What is Medical Intuition?
“Medical Intuitive: The utilization of a focused, intuitive instinct to ‘diagnose’ or ‘read’ energetic and frequency information in and around the human body.” - Institute of Medicine, Committee on the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States: Appendix A, Washington (DC), National Academies Press; 2005.
Medical Intuition is a process of intuitive observation and assessment of the physical body and biofield,* (aura and chakra system), designed to support whole-person health and wellbeing in body, mind, and spirit.
In the early twentieth century, medical intuitive pioneer Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) utilized his intuition as a powerful standalone assessment skill. Cayce performed more than 8000 dedicated health readings with an estimated 85% accuracy rate.
In 1985, C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD, began his research of Caroline Myss’ remote intuitive evaluations of his patients’ physical anatomy, physiology, and biofield for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual information relating to their health issues. Shealy gauged Myss as 93% accurate. Together, they coined the term, medical intuitive to describe Myss’ process.
Through their practices, research, and writings, Cayce and Myss established some of the first foundational competencies for the field. In accordance with the practices of these seminal field leaders, NOMI defines Medical Intuition as a skill of intuitive observation, evaluation, and assessment of the physical body and biofield, that can be practiced separately from any intervention, treatment, or healing service. See Definitions below.
See our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information.
*The biofield, also known as the aura and chakra system, is defined as “a massless field … that surrounds and permeates living bodies.” Rubik, B., Muehsam, D., Hammerschlag, R., & Jain, S. (2015). Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 4(Suppl), 8–14.
nomi Definition of Medical Intuition
Medical Intuition is considered part of the emerging fields of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), and Complementary and Integrative Health (CIH).
Medical Intuition is a skill of intuitive observation, evaluation, and assessment designed to obtain information from both the physical body, including the anatomy and physiology, and the biofield, or energetic systems of the body.*
Medical Intuition is intended to assess and evaluate aspects of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energetic imbalances.
Medical Intuition is not intended to deliberately or intentionally affect, touch, or manipulate the physical body or the biofield.
Medical Intuition can be practiced separately from any intervention, treatment, or healing service.
Although Medical Intuition uses the word “medical,” it is not to be construed as the practice of medicine, psychotherapy, or any other licensed healthcare practice, and is not a substitute or replacement for the services of licensed healthcare providers.
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MEDICAL INTUITION
BY Tiffany Barsotti, PhD, MTH, CHT
What are medical intuitives and how do we work?
Medical intuitives pay attention to what your body is saying or not saying. Medical intuitives are essentially “reading” energy. Our energy speaks volumes - it has lots of things to say! From your bones to your biofield, there is an opportunity for listening. A medical intuitive’s job is to tune in with our intuitive senses and help to give you feedback.
Medical intuitives are interested where patterns exist and where emotions or energy may be stored. Many people want to take a “magic pill,” but healing oftentimes doesn’t work that way, as there may have been things that we may have been ignoring. We have learned to store and tuck away things away into places that medical intuitives may have the ability to perceive.
This is also how medical intuitives may work beneficially on an integrative care team. Medical intuitives can help a client’s healthcare provider gain a different vantage point through a different lens, and help to unfurl the wisdom that’s carried within each of us.
A medical intuitive ASSESSMENT
BY Elizabeth Thorson, RN
The medical intuitive assessment can give clients a health “blueprint,” with resources to move forward and take action aimed to improve their health and well-being in whatever direction, be it holistic, traditional, or a blend of both
A medical intuitive assessment may involve the following areas of focus:
An intuitive review of the chakras vitality as they contribute to emotional / physical health
An intuitive review of the physical body systems
An intuitive review of important acupuncture meridians & points
A look at the themes, “stories,” and possible Past Life influences that may impact well-being
A collection of holistic and traditional resources to address physical, spiritual and emotional aspects of any health concerns
This information can assess the health and vitality of the physical body and energetic systems, such as the chakras & energy field, specific emotional patterns, and the physical symptoms that may be impacting health. This process is a holistic body/mind/spirit overview of health.
HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS: WHY SHOULD WE BE INTERESTED IN MEDICAL INTUITION?
BY LLOYD COSTELLO, MD
Licensed healthcare providers often refer to our particular diagnostic and therapeutic skill set as the “tools in our toolbox.” Imagine if we had a tool in our toolbox that would tell us in advance whether or not a particular medication or therapy would be beneficial for a patient? Currently we use a best guess scenario and hope that our patient will benefit from our decision and not have an adverse outcome.
Medical intuition can allow us to test different treatment modalities or medications in advance, before we actually prescribe or order them for our patients. Imagine the potential benefits to our patients if we are able to identify and prescribe the best therapy or medication at the outset and avoid any untoward side effects or complications. This is consistent with our primary directive to “first do no harm.”
Additionally, the medical intuitive process can be applied to which test or imaging study to order for a patient. What if we could avoid unnecessary tests and potentially harmful exposure to radiation or chemicals by using medical intuition to identify the test that will yield the most useful and pertinent information? Imagine the cost savings as well as avoidance of the potentially harmful effects of unnecessary studies performed on our patients.
