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A brief introduction to 'Life Medicine', a new existential approach to illness.

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In the wake of the putative Covid pandemic, a fear-based biotechnical approach to the body is the... more In the wake of the putative Covid pandemic, a fear-based biotechnical approach to the body is the 'something in the air' that now holds sway - resulting in a social atmosphere of breathing which denies the innate spirituality of the flesh - and the intimate relation of 'spirit' as such to breath, respiration and respiratory illness.

"The greatest thing, by far, is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be le... more "The greatest thing, by far, is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned and is also a sign of genius." Aristotle "…a powerful metaphor may complete its work so effectively as to obliterate its own traces." Gemma Corradi Fiumara. Though all language is metaphorical in its very essence, today's blindly and deafly literalistic understanding of language in the sciences, not least in biomedical science - constitutes an an assault on the interrelation of language, life and illness.

Introducing a number of key temporal distinctions which I believe are relevant to all those invol... more Introducing a number of key temporal distinctions which I believe are relevant to all those involved in palliative or end of life care for The Dying, as well as some new temporal understandings of Dying itself - understood as an existential process that cannnot, as is often the case in the dominant Cancer paradigm, be temporally confined to the last hours, days or weeks before the event of Death. The distinctions are a phenomenological expression of the author's own experience of the Death Process and of the limitations of palliative and home hospice care for non-oncological illnesses such as COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and heart failure, as well as his background in providing new forms of existential-phenomenological counselling for medical patients.

Psychotherapists seek to understand or interpret the verbal and behavioural signs of an individua... more Psychotherapists seek to understand or interpret the verbal and behavioural signs of an individual’s emotional dis-ease. Biomedical physicians and psychiatrists seek to diagnose both bodily and behavioural symptoms as signs of some organic ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’. In doing so however, they make no semiotic distinction between the medically signified sense of an individual’s symptoms and their directly felt or sensed significance – comparable to the felt sense or meaning of a word. Drawing on the work of Martin Heidegger, Jakob von Uexküll, Viktor von Weizsäcker, Luis Chiozza, Arnold Mindell and others, Peter Wilberg brings out in an original way the profound medical as well as psychotherapeutic implications of Eugene Gendlin’s method of Focusing - with its key concept of ‘felt sense’ - the recognition that meaning or ‘sense’ is something that can itself be directly felt or sensed in an immediate bodily way. It explores in particular the relational dimension of ‘bodily sensing’. Soma-semiotics is rooted in the principle that, as signs, somatic illnesses are an experience and expression of lived and felt meanings or senses rather than simply a result of organic, biological, psychosocial, or psychosomatic ‘causes’. It explains how a 'soma-semiotic' understanding of illness can help both counsellors, therapists and medical professionals to use their own 'sensed body' to wordlessly sense and resonate a patient’s felt dis-ease, thus coming to feel its meaning or sense directly rather than seeking only to signify that sense through medical terms. Consequently soma-semiotics offers a new foundation for overcoming the on-going theoretical, institutional and professional separation between practitioners of ‘psychotherapy’ on the one hand and ‘somatic’ medicine on the other – a separation still maintained in the theory and practice of psychotherapy.

Like most of my published books ‘The Illness is the Cure .- a new existential approach to medicin... more Like most of my published books ‘The Illness is the Cure .- a new existential approach to medicine’ (uploaded in full below) was written principally for a non-academic readership. It is a product of my work as an independent scholar, thinker, author, teacher and practitioner, who since 1980, has been working and writing entirely outside the sphere of academia. As a result, even though all my books do both draw from and deal with recognised themes of academic discourse, they have suffered the fate of falling ‘off the radar’ of academic awareness and outside the ambit of academic interest, possible peer reviews etc. Instead, they occupy a ‘no-man’s land’ between accredited academic literature on the one hand, and ‘popular’ literature for a general readership on the other - a position that certainly does not lend itself to gaining either a wide popular readership or a more specialised academic one. On the other hand, I do believe that they contain a variety of novel concepts, approaches and perspectives that may be of interest to academic researchers and authors in a number of specific fields. It is for this reason that I decided, in the case of this latest book of mine on medicine, to write, for the first time, a prolegomena to it for academia.edu This is designed specifically to highlight those elements of it which I believe have something new to contribute to academic discourse on Heidegger, the phenomenology of bodyhood and consciousness, and ‘existential medicine’. These novel elements find expression in an interweave of Heideggerian language and perspectives, with that of my own ‘non-dual’ or ‘consciousness only’ philosophy, as well as neo-psychoanalytic and semiotic perspectives on the human body - understood in itself as a living language of the human being. All these elements also find expression in the evolving practice of existential medicine that I call ‘Life Doctoring’.

Concisely argued case for a 'Consciousness Only' understanding of reality. The paper seeks to exp... more Concisely argued case for a 'Consciousness Only' understanding of reality. The paper seeks to explain why consciousness is not a 'hard problem', or anything in need of any sort of 'explanation' at all - but is instead the sole coherent explanation of all things - the only possible foundation for a 'Theory of Everything'. Based on a unified field theory of consciousness, it offers a cutting critique of both neuroscience and of implicitly dualistic forms of 'panpsychism'. In doing so it offers brief summary of some key elements of my several published works on what I call 'The Awareness Principle'. See also my books entitled 'The Awareness Principle' and 'Event Horizon - the ultimate metaphysics of Awareness'.

