Educating Mind Educating Heart "Educating the Heart

Educating Mind Educating Heart "Educating the Heart and Mind" The legacy of the philosophy of Aristotle is a significant one that traverses many traditions and messages both ancient and modern (Buckingham & Finger 1997) (Sarah 2001). One of the most significant and enduring of his messages is that associated with the quote, "educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." This message is particularly resonate within the helping professions of health care and particularly important for the education of physicians.

The reasons for this are many but most significantly learning the materials that make it possible to become a physician is a formidable task as the massive amount of knowledge required dominates one's education. There is so very much knowledge that must be obtained and much of it is extremely scientific and cerebral leaning such education toward people with an aptitude to think scientifically and apply their learning in this manner.

The danger then arises when the cerebral is divorced from the humanity that is also inherent of the physician's duties. For a physician to be most effective he or she must understand the need for compassion in all knowledge and most importantly compassion in his or her actions towards those he or she is caring for and for a broader sense of life in general. Teaching the heart and the mind together inherently builds on the concepts of holism and human frailty.

Holism is a concept that cannot be ignored, especially in the modern world as now more than ever individuals must recognize the holism of health and wellness for individuals and community (Sarah 2001) To be a supreme intellect is only partly achieved when one teaches only to the mind. Those who receive an education in becoming a doctor that does not consider the feelings and emotions of others or how those feelings and emotions interplay with holistic living is essentially missing an anchor for which to help others.

Ultimately a doctor's most enduring task is to find a balance between what he or she knows about the body in his or her mind and what he or she knows about the heart of individuals and humanity in general. In other words if the heart is left out of the equation when educating a new doctor he or she will be wholeheartedly lacking in the ability to understand the whole picture of health and more importantly unable to connect feelings to actions of the body and mind.

At the very least the message associated with Aristotle's heart and mind philosophy of education relates the idea that the thoughts and feelings of an individual influence a physiological response that can and often does have a significant effect on health (Buckingham & Finger 1997). When one is unable to recognize this in him or herself i.e. The internal connections between thought, feeling and emotion and physiology the individual lacks the ability to fully "treat" another.

In other words he or she lacks true empathy and cannot therefore demonstrate sound advice regarding anyone's health including his or her own. The danger of this is educating thousands of individuals to recognize only the scientific and to ignore the humanity in his or her patients, the frailty that can be associated with an ailing mental state of being and how improving this mental state can aid the individual in the ultimate goal of health.

This message is particularly important when one looks at the history of the study of the brain and mind, as a physician must understand that all the answers are not always available in science, some must be.