And finally, what if we had a tool that could narrow our differential diagnosis? We could then focus on the area of the body that required attention and initiate treatment quickly and efficiently. This could halt the progression of disease and mitigate complications.
Medical intuition brings a unique set of tools to our armamentarium designed to strengthen areas of weakness in the way we manage disease and treat patients. It provides a methodology so that licensed providers can more quickly and efficiently assess and treat illness, improve patient outcomes, reduce adverse effects and promote healthy lifestyle choices. It can also provide significant cost savings by avoiding needless tests and prescriptions as well as the costs incurred for managing adverse events that could have been prevented.
EXTENDED SENSORY PERCEPTION
BY CAY RANDALL-MAY, PHD
Modern concepts of human physical and emotional well-being are rightly based on scientific research and exploration. A basic premise of rational thought is that scientific concepts are modified by observations based on research; controlled measurement and testing. Our approach to this way of thinking about the world is called the Scientific Method, and is by definition evidence-based.
What happens when evidence challenges concepts? Scientists question and test the evidence in order to expand their understanding of the underlying principles. For example, anecdotal evidence of intuition is overwhelming. As a medical intuitive and biologist, I know through personal experience that clairvoyance, clairsentience and other extended senses allow me to perceive the world remotely. There must be more to my senses than merely physical organs connected to a physical brain.
Over many decades I have used intuition to explore the nature of matter using a process I call “extended sensory perception.” This has led me to agree with some modern physicists that matter and energy are constantly interchanging in such a way that our physical bodies, including our brains and sensory organs, share a quantum existence. In addition to our solid, physical tissues we possess a purely energetic field, the bioplasmic field, which is universal and non-local. Extended sensory perception is possible because we are all part of this shared energetic environment. As scientific exploration of thought expands to include quantum physics our understanding and acceptance of intuition will naturally evolve.
IS MEDICAL INTUITION REAL AND DOES IT WORK?
BY LARRY BURK, MD, CEHP
published in Thrive Global, Medium, 2018
Modern fascination with medical intuition, the ability to make a diagnosis without history, physical examination or laboratory studies, can be traced back to Edgar Cayce, “the Sleeping Prophet of Virginia Beach.” The case reports from Cayce are compelling as he did over 8,000 readings about physical ailments before his death in 1945, many of which have confirmation of accuracy. However, despite an abundance of encouraging anecdotes that continue to accumulate to the present day from a growing number of medical intuitives, the scant scientific research to date is inconclusive.
[As of this writing] there have been only four studies in the medical literature in the past 25 years which have attempted to investigate this mysterious phenomenon. The first two looked at the general ability of intuitives to make a diagnosis for a variety of medical conditions. One was a qualitative study that had some promising positive results, and the second was a quantitative study that showed a disappointing maximum 14% accuracy. The other two studies looked at specific medical conditions compared to conventional tests. One investigating the ability to determine fertility status showed negative results, and the second looking at low back pain and sciatica demonstrated 54% correlation with MRI scan findings.
The low back pain study is of particular interest as it was done by a leading integrative medicine physician, Steve Amoils, MD, and a top MRI radiologist, Stephen Pomeranz, MD, and one of the two intuitive subjects was Rosalyn Bruyere, DD, an internationally known healer. Their conclusion from the study was that “the practitioners correctly identified disk pathology and pain patterns in a significant number of patients.” Rev. Bruyere will be a keynoter at the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology annual conference in San Antonio, TX, where I will be co-presenting a preconference workshop on Messages from the Body: Accessing Somatic Consciousness for Healing.
There are a few physicians who are medical intuitives also, combining their conventional skills with their intuitive abilities. Judith Orloff, MD, is a psychiatrist who suppressed her empathic gifts during medical school only to reclaim them when she finished her residency. Psychiatrist/behavioral neuroscientist Mona Lisa Schulz, MD, PhD, has used her academic background to draw interesting correlations between the psychological literature and the chakras, making scientific sense of ancient teachings about the metaphysical energy centers of the body.
My interest in this field stems from an anomalous experience I had in 1990 with medical intuitive Caroline Myss, PhD, who collaborates with one of my mentors, neurosurgeon Norm Shealy, MD, PhD. Supplied with only the name and age of a young patient she was able to make an accurate diagnosis over the phone of a rare malignant bone tumor that I had detected on an MRI scan a few hours earlier. This paradigm-shifting moment in my radiology career led me to become a founding board member of the American Board of Scientific Medical Intuition which offers certification exams for intuitives.
In 1993 I met another medical intuitive, psychotherapist Winter Robinson, MEd, at the Society for Medical Decision Making annual conference where she led an experiential workshop on intuitive diagnosis. Since all the healthcare professionals who attended were novices, it was remarkable that about half the participants obtained accurate diagnostic information about patients after being given just a name and location. Twenty years later we started leading workshops together at The Monroe Institute on Medical Intuition and Symbolic Diseases. I hope that the intuitive imagery exercises we teach there will inspire much needed additional research in this intriguing field.
Burk, L., MD. (2018, June 8). Is Medical Intuition Real and Does It work? - Thrive Global. Medium. https://medium.com/thrive-global/is-medical-intuition-real-and-does-it-work-4965210600c1