Western medicine has proceeded on the assumption that the mind is intelligent but that the body isn't. In effect, the body is a machine made of meat. This machine needs fixing at times, and being deviously complicated, with billions of interconnected parts, it has innumerable ways to break down.

Medical research doesn't so much deny the body's intelligence as ignore it. The next new drug and surgical procedure is pursued independent of anything resembling the mind-body connection. The fact that millions of patients have objections to this approach is scientifically and commercially irrelevant.

In the face of this opposition, it's amazing how far mind-body medicine has gotten. How far the mind-body revolution can go is uncertain, but it seems clear that each of us as individuals must reconnect to the body's wisdom on our own -- on that point all of alternative medicine agrees.

How do you know if the connection was broken in the first place? Look at your basic attitudes and beliefs about your body. If you are connected to your body, the following beliefs would be present.

1. You  respect and trust your body. In a state of disconnection, the body is seen as inert, subject to constant threats, and capable of betraying you by falling sick at any moment.
2. You rely on inner healing and know how to help it when needed. In a state of disconnection, you are baffled and alarmed when something goes wrong and feel that only doctors know what to do.
3. You see the body as a balanced organism living in a balanced ecology. In a state of disconnection the body is seen as totally isolated, with hostile germs attacking it at random.
4. You listen for signals of imbalance before they turn into symptoms of disease. In a state of disconnection, the body is ignored unless it cries out with pain or a sudden breakdown of function.
5. You realize that emotions, stress, depression, anger, and anxiety aren't just psychological but have physical consequences. Every event in the mind matches a corresponding event in the body.  In a state of disconnection, the mind operates independently of the body; neither speaks to the other.

Changing your old, worn out beliefs is a personal project. You don't have to renounce mainstream medicine or deny yourself any treatment necessary as various problems arise. Alternative medicine, in my view, isn't the enemy of mainstream medicine, nor is it simply an adjunct. Instead, it's the practical side of a new way of life, one based on a vision of wholeness.  "Wholeness" has become rather empty from overuse, but it means that you are a totality, not the sum of countless moving parts. 

Wholeness has already won a notable victory without fighting any battles, simply by a change of beliefs. That victory came in the so-called "new old age." In the past, old age was feared, and rightly so, because seniors lost their value to society and were put on the shelf, both mentally and physically. 

When attitudes shifted, thanks to better health and longer life spans, old age shifted with it. People began to expect the opposite of previous generations. They expected old age to be as vigorous, alert, and useful as any other time of life. Quietly, the body cooperated with this new vision.

I consider this a victory for wholeness because a segment of life that had been cut off and detached has been reconnected with the entire human life cycle. Old age is no longer a useless leftover. But that's only the beginning. Nobody knows how much more potential the body contains that is yet untapped. It would seem reasonable to expect more rather than less, however.

Once you begin to trust the body and listen to it, an intimate relationship gets established on the basis of loving regard rather than anxious mistrust. Medical school will probably never teach a course on that (with the possible exception of the psychiatry department), but it could be the most valuable medical breakthrough for coming generations.