Note for readers on academia.edu: this upload is a proofed and amended version of an previously uploaded essay on 'The Awareness Principle' as a radically new form of panpsychism.

The aim of Heidegger, Medicine and 'Scientific Method' is to ensure that the profound implication... more The aim of Heidegger, Medicine and 'Scientific Method' is to ensure that the profound implications of the Zollikon Seminars Heidegger held for doctors and psychiatrists do not remain unheeded. In one short volume Peter Wilberg concisely summarises Heidegger's fundamental critique of 'scientific method', redefines the basic principles of the 'phenomenological method' and lays out the foundations of a new 'phenomenological' approach to medicine - one which understands that illnesses have meanings not 'causes'. Grounded in Heidegger's fundamental distinction between the physical body (Körper) and the 'lived' or 'felt' body (Leib), phenomenological medicine offers a highly practical and therapeutic understanding of the relation between a patient's clinical disease 'pathology' and the felt 'dis-ease' or pathos that it embodies. First published 2003. Available as paperback from Amazon.

Introduction to a new, consistently monistic and immaterialist philosophy of consciousness, prese... more Introduction to a new, consistently monistic and immaterialist philosophy of consciousness, presented at the same time as a critique of traditional and essentially dualistic understandings of 'panpsychism' - all of which claim that consciousness is merely an innate 'property' or 'feature' of all things - rather than being constitutive of them and of all that is. The fixed belief that consciousness requires some sort of biological or non-biological 'substrate' is challenged by the idea that consciousness is itself the ultimate substrate of all things.

Books by Peter Wilberg

Book Reviews by Peter Wilberg

Papers by Peter Wilberg

In this article I seek to argue in a brief but I hope also concise way, for a radical rethinking ... more In this article I seek to argue in a brief but I hope also concise way, for a radical rethinking of what Medard Boss, in his magnum opus, called The Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology. In doing so I shall also question and rethink the central Heideggerian notion of Dasein. What follows is in no way intended to diminish the groundbreaking nature of Medard Boss's work or that which rendered it so fertile -the seminal thinking of Martin Heidegger. Instead my project is to bring out the profound and radical essence of this thinking in a way which speaks not only of the 'Existential Foundations of Medicine' but of 'The Foundations of Existential Medicine' -offering keys to a new existential approach to medicine and its potential impact on the nature of clinical practice.

… Does not the chronological and historical remoteness of an utterance conceal in itself a histor... more … Does not the chronological and historical remoteness of an utterance conceal in itself a historical nearness of what it leaves unsaid and which speaks, beyond the present, into a time to come? … May it not be that what is early outstrips the late, the earliest outstripping the latest most of all?" Martin Heidegger …to begin with we see that Europe can only reproduce what in India, under the people of thinkers, had already accomplished several thousand years ago as a commandment of thinking.

Essays on the Primacy of Awareness by Peter Wilberg

… awareness qua awareness [is] not awareness as a topic within, or relative to, a context that de... more … awareness qua awareness [is] not awareness as a topic within, or relative to, a context that defines it by confining it, as e.g. social awareness, physical awareness or awareness physically analysed … Rather, without trepidation, awareness 'itself' -awareness without confinement -is our topic; awareness without imposed limits as our 'context'… Awareness as such is a truly primitive term, unlike 'consciousness' (with all its differentiated levels) which … always refers to being 'aware-of-something', of some content, as vivid or vague, sharp or dim as it may be. Awareness … belongs to no one exclusively, has no restrictions, derivations or explanations … just is. Awareness is a singularity beyond personality and impersonality -which cannot be contained, curtailed, expanded or transcended from 'without awareness'.

A brief introduction to 'Life Medicine', a new existential approach to illness.

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Note for readers on academia.edu: this upload is a proofed and amended version of an previously uploaded essay on 'The Awareness Principle' as a radically new form of panpsychism.

Exploring a number of key temporal distinctions which I believe are relevant for all those involv... more Exploring a number of key temporal distinctions which I believe are relevant for all those involved in palliative or 'end of life' care for those Dying through terminal illness, and some of the temporal dimensions of Dying itself - understood as an existential as well as biologicial Death Process. It is argued that this process cannot itself be temporally confined to the last hours, days or weeks before Death as the dominant 'cancer paradigm' or end-of-life care tends to suggest.

