Healing

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Healing is the undoing of a harm, wound or injury. It is not always complete. The difference between healing and curing is that you can die, even if healed, but not if cured. Healing thus changes the mind or soul, not the body as a cure does - although a cure can make it easier to heal.

Three things thought to interfere with healing are loneliness (made worse by the isolation that quarantine might bring on, if the disease can infect any one else), the dead end feeling that is associated mostly with terminal illness, and doubt - fear about the future. For elders, being bored or helpless can also sap the will to live.

Mobility thus affects healing - which relies often on a sense that it is easy to adapt to an illness - a case of mind over matter.

There is evidence that these factors play a much greater role in healing than anyone thought in the 20th century - the field of psychoneuroimmunology studies these mind-to-body links.

Patience is required for all healing. Another difference between healing and curing is that healing happens at its own pace, while curing usually relies on a series of medical interventions or therapies. One can also think of healing as what goes on in between rounds of curing - curing being active changes to the body, healing being the body making perhaps the same type of changes to its own structure, adapting to its own new limits. Someone who loses the use of their legs and is confined to a wheelchair can heal if they adapt to its limits and opportunities, even if they are never cured and cannot walk.

Healing matters most when there is no cure at all - the common cold, SARS and HIV, which have no cure, seem to be dealt with best by those who take the changes they require cheerfully.