Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
The meaning of healing: transcending suffering
1Tacoma Family Medicine, WA 98405-4238, USA. tom.egnew@multicare.org
Purpose:
Medicine is traditionally considered a healing profession, but it has neither an operational definition of healing nor an explanation of its mechanisms beyond the physiological processes related to curing. The objective of this study was to determine a definition of healing that operationalizes its mechanisms and thereby identifies those repeatable actions that reliably assist physicians to promote holistic healing.
Methods:
This study was a qualitative inquiry consisting of in-depth, open-ended, semistructured interviews with Drs. Eric J. Cassell, Carl A. Hammerschlag, Thomas S. Inui, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Cicely Saunders, Bernard S. Siegel, and G. Gayle Stephens. Their perceptions regarding the definition and mechanisms of healing were subjected to grounded theory content analysis.
Results:
Healing was associated with themes of wholeness, narrative, and spirituality. Healing is an intensely personal, subjective experience involving a reconciliation of the meaning an individual ascribes to distressing events with his or her perception of wholeness as a person.
Conclusions:
Healing may be operationally defined as the personal experience of the transcendence of suffering. Physicians can enhance their abilities as healers by recognizing, diagnosing, minimizing, and relieving suffering, as well as helping patients transcend suffering.
Related Concept Videos
Healing I: Introduction
Healing II: Complications
Humanistic Therapy
Classification of Illness
An illness is a response to a disease in which the person's level of functioning is changed compared with a previous level. The general classification of illness includes acute and chronic.
Acute illness is severe and...
Restorative Care
Continuing Care
