Self-knowledge and self-healing from the perspective of natural gynecology

experience report from a family practice female doctor

Abstract

Natural Gynecology, known for being an autonomous and political gynecology, is understood as a political and pedagogical movement that questions the medical-pharmaceutical alliance and rescues ancestral knowledge, claiming self-knowledge as a form of personal empowerment. It takes precedence over the pathologization, medicalization, and commercialization processes that are especially aimed at feminized bodies and proposes a systemic look at the health-disease processes, taking into account the bodily, mental, and energetic (spiritual) dimensions of the being. In view of this, there are numerable approaches between Family Practice and Natural Gynecology, as both are based on the integralist paradigm and are related to the Person-Centered Clinical Method (PCCM). Furthermore, through empathic listening, longitudinality and mastery of the PCCM, female and male family physicians act as agents or facilitators of healing. From the perspective of Natural Gynecology, self-knowledge is an essential tool in the path of (self)healing. And, by exploring the experience with the disease, as reiterated by the first component of the PCCM, female and male physicians can help people understand their unique processes of illness, thus contributing to the journey of self-knowledge and self-healing of each one. Thus, this theoretical essay aimed to dialogue about the role of female and male family physicians as healing agents and understand how Natural Gynecology can enhance this process through its main tool: self-knowledge.