Here is another patient who was seen for symptoms of pelvic pain, dyspareunia (pain with intercourse) compatible with salpingitis and endometritis (a pelvic infection) and who was treated with antibiotics and returned for reassessment. She had been informed that the antibiotic therapy could have the side effect of diarrhea. She now reports, however, that the diarrhea that she had been having prior to the treatment is now gone.

Further questioning reveals that she had been having symptoms prior that were compatible with an irritable bowel syndrome (frequently diarrhea and constipation alternately), but that these were actually now improved. She wanted to know if these symptoms had anything to do with her pelvic infection.

I spoke with her about a different approach to viewing the human being. I spoke of applying the black box concept viewing the organism as a black box to which an input stimulus is applied and an output-adaptive response is noted. When viewed from a systems approach the internal processing in the black box is characterized by a) incorporation of energy b) transfer/transport of energy c) utilization of energy d) recycling products from the use of energy e) adaptive response. The adaptive response then could be added through the incorporation phase and back once more through the cycle any number of times.

She was made to understand that the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system could decrease or increase any of those four energy flows plus the adaptive response. She replied “yes, the fight or flight response”. It turns out that she was a student of psychology. I then told her that research showed that human emotion caused electrical responses in human DNA, in experiments. The emotional state produced by the “black box” operations, anger, fear, happiness, sadness would all produce differing responses in the DNA.

She said, “Ah! That explains why researchers say that making children with cancer laugh and be happy causes them to heal better. Also, it explained why one person reportedly fighting his cancer successfully with laughter.”

 I went on to say the final component is that the immune system represents the contact with everything else, and frequently there is metaphor in the way it responds regarding relationships with others. In fact experiments showed that immune function of a couple could be affected by simply having an argument that was assigned.

She responded, “That’s why in her psychology class they would say if back pain ensues you should see what you are carrying that belongs to others. If you have an infection you should see what you are letting in.”

I replied that is exactly how this should be interpreted, but that this is not the current way the medicine practiced in western society looks at this. I advise that we could treat the salpingitis one more time as it was improved, and that we could also use an antispasmodic for her irritable bowel syndrome. She advised that she was much better as she did not have pain ‘de novo’ as frequently and that it no longer hurt when she coughed. She said she was going to consider going into the meditative state to tap into the emotional energy state associated with her symptoms. She would, therefore, go with another week of antibiotics and would return for further problems.