Yesterday I went, as I do every year, to the AGM and seminar day of the British Autogenic Society. I am a Founder Member (1984), having trained in 1982, and have worked closely with BAS for many years.
Yesterday we presented 5 of the 10 most recently qualified members with their Diplomas in Autogenic Training. Much congratulation and joy!
The afternoon presentation was two hours of inspiring knowledge from another old-standing member: Dr Brian Kaplan. He has been teaching AT since 1987 (not as long as me!) alongside his practice in Homoeopathy. He stated yesterday:
‘If I had my way, I would make it mandatory for every GP surgery to run an Autogenic Training course every evening for their patients’.
He had explained the horrifying statistic that 70 – 80% of patient complaints are stress symptoms, or symptoms exacerbated (made worse) by stress. At any given time this figure is never less than 50%.
He said, ‘OK. Everyone knows this, and yet nothing is done about it. NOTHING! Everyone in this room knows how sad and unnecessary that fact is. Doctors and the health service (and therefore the patients too) all wait for real trouble to manifest itself, when in fact patients could be given the tools to help themselves and prevent serious illness’.
Dr Kaplan’s theme was the danger of medical research being too objective. Measuring outcomes of a method like AT is possible – we do not need random control trials for a non-drug method when there is plenty of anecdotal evidence showing that patients know when they feel better, and the doctor realises they have significantly reduced their visits to the surgery.
However, we ended the day with laughter – the other much-ignored medicine for good health.
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