Healing in Body, Mind, and Spirit
The Assarian Cancer Center represents a bold departure from the cancer centers that preceded it. The Assarian family, the primary donors, had lost the family patriarch to cancer. He received all the best state-of-the-art treatments of the era. He progressed from curable to incurable to terminal stages; and it was not until he reached the terminal state and entered hospice care that his emotional needs and those of his family were fully addressed. The primary goal of the Assarian project was to move intense supportive care to earlier points in the cancer journey, including curable and incurable stages. A typical cancer center of the time merely treated the cancer itself with a disease-centered approach. Shifting the mission to include care and support of the individual and their family was a radical change. Committing brick and mortar space to such support was direct witness that such intense, personalized care and support is an indispensable part of modern holistic care.
The proposed right-brain, left-brain, soul-brain model for such care was a novel formulation that recognized how wide ranging the needs of individuals can be. Arriving at peace for a dominant left-brain person requires scientific information and evidence. A right-brain dominant person may find resolve in art, poetry, or pounding clay. For the soul-brain person, assigning a meaning to the illness, and seeing that illness as a vehicle of initiation and personal transformation is the path to peace. It was a momentous point of progress to move beyond the notion that one size fits all and to pursue the true goal of individualized care for “this person, and this person only." Ironically, modern treatments for the cancer itself are now individualized and essentially come down to the same realization that individual tumors are unique and the best treatments must take that uniqueness into account.
The term 'healing' in healing arts requires definition and clarification in the modern science-based medical tradition. Healing does not refer to the miraculous healing of cancer or illness, but to the infinite adaptability of properly supported patients to come to peace and wholeness in the midst of serious illness. That process of adaptation and empowerment is celebrated at Assarian and is miraculous in its own right. Each prognostic stage, from curable to incurable to terminal, forces personal response and transformation. What patients learn on their journeys is also of infinite value to the healthy, and to those who travel the path of serious illness after them.
A Tour of the Assarian Cancer Center - The architecture of the Assarian Cancer Center reflects the drama of the illness.
Soulscape - The Assarian Cancer Center's Reflection Space is the center piece of a three-part healing arts center based on a right brain - left brain - soul brain model. The notion that each individual needs very different things to come to peace on their cancer journey is reflected in the very architecture of the building.
Initiation - The term initiation refers to either an organized series of experiences or a less organized school of hard knocks, both of which can bring about maturity. Illness has long been recognized as an initiation with the concept of the cancer journey being a prime example.