Trafford Publishing: Something to Chew On: A Mouth Map to Health

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Something to Chew On: A Mouth Map to Health

by Philip Christie

136 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1759; ISBN 1-4120-1381-X; US$17.55, C$22.22, EUR14.44, £10.00

Healthy teeth for life- without treatment. A mouth map for general and dental health. Your mouth speaks to you and points the direction to excellent health.

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About the Book

"Something To Chew On" is a Health Manual first and foremost, but it is a Health Manual with a difference. The difference is a new way of seeing, a new and deeper understanding, a new perspective. And that new perspective is the difference that makes all the difference.
It has been called The Health Manual With Teeth because it is effective. It gets the job done. It is effective yet it is gentle and easy to understand. Although its primary focus is the Mouth, it introduces the Mouth as the Mirror of the body. This means that the mouth can be seen as an excellent predictor of the health of the body as a whole. Indeed the mouth maps in clear terms the overall status of health of the individual, - mind, emotion and body. In order to understand this, we must adjust our perspective. We must look at things in a different way.
In all there are 7 new perspectives
The First New Perspective, - The Person As Partner
This approach is quite different from the usual approaches to dental disease. Traditionally the focus is on the teeth and what can be done to them. The dentist finds the problems and then fixes them. The person has the minor role while the dentist has the major one. This model serves to keep the focus on the dentist and away from the person and so tends to promote dependence rather than independence.
Our approach reverses the traditional approach. This means that the person assumes the major role and the dentist, the minor one. The person her/himself becomes the key factor in management with the dentist providing a guiding and helping role.
The Second New Perspective,
The Person As A Whole
Holistic Dentistry - Understanding The Whole Person. This approach recognises the complex nature of a human being and the many factors that may be at play in problems manifesting in the mouth.
This is a key new perspective. It acknowledges and welcomes the whole person,- mind, emotion, body and spirit. Seeing in this way enables prevention of disease in ways previously impossible and truly empowers the individual as 'captain of the ship'.
The Third New Perspective,
- the Mouth in all its glory
The mouth is often seen as nothing more than a chewing device!! This book provides a very different way of looking. This new perspective allows a completely new understanding of the mouth and all its functions. We go beyond a purely mechanical view of the mouth as a 'food chewing system'. Certainly, it is one of the functions and a very important one at that but it is not the only one.
We would introduce you to the Mouth as the Gateway of the Body. As such it is the organ through which we allow all manner of food and drink into the body. It is also a gateway for pollutants as well as cigarette smoke and alcohol. In this way, the Mouth can be seen as an Entrance Gateway.
Our relationship with food and drink has many and varied consequences for our health. The first and most obvious is management of weight. However other conditions such as health of heart and health of arteries as well as health of pancreas and health of bowels are all directly related to our relationship with food. Our relationship with food has effects on the stomach and the acid it produces and this can directly affect the teeth.
A gateway functions in both directions so we can see the mouth as an exit as well as anentrance. So now the Mouth is seen as the Organ of Communication and Expression. Through the mouth we express our thoughts and feelings and this is as vital to our wellbeing as our intake of food. In this regard we consider our relationship with "speaking our minds". This particular relationship has implications for our psychological and emotional health as well as the health of the jaws, teeth and gums.
The Mouth can also be seen as an Organ of Pleasure and Enjoyment through which we experience an infinite variety of flavours, textures and tastes. This relationship has implications for psychological and emotional health as well, in that enjoyment or pleasure (particularly sexual pleasure) is sometimes seen in some cultures as wrong, selfish or 'sinful'. While this area is vitally important, it is not one of our particular areas of expertise. We do, however, strongly encourage people to pursue a healthy relationship in this area and if necessary to consult with those professionals who work in the field.
The Fourth New Perspective, -
Understanding the Nature of Habit.
Unless negative and unhelpful habits are understood as founded on and supported by stress, there is little chance of dealing with them effectively. This is why we have had little success to date with these problems. This is why it happens that people give up cigarettes but put on weight as they substitute food or why people give up cigarettes and begin to suffer from tooth decay as they substitute sweet things for the cigarettes. We do not realise that we are not in fact, undoing the habits but merely changing them from one form to another.
The Fifth New Perspective, -
Understanding Past Failure - trying to change an Effect without reference to the Cause
We must stop believing that changing the light-bulb will fix the electrical fault. In the same way that we must go to the fuse-board to find the source of the electrical fault, we must go back to the mind to find the source of our habits. The cause of a problem must be clearly understood before a solution can be proposed. The book shows how we have been focussing on fixing the effects of stress without reference to the cause. This basic error increases the problem rather than solves it.
The Sixth New Perspective, -
Dealing with Stress as a Priority
Once stress is understood as the source of the problem, our treatment becomes the dissolution of stress in all its various disguises, - anxiety, worry, fear, resentment, upset, regret etc. As we address these issues in the gentlest way our stress dissolves and the habits and behaviours that were supported and strengthened by the stress become amenable to easy change. Our dis-ease is gently replaced with ease and comfort.
The Seventh New Perspective, -
The Gentle Approach is a Requirement not an Optional Extra.
To be gentle may sound like an option, something which can be used or not. Gentleness and patience are essential to healing because they dissolve stress and tension which produce disease in the first place. Any force or effort produces stress and tension and leads to more disease, not less.

