One - third of Americans opt to reach out to alternative healers and modalities in order to address their health concerns. This statistic seems like a hopeful wake - up call to all healers. We as individuals, parents and loved ones are apparently taking a more empowered, active role in our lives and our health than ever before. The adage, "Doctor knows best" seems to be moving out of the way for "Let's look together at how to best address my health concern."

The most common reasoning behind this move toward alternative healing is that people find more personal, human, relationship - centered care and attention with these healers. It is this fact that seems to arise again and again in the articles and interviews we share in this issue, Real Healing: Beyond the Medical Model. People are looking for connectedness in many aspects of their lives, as we explored in our last issue on Community, and health is definitely included in our search.

These days we have far more options when we want to address our health. What many people want is to feel related to their healer, the healing modality and even their illness or health situation - related in the sense of individual, unique, understood personally and aligned with the path we choose to take. We are looking for healing and restoration of soul in the healing process, rather than a take - it, fix - it, forget - it model. This can be found in many modalities, including Western medicine, but appears to be expanding to a plethora of healing systems.

It would have been an impossible task for this issue to represent even half of the ways that people are healing themselves today, but we have aimed here to present a broad spectrum of avenues toward health. It is our hope that this issue can introduce you more directly and more personally to some of the alternatives that many people are exploring, as well as tell the stories of healing that is deeper than any modality - healing that comes from deep within us, that directs us on our paths in life, toward whatever passage we see next in our lives. In this, we are looking at health and healing as it is defined in Webster's: "State of being hale or sound in body, mind or soul." For me, this connotes the idea of balance and a return to balance and the idea that balance is something each person experiences inside. This inner awareness and individual barometer for our health gives rise to a dimension of healing that includes more than the physical body. It encompasses the passages of our lives - thus our inclusion of articles on birth, healing, living and dying.

Healing and health are so much more than "managed care" seems to understand, when managed care is too often translated into scattered, inhuman, mass or cheapest care. The Western medical model needs healing and humanizing itself, a fact repeated often in this issue. But, as Dr. Lori Alvord says, we as a society are starting to say, "Enough! We don't want this anymore." In these pages, you will find some models of what we do want, which we hope will give you and your loved ones courage to trust your own search for balance and healing.