The totality of human existence in “Comprehensive Medicine” An attempt at dialogue with “Existential Counseling” by Katsutaro Nagata

Abstract

I arrived at the following views by comparing and realizing a dialogue between the book, “Existential Counseling,” by the late Katsutaro Nagata, former president of the International Foundation of Comprehensive Medicine, and a chapter in my book, “Vision Brings the World,” in which I examined my own experience with hospitalization. In other words, the “Comprehensive Medicine” advocated by the International Foundation of Comprehensive Medicine, and in particular, the unique practice of “art therapy,” is a “mind-body correlation” therapy that attempts to activate the body's immunity against disease by making patients keenly aware that we exist as a “microcosm” surrounded by beautiful, pleasant, encouraging, and poignant experiences (letting us live mentally), and that by making ourselves keenly aware that the meaning of life is to realize and develop ourselves as such a “microcosm” through our bonds with others, we are able to transform the disease currently being treated into an opportunity to realize “the paradox that a single illness can give us whole good health.”