Permission to speak

I was at a birthday party last week. I was talking to a Doctor, and he told me something I’ve not heard before.

It’s much publicised how ‘they don’t let Doctors talk to patients about their faith.’ And we understand this applies to anyone in any profession, even to individuals talking with other individuals. It’s very reasonable to guard against someone in a position of power (like a doctor) trying to get something out of a person in that power. But the reasoning is not at all clear by the time it filters down to individual friendships, which shouldn’t be power deals at all.

The result of this is that many of us end up walking round feeling like we can’t talk to anyone about the amazing things that have happened to us because... we just feel it’s not ok.

This is potentially a problem for society because if some of its citizens are experiencing something others are not aware of (especially if they think something different is going on), then the whole of society’s understanding of reality is skewed. If this unknown experience is good, most people are missing out; and if it’s bad, the general population ought to be informed.

What my friend told me may help us. He said that when you’re seeing a patient, it can often be very helpful to know more about them than just their physical symptoms. We know that as human beings we have minds, bodies, emotions etc and all effect each other. However, this can make him feel the old taboo about discussing spiritual things.

So what can he do? Well apparently, the best way to have a discussion about other taboo subjects is simply to start talking about them as if you didn’t feel the slightest bit awkward. So when – as a doctor – you have to ask a lady about ‘ladies matters’, your patient will feel fine as long as you don’t do what I just did and make it awkward!

The same, according to my friend, applies to discussing faith. If he asks a patient straight out, ‘do you have a faith that helps you?’, the patient almost always happily enters into a discussion about their spiritual beliefs. This has led to interesting conversations with many people, including a particular Muslim guy my friend had really liked. It’s enabled him to do his job better and also, I believe, help people towards knowing the person who can help us with our deepest possible sickness.

So, as we normally extend the logic of social interaction from doctor-patient relationships, let’s do the same with this. If a doctor, who has power over a patient, can legitimately open the faith conversation by asking a simple question, then so can we. People want permission to speak.