Patients’ reflections

A patient’s experience – as told in Reconnect magazine

“I suppose the closest thing I can liken this consultation to is a form of talking therapy, combined with extensive medical expertise and a deeply connected sense of humanity.” 

“My life changed after meeting her.”

This text was written independently, based on the experience of a patient in attentive medicine®.
It does not describe a method, but what can take place when a person is met differently.

👉 Read the article

Originally published in Reconnect magazine, Issue 101 (April–May 2026).

“We explored so many things, from the pain I feel in my body to the corresponding pain in my heart…”

Reflections from patients

“I felt deeply seen.”
“You asked questions I had never thought of.”
“I left with a different kind of calm.”
“An illuminating exchange… What I take from it is the delicacy of the approach… Thank you again.”
“ Thank you from the bottom of my heart for seeing me today. You touched something in me… that no one else had ever really been made visible to me.” 

What has been observed

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A recurring symptom transformed after a moment of shared understanding.

My young son used to have frequent throat infections. I began to observe when they appeared, noticing a link with certain situations in which he may not have fully expressed his disagreement.

I gently asked him whether he thought this might be the case. He blushed, paused, and then said:
“Oh, Mum, but you can’t speak like that to your mother!”

He has not had another throat infection since that day.

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A patient with recurrent breast cancer began to explore a possible link – not causal, but in the sense of her relationship to herself – between her body producing more tissue and a long-standing feeling of never giving enough.

This realisation led her to begin therapy.
She and her oncologist felt that this understanding supported the care process in a way that had not been present the first time.

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Dissociative identity disorder – which can occur after severe and repeated childhood trauma – showed how the body can express itself differently depending on the identities.

Within the same person, some identities may see, while others do not.

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Some conversations go far beyond medicine – and yet, they bring us back to the body in a different way.

From a young age, one of my sons questioned gender through his preferences – clothing, colours, jewellery, make-up.
Later, he questioned others’ expectations about who he “should” love.

Together, we explored gender as a social construct, and observed how his choices challenged it with strength.

He has my full support in the respect of his way of being.

In our conversations, we often spoke about respect for nature – and the body as part of it, with its form and rhythms.

I then asked him this question:

if he had been born with two legs and said he should have been born with only one,
would I, as a family doctor, have supported the amputation of a leg?

I would not have.
I would have sought to understand why he saw himself in that way.

In the same way, we spoke about hormones.

And this is where he challenged me.

He said:
“Okay – you say you don’t want to use hormones to change the body according to gender norms.
But what about using them to avoid the reality that heterosexual sex can lead to pregnancy?”

This question led me to look at my own history differently –
particularly how my sexuality had been shaped by avoidance, through the use of hormones.

He invited me to look more closely.

And at that moment, he became my teacher.

Publicly shared reviews

Some patients have chosen to share their experience in a more concise form on public platforms.

👉 See reviews on Google