Healing with Heart from Moss Communications

Healing Presence

Healing Presence is the first reflection in Healing with Heart: Inspirations for Health Care Professionals. It was placed first because it discusses a central concept of what it means and what it takes to be a healing presence, a term that many health care professionals understand and appreciate.

This reflection also sets the tone for Healing with Heart by taking what could be viewed as a lofty theme, healing presence, and grounding it in real-world examples of how all kinds of people working in health care express their healing presence. Here’s a small excerpt from this reflection:
 

All of us are in need of healing, whether we are in a hospital or not. On an emotional level, past conflicts and lost dreams lodge in our memory and subtly find their way into our lives. Kind words, an understanding glance, a favor offered, and honest conversations go a long way to healing the wounds we carry.

Bringing a healing presence to one another doesn’t require special training or expertise. On the contrary, we are a healing presence to one another in ordinary ways that are easy to overlook.

• When a nurse notices and lingers with a patient who is fearful, he is a healing presence.

• When a technically proficient physician remembers that she is a physician-healer, as well as a physician-scientist, the door to healing is opened.

• When an office assistant offers to cover for a colleague in need, even before being asked, there is healing.

• When a patient representative listens attentively and turns to help a complaining family member, families are healed.

• When a supervisor genuinely makes time to acknowledge, support, and lead their colleagues, there is healing in the relationships.