Treatment – “management in the application of medicines, surgery, etc.”

Remission – “a temporary or permanent decrease or subsidence of manifestations of a disease”

Cure – “relieve (a person or animal) of the symptoms of a disease or condition” or “a substance or treatment that cures a disease or condition”

In practice, the premise of being a good practitioner revolves around being able to “treat” a client successfully, but what it means to actually “treat” properly is a nuanced concept because what a practitioner believes to be an effective treatment will vary from what another practitioner of the same modality believes what an effective treatment is and what one client seeks to obtain/achieve from a consultation may vary from what another client seeks to achieve from the same consult, hence the quotation marks around “treat”.

I propose that defining what a successful treatment is will revolve around what a client seeks to obtain from the clinical experience and whether the practitioner involved can deliver on the client’s wishes. However, there are numerous variables that influence how successful any treatment will be, especially when the presenting case is complex. Referring to the definitions above, remission and cure can be seen as synonyms but people tend to associate a cure with a treatment that completely eradicates any signs/symptoms of a condition, whereas remission represents a state where a client has experienced a significant reduction in the manifestations of the condition that ails them, therefore being cured and entering remission are somewhat mutually exclusive because a person in a state of remission could eventually be cured.

The word cure is somewhat taboo; it is either associated with miracles or with charlatans and swindlers who sell pipe dreams in the form of “cure-all” remedies to the naive and vulnerable. It isn’t that people cannot be cured of their ailments, it’s that many practitioners don’t approach their practices from the angle of curing their clients, but from an angle of symptom management or “empowering” their clients with ample healthy advice, hoping that with sufficient application of such healthy advice, the client will heal themselves in the sense that pivoting one’s lifestyle towards health will restore homeostasis.

I look at a person and their health picture as synonymous with a Rubik’s cube, as in the more complex and chronic their health picture is, the more out of order a Rubik’s cube is and a complete Rubik’s cube would be synonymous with a person who does not show signs/symptoms of any ailment. Regardless of modality, a treatment or treatments, aid the client in restoring homeostasis and this is akin to making one turn after another on a Rubik’s cube until every face of the cube displays their corresponding colours. The internal pivot mechanism in a Rubik’s cube that orchestrates every turn is synonymous with every step in the “right direction” that a client makes towards becoming well, entering remission or being cured altogether. The practitioner’s guidance/treatment represents the turns on a Rubik’s cube that eventually lead to complete healing or at least, remission.

However, referring back to the idea both the practitioner and client’s views/expectations have a massive impact on final outcomes, this is where I highlight the importance of seeking guidance from a practitioner who operates on a similar wavelength to the client, in terms of what the client is hoping to achieve and that the practitioner believes this is possible. If a client is looking for curative solutions, it is imperative that they seek guidance from someone who practices with a central aim of curing their clients. Otherwise, seeking help from a professional who focus on symptom management or lifestyle advice would be akin to making turn after turn on your “internal Rubik’s cube” without a strategy in mind or long-term aim and unsurprisingly, that Rubik’s cube will likely look the way it did when the client began making turns. An exception to this rule would be that on some occasions, sufficient application of lifestyle-oriented advice yields the results that were being sought after.

As living organisms, humans are dynamic in many facets, particularly in health. Resolving long-term chronic maladies is not often as simple as finding the “root cause” of such malady and having a treatment specifically tailored to treat that root cause and the client is finally cured. The resolution or remission of a chronic illness should come with the realisation of how important it is to conceptualise what good health is and make it a habitual practice to engage in every activity that sustains wellbeing. Resolving a chronic illness may have come as a result of a good practitioner’s detective work, accurate diagnostics and treatment, but the continual elbow grease that it will take to sustain those results is on the hands of the client.

When a complex case proves more difficult to treat than anticipated or was hoped for, faith, hope, willpower, and of course, money, will be necessary to see the light at the end of the tunnel or an end in sight. Perseverance is a must on both the client’s and practitioner’s side, given that once a practitioner continues to see a client despite having “thrown in the towel”, the continued treatment will likely revolve around symptom management and if this wasn’t the client’s aim to begin with, then continuing a relationship with opposing goals would be akin to running around in circles whilst hoping to be on course for the finish line. Realistically, the professional way to throw in the towel would be to admit that the treatment being provided isn’t moving the needle as intended, and that a referral would be in order if the client agrees so.

The client is realistically the only party who can accurately gauge if a treatment is yielding any results and consequently, give continuous feedback to the practitioner in charge. The more experience one has in treating clients, the more they will be able to gauge how long it takes, on average, to see results but every person is unique and it is challenging to give anyone a precise finish date. However, it isn’t unreasonable at all to monitor a sense of progress from the beginning and question if the treatment is functioning between 5-10 consults. One can only be hopeful for so long and I sense that this where client’s shoot themselves in the foot sometimes, investing too much faith in someone who is not guiding them accurately and hoping that things will turn around at some point without being honest about the lack of results. Having a clear idea of what a client is seeking in terms of treatment outcomes and ensuring that the professional in charge is operating on the same wavelength will be a key metric to track as time progresses and this will also make it easier to cut ties when it seems evident that things are not progressing how the client intended.