Tell me the truth, doctor! by Charles Lebaigue MD

You know, I taught medical psychology for 20 years to a lot of

medicine students. In fact since the very beginning of the

Antwerp Medical Faculty.

And all those years I tried to make my teaching language

each time clearer and more adequate to the topics I discussed

with my 21 years old students.

They were not more than 30 in the heroic beginning of the

University : almost boys. But in my last years, they were

Already more than 100 -- almost girls. Times do change.

I am sure you'll forgive me to have revealed something about

my own person before you take the challenge to follow me in

my more "philosophical" reflections.

If you are NOT so interested in such a "heavy" topics,

please * J U M P * straight to the END of next section:

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BUT.if you ARE, Fellow Heavy Thinkers, here we go!

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4. The Editor's view about Truth!

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What for a "truth" is the patient here above asking for?

What would SHE call The Truth in this case?

A plausible description of the development of her bad health

condition. An explanation she can believe and put up with.

But a "truth" her doctor also really can believe. And actually

does believe. In fact she asks for a "truth" they both believe

in and want to work with.

Is The Truth then nothing else than a suitable, from both

partners agreed tale? A story we now believe because

we trust each other TODAY ? Maybe we won't believe

"that truth" tomorrow any more. But another truth:

Our tomorrow's truth.

Truth - our truth - is like a living being: it has to be born,

To live a certain amount of time, to die and fully disappear.

Just as our Feelings do. Their existence is limited to the

duration of our actual relationship to a person or an object.

Do I assume then that there is no other Truth than such one?

Yes, I do. Truth is for me "social stuff". A kind of secret

between a "You" and a "Me".

And a secret "we" BOTH believe in.

For the present moment.

And this "You" has not to be a person of flesh and blood.

It can be God, the Bible, or even the Science, the Fate.

As long as I confirm "Your" existence for me by talking

to "You", by BELIEVING in "You".

Truth is thus a question of belief, of trust.

When the trust is over, the belief vanished? "Farewell Truth!"

Scientific Truth becomes "a remnant of a primitive stage of

Mankind". Do you remember the "childish" conception of

the old Ptolemy: the Earth as the centre of the Universe?

Even Religion is often degraded nowadays to the status of a

nice fairy tale "we" once believed when "we" were just kids.

And consider how difficult it is for us to remember vividly

that we have really been in love with a person we now fear

or despise so much.

But we really have been, you know! And it was true love.

THEN.

Let me try to give an exacter definition of the word truth,

as we commonly use and understand it:

Truth is what both (or more) partners agree to be true

at the very moment of their trustful conversation.

They both (or all) believe that truth. But They are

the only ones to can bear witness to it.

Nobody else can.

Truth has nothing to do, consequently, with a Permanent

Universal Reality that would exist on its own, either we

believe it or not.

Truth has thus nothing to do with Objectivity. With Facts.

And only facts seem to obey to the laws of the contemporary

Science. They can (mostly) be checked by an independent

observer. One can measure them, mathematically analyse,

repeat and predict them.

Do you need to believe something or someone to be sure about

a fact? NO ! You just have to check it by yourself.

Facts can't be true or false. They just ARE there, outside

of us, 'waiting' till the Science begins to explain them. In

other words, till we perceive them and give them a name,

a significance.

And that name IS NOT the fact itself , but the OPINION one

has about this fact (e.g. "the Earth is flat") depending a lot

of the explanation the Science builds around that opinion.

Many scientific theories and axioms have taken, nowadays, the

place of the former religious Authority. You have to agree

with them if you want to build a career at the University or

if you want to be published in a "serious" magazine.

Just as the Churches did in the old days, the 'Academics' teach

the people what they SHOULD now believe about the universe, if

they want to avoid a conflict with the 'spiritual' Authority.

Those scientific dogmas (or paradigms, as they were recently

renamed), are presented to the people as the Truth. And they

ARE really the Truth . for those who BELIEVE in them.

As long, of course, as the present believers won't loose their

'faith' in them. And choose a new scientific Truth to believe

in (also doomed -- of course -- to disappear sooner or later.).

This has always been and will probably ever be the behaviour

of the upper intellectual class.

Why do I insist so heavily upon this point?

Because the Holistic approach of the reality (and of course

of the Medicine) proceeds from an other paradigm (another

belief about what is real) than the paradigm of the majority

of the contemporary scientists.

But I'm sure it has been enough for today. We'll surely talk

again about that big problem. In one of next issues.

Go to Page 1

BIO:

Charles Lebaigue MD is a retired Belgian professor(Medical Psychology)who successfully practised several holistic therapies

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