Robert’s lecture notes from a workshop by Michio Kushi. On the left hand page, “an age of ignorance,” is declared, in which disease acts as “a challenge to our humanness.” On the topic of gratitude, Robert writes: “The business of blaming others for our problems is an adolescent way of thinking.” Health also includes positive thinking.

This leads to the diagram on the facing page, which resembles the kundalini of yogic theory, with its ascending chakras. In the West, this idea was spread by Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. American psychologist Abraham Maslow further popularized the concept in his well-known hierarchy of needs. Maslow and his colleague Carl Rogers did not study neurotic and dysfunctional cases for clues to the workings of the mind, but instead looked at healthy and successful people in what they called “humanistic psychology.”

In the health field, doctors mostly treat people after they become ill. Two alternative approaches challenge this way of thinking. “Green medicine” stresses prevention of disease, encouraging people to strive for optimal health through diet, exercise and lifestyle, while “integrative medicine” or “integrative health” combines alternative approaches with more conventional medical treatments.