The total monopoly of the medical profession and its institutions on 'knowledge' of the body and ... more The total monopoly of the medical profession and its institutions on 'knowledge' of the body and of illness was radically and caustically challenged by Ivan Illich in his book entitled 'Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health'. In it he exposes the veritable epidemic of medically induced or 'iatrogenic' illness, a truth confirmed by the accepted evidence that medical 'treatments' are themselves the 3rd major clinical cause of death. Hence Illich's opening words: "The medical establishment has become a major threat to health. The disabling impact of professional control over medicine has reached the proportions of an epidemic. Iatrogenesis, the name for this new epidemic, comes from iatros, the Greek word for 'physician', and genesis, meaning 'origin'." Illich identified three types of iatrogenesis-clinical, social and cultural. "Iatrogenesis is clinical when pain, sickness and death result from medical care; it is social when health policies reinforce an industrial organization that generates ill-health; it is cultural and symbolic when medically sponsored behaviour and delusions restrict the vital autonomy of people by undermining their competence in growing up, caring for each other, and aging, or when medical intervention cripples personal responses to pain, disability, impairment, anguish and death." "People who are angered, sickened, and impaired by their industrial labour … can escape only into a life under medical supervision are thereby seduced or disqualified from political struggle for a healthier world."

The Illness is the Cure - an introduction to Life Medicine and Life Doctoring, a new existential approach to illness, 2014

What if ‘the illness is the cure’ - and not something to be cured? In a way that is clear and pra... more What if ‘the illness is the cure’ - and not something to be cured? In a way that is clear and practically helpful to both lay readers, patients and health professionals alike, this book challenges the most basic assumptions of almost all forms of medicine – ‘modern’ or ‘traditional’, ‘scientific’ or ‘spiritual’ – namely that illness is something to be cured rather than being the cure. To do so it draws on the work of Illich, Heidegger and many others to introduces a fundamentally new approach to health and illness – ‘Life Medicine’ and ‘Life Doctoring’. Life Doctoring is a new form of non-biomedical counselling for serious and chronic illness. Instead of employing standard forms of medical testing and treatment the Life Doctor is there to help the individual come to an understanding of the ways their own particular illness ‘is the cure’ – how it is a potential source of new healing understandings of themselves and of a healing transformation of their lives and bodily sense of self. Life Medicine is a new understanding of health and illness that does not separate science and life, biology and biography, the life of the human body and the life of the human being. Instead its focus is on the larger life context and specific life meanings that particular symptoms and illnesses hold for the individual patient. For as Marx wrote: “The idea of one basis for science and another for life is from the very outset a lie.” This ‘lie’ unfortunately has dire consequences. For as research by the medical establishment itself has confirmed, conventional biomedical diagnosis and treatment through drugs and surgery is itself the leading cause of premature death – ahead of both cancer and heart disease. By offering an entirely new framework for understanding the essential nature of ‘health’ and ‘illness’, Life Doctoring can help patients understand the underlying sense of ‘dis-ease’ in their lives that lies behind their clinically diagnosed illness or ‘disease’. In this way it can also serve to (a) prevent an individual’s ‘dis-ease manifesting as clinical ‘disease’, and (b) educate patients about the possible dangers and potentially sickness-causing or ‘iatrogenic’ effects of many standard forms of biomedical testing and treatment. The continuing monopoly over knowledge of the human body that biomedicine claims has one basic reason – namely that it is not actually ‘science-driven’ but ‘money driven’ – turning illness into a source of vast profits for Big Pharma and the corporate health industry as a whole. Many people are angered by the global trend toward the privatisation of medical care or else concerned about the rising costs. Yet the roots of this trend lie in the fact that illness itself has long been ‘privatised’ – seen as bearing no relation at all to the social and economic ills affecting the patient and to the sicknesses of society itself. To argue that ‘the illness is the cure’ is also to recognise that illness is also an expression of a fundamentally sick world. Through Life Medicine and Life Doctoring, illness can also help us to recognise and respond in new ways to this world and its politics - and in this way help to heal it. “The first task of the doctor is ... political…” Michel Foucault

Questioning and offering alternatives to biological medicine and the totalitarian reign of planet... more Questioning and offering alternatives to biological medicine and the totalitarian reign of planetary biopolitics and biotechnology. www.societyforexistentialmedicine.com The Society for Existential Medicine offers a forum for contributions and an expanding range of resources for all those devoted to challenging the medical model of health and illness from an existential, phenomenological, hermeneutic, biographical, psychoanalytic, holistic, relational, social and spiritual perspective. Its aim is also to challenge the almost wholly unquestioned institutional separation between professional training and practice in 'psychotherapy' on the one hand (including 'existential' psychotherapy) and training in 'somatic medicine' on the other.

This essay is my first attempt in 17 years to condense, distil and also refine the central theses... more This essay is my first attempt in 17 years to condense, distil and also refine the central theses of my 349 page book entitled The QUALIA Revolution-from Quantum Physics to Cosmic Qualia Science, published in 2004.

Notes on Madhyamaka, Martin Heidegger and Mind-Only Philosophy

In this paper I present a short but diverse collection of writings, all of which seek to question... more In this paper I present a short but diverse collection of writings, all of which seek to question the metaphysical dogma - seemingly held by many Heideggerian and ‘existential’ philosophers - that human existence ceases after death and that death is its ultimate terminus. In the 5 sections it includes, I combine a variety of extracts from my own writings on the themes of both Bodyhood and ‘Being Beyond Death’ with those of others - including the Iranologist Henry Corbin and the SETH books of Jane Roberts.