About the Author

Philip Christie is a native of Finglas, North Dublin and was educated at St. Vincent's C.B.S., Glasnevin. He was conferred with a Bachelor's Degree in Dental Science at Trinity College Dublin in 1980. His research in the field of Periodontology earned him a Masters Degree in Dental Science, again from Trinity College Dublin in 1995. His main interest in dental health has always been in the prevention of disease.
Currently based in Waterford City, Philip Christie brings to the practice of Dentistry a holistic and people-centered approach. Through his easy and friendly manner and deep understanding of the issues that lie behind dental disease, he helps dissolve the fears and phobias which traditionally surround a dental visit. The insights shared in this work form the basis for the Integrated Model of Dental Care which this author brings to the field of Dental Science.

Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Introduction To The Concept
This manual is for you, the individual person. The purpose of the manual is to give you what rightfully belongs to you - the Captaincy of your own ship. The dentist may help you along the way but you are the "boss". You are the Captain of your Ship.
The Captain makes the decisions. He/she listens carefully to the advice of others but the decision or choice is always a matter finally for the Captain.
Your biggest and best resource is yourself. The manual is intended as practical and everyday. It is easy to implement. It costs little to implement. All that is required of you is care, willingness, commitment, and time. The approach that we will offer is quite different from the usual approaches to dental disease. Traditionally the focus is on the teeth and what can be done to them. The dentist finds the problems and then fixes them. The person has the minor role while the dentist has the major one. This model serves to keep the focus on the dentist and away from the person and so tends to promote dependence rather than independence.
Holistic Dentistry - Understanding The Whole Person.
We offer a new way, one where the person assumes the major role and the dentist the minor one. We offer a mind/body or holistic approach. It views the person as a whole, mind and body. It allows us to look anew and reinterpret the well-known characteristics of dental disease through understanding a little more of our basic human nature.
Although much has been spoken and written of mind/body approaches I am not aware of a clear documentation of pathways between mind and body. I hope to show such a clear pathway. Many have had difficulty understanding how mind, which is so nonphysical, could be related to the physical body. Indeed mind has readily been put down as 'not real'. How often have you heard people say "that is only in your mind" clearly implying "that is not real".
I will point a clear pathway of cause and effect. We begin with the mind, - our thoughts, ideas, notions and attitudes about ourselves. In particular it is the negative thoughts, ideas, notions and attitudes that do not serve either our general good or our good health.
We will then follow these negative thoughts, ideas, notions etc. and see how they can influence our feelings and emotions negatively. Then we will see how our emotional well-being relates to what is called stress.
We will then see how all this influences our habits and behaviours and finally how our habits and behaviours influence the process of disease in the mouth. We will then find ways to modify or eliminate behaviours and habits that do not serve our best interests and our health. With this understanding we will look anew at the common diseases and conditions of the mouth. We will consider each of the common conditions separately. We will consider each of them in the following way:
1. Understanding broadly the nature of the disease. (What is it?)
2. Understanding broadly the disease process. (What does it do?)
3. Using the information we have to intercept the process at whatever point it can be accessed. (What can I do about it?)
We will keep our focus on what the person can do to prevent or modify the process. We will not concern ourselves about what the dentist can do. That is for other books. Neither will we concern ourselves with aspects of the process that we cannot modify, e.g. genetic factors.
While we accept that these factors contribute to the overall picture they are irrelevant to us here because we cannot influence them. Simply put, we cannot change our DNA (at least not yet!). We will concern ourselves only with things that the person herself/himself can change. This approach is about personal power in action.
How To Use The Manual
Welcome to simplicity itself.
All too often people complicate things with elaborate descriptions and sometimes the problem then seems even more difficult to overcome. This is unhelpful, and we may end up feeling overwhelmed believing the whole thing is impossible. So, with this in mind, we intend to focus on simple understanding and simple methods to deal with problems.
The solutions we propose involve daily awareness and daily care.
We hope to encourage good habits, which will replace the bad ones over time. Habits are deeply ingrained behaviour patterns and so need time to be replaced.
There is no hurry. There is no deadline.
Just commit to the process and the rewards will come in time. Do not be hard or harsh with yourself if you forget. Simply resolve to start again. In trying to replace good habits for bad ones there will be a transition time when both good and bad are present. Do not be concerned with this. Simply note that this is part of the changing process.
Encourage yourself frequently by reminding yourself of the benefits that will result when your new strategy is fully in place.
Remember as well that your new habits benefit your general health as well - both psychologically and physically.
Being the agent of change for yourself and seeing your strategy develop and come to fruition is a most empowering event showing you that you can accomplish anything easily and successfully with time, willingness, patience and commitment.
Good Luck!
How has science failed us?
The answer is again simple. Science is a pursuit of our human species, yet it neglects anything that it cannot measure. But many of the fundamental characteristics of humanity cannot be measured. This is especially true of emotions. Science then chooses to ignore a major facet of human life, - our emotional life. This facet of human life is so woven into the very fabric of our daily existence, both work and leisure, that to ignore it is to omit a vital ingredient of our humanity. Science then fails humanity because it does not honour all of our humanness. It cannot speak to the whole when it operates only in part.
It has long been recognized that knowledge alone is not enough to change behaviour. Knowing the dangers of smoking does not stop intelligent people from smoking. Knowing the possible fatal consequences of drug addiction does not prevent intelligent and highly creative people from falling prey. Why do so many of us, including highly acclaimed stars of music, screen and sports, fall prey to drugs? What is it about us as a people that makes us even more likely to fall prey, when we have fame and fortune?
The answer lies in our poor understanding of stress, - our negative feelings and emotions, - and how these form the supporting matrix for our habits and behaviours. We also do not appreciate how these habits and behaviours support the disease process physically. That is why it is crucial for us as individuals and as community to begin the integration of our various fields of study to see how they are related and interrelated. No field of health science is complete without the relevant psychology and behavioural science. This is how we honour wisdom rather than knowledge and find the way to change the behaviours that do not serve us or our good health.

Catalogue Information