not been able to find where the primary cancer was. He had done a lot of research into his medical options as well as into the area of complementary and alternative methods. He told me that he had started on an approach using a product called PolyMVA by mouth and high doses of vitamin C intravenously. He wanted me to quantitate his axillary tumor mass with him. I encouraged him to pursue [the alternative treatment], making sure of his [traditional] medical options, which he did. He then said that he intended to have radiation therapy if a short course of the PolyMVA and intravenous vitamin C didn’t produce any significant results.

“I watched as he treated himself with these approaches. After about a week he had no response and told me that he had scheduled an appointment with the radiation therapist in a week or so. He came back to see me a week later to reevaluate the tumor mass under his arm. It was unequivocally smaller. In a few weeks it was totally gone and remains gone [today], two years later.”

Clearly this was a remarkable case, and Lefler states unequivocally, “I do not advocate that untried approaches take the place of known curative approaches. I am not interested in pushing someone into . . . alternative therapy but in being able to help them determine where their intuition might lead them and help them determine if there is a qualified practitioner of that form.”

Happy Feet
One therapy recommended to me was reflexology, at the hands of Judith Nourse. She’s in the CIHH offices on Tuesdays, and I squeezed in an appointment right before picking up my children from school. Afterward, when I mentioned to a few other mothers that I had a spectacular foot treatment at Dr. Lefler's office, I got some ticklish reactions: “I would never let anyone touch my feet,” and “That’s just too private. I don’t do massage.”

This was a few days before a holiday, so the usual stress was showing, try as I might to relax my long, pale feet. “Oh well, forget trying to fake perfect,” I told myself amusedly. In a few moments the warm footbath and nurturing touch to my feet felt like champagne flowing through my entire body.

Reflexology works with a theoretical “map” of points and zones in the feet that don't show up empirically in X-rays or dissection. It is believed that these reflexes in the feet are linked through the nervous system to areas or organs throughout the body. Congestion or tension in one zone of the foot is mirrored in its corresponding zone in the body. Pressure applied to the inner arch, for example, releases the tension and pain I feel in my lower back.

Even after a brief introductory session, I found myself ready to release a lot of emotion, apparently a normal response. “You don’t have to hold it together here,” said Judith Nourse, with a soft smile that characterizes her remarkable therapy of reflexology. Freedom to release tears is part of the healing, too.

What Does Hold It All Together?
For many patients, traditional Western procedures are all we’ve known when it comes to health care. To begin to explore alternatives to antibiotics or pain relievers can be confusing, threatening, and very frustrating. Once a patient becomes willing to think outside the traditional healthcare box, she finds that many doctors are still unwilling to open the door of CAM therapies. Moreover, even if a patient opens some doors by herself, she can wind up on the proverbial wild goose chase. Vitamin B? B complex? Chelated calcium? Combined with Vitamin C or magnesium? The questions are endless, the answers not always in agreement.

In this dawning age of integrated medicine, people need a trustworthy “map” of safe and worthwhile therapies to explore, and someone to help them follow it. CIHH is one team of qualified practitioners who offer an excellent range of therapies and encouragement along the way.

Lefler’s simple, clear-cut philosophy goes deeper: “As Tournier said, we strive to understand and love, and in so doing to have the patient feel and in fact be certain that they are loved. I believe first and foremost that it is in this love relationship that healing begins and health is maintained.”

Lefler is currently introducing a new form of integrative healing at CIHH, known as “Art Enablement.” In this healing phase, a patient comes full circle to rediscover his own ability to create. “Facilitating patients to be able to express creatively is a truly integrating experience for a person,” Lefler explained. “For this purpose ‘art’ involves ‘allowing’ the expressing of something from a person’s innermost being processed by the mind and put into physical form by their bodies. This is a truly integrating experience that has been proven at Shand’s University of Florida Hospital [Gainesville, Fla.] to help lead to medical cures in patients declared medical failures.”
Trading in easy-to-swallow aspirin for massage, green tea, and pottery? Nourse doesn’t pretend this is an easy process. “When you step onto the turf of Integrative Medicine,” he says frankly, “you've begun a complicated journey.”

But without question, he believes it is the truest means of healing: “Integrative Medicine is an attempt at arriving at an approach to healing that respects and embraces the whole human yearning in all its expressions from primal to modern to alleviate suffering and promote each person onto a path of her/his highest potential. Anything that good will be celebrated in some circles, and condemned by others.”

Around this circle of practitioners, there is much to celebrate—they come from various medical traditions but recognize a vital truth. “The common denominator between these methods is the conviction that the human organism really knows at its core what health is,” says Nourse.

“Every cell knows,” agrees Dr. Lefler.

“All these methods gently coax the organism to re-member,” Nourse continues, “to go from a place of dis-memberment to re-memberment. That’s what integration is all about. We do the traditional [work] of curing disease, but even more so what we’re striving for is evoking health. That’s what Charles is talking about with art enablement. It’s par excellence.”

But can the center itself survive, in a day when the words health care are often followed by crisis? Indeed, other practitioners across the country have tried to create holistic consortiums but have failed, Lefler says. He believes it’s because they hire practitioners with independent, rather than overlapping, skills. “By using fewer practitioners with more skills [each], we make it far more likely that we will survive,” he continues. “We are building as we go, not putting too much out there all at once, to be able to survive.”

Moreover, in contrast to many conventional practices that are no longer taking new patients, Lefler is excited about growth. “We continue to take in new patients. . . . I have patients from as many as 200 miles away, especially for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Immunodeficiency Syndrome.”

The center is also seeking grants to do further study in integrated healing, Lefler said. “We hope that we will get grants in the creative arts to facilitate that piece of our program. Many more practitioners have voiced an interest in our center, and I anticipate that one day many more will be on site with us.”

It takes more than great minds to think holistically, to go against the pressures of conventional medical practice, the power of insurance companies and HMOs. It takes a heaping dose of courage and a big heart. Likewise, an individual’s experience of healing is complex, risky, clear one moment and stormy the next. In the fullest sense, both have to take their cue from the mountains, where the weather’s apt to change suddenly, healing breaks through on many levels, and the benefits are infinite, like rainbows over a blue rim of water falling and falling with fresh, new possibilities.

The Center for Integrated Health and Healing is located in the office of Dr. Charles D. Lefler, 89 Medical Park Dr., Brevard, NC  28712. 828-884-2636.

Complementary and Alternative Therapies Offered at CIHH
Dr. Charles D. Lefler offers comments to explain the various therapies available alongside his practice of conventional internal medicine.

Psychology—helps us know and own our emotions, especially our fears and hurt places
Nutritional/Nourishment Counseling—gives us grounding in healthy foods and all necessities for life, growth, and wellness
Reflexology—foot “mapping” and treatment, an amazingly pleasant hands-on caring experience that releases body and emotional stress and balances one’s energy
Massage—allows the body to feel cared for when frequently it only knows the stress of response to demands to achieve, without concern for physical well-being
Acupuncture—a complex system of healing, through the insertion of thin needles into points along energy channels in the body, which is foreign to Western thought but amazingly successful at treating diverse dis-eases
Stress management—An extremely helpful adjunct to dealing with environmental stress, which is commonly a part of the causation for dis-ease
Yoga—a practice to relax, stretch, and strengthen our bodies

© 2008 Suzanne Comer Bell