INTRODUCTION

This paper is intended to share a personal view of man's approach to sickness, and what we expect from our therapists, be they medical or otherwise. It also attempts to look beyond our normal reactions and expec­tations in illness and ask the more difficult questions of why such things could happen. Much of the view point results simply from seeing many patients confronted by illness and what this has done in their lives, and I have a growing conviction that what it brings about is not all bad!

It may seem a bit presumptuous for a mere surgeon to undertake - after all any physician will tell you that surgeons do, physicians think. Certainly I profess no great knowledge of psychology, psychiatry, theology or even a philosophy of man, and so there will probably be no great revelations here. Nor do I want to try and cover the whole matter of sickness and healing, which is complex, many faceted, and better addressed by many others. (See among suggested titles for further reading at conclusion.) In part, the stimulus to share this has come from a dichotomy which I see affecting many people, especially Christian people today, in which they are teetering between two points of view that seem opposed to one another, namely whether to 'go the way of science, or the way of faith'. I will attempt to show that these are not in opposition to each other.

Dr. Neil McIntosh is a person most competent to make the remarks he does in the pages of this book. Not only is he well qualified in his profession but he is one who has deeply interested himself over the years in the whole matter of healing, i.e; holistic healing. He has keenly watched the present movement of spiritual and faith healing with a sympathetic eye and as a practising Christian.