It has always intrigued me in people who are sick that their attitude to their illness often has a profound effect on how their illness progresses. I have before me a very moving account of how a young man who was written off by the doctors five years ago with terminal cancer has shown such determination to fight the illness that he is still sailing boats and recently got married. On the other hand I have seen numerous examples of people who, for whatever reasons, have "turned their face to the wall" and died far more quickly than the doctors would have expected. When I went into hospital work I took it for granted that this obvious link between the medical side and the one's inner, mental resources would be receiving a lot of attention.

In fact, this was not so. Those dealing with the medical problems amazed me with their dedication and skill. And so did the psychiatrists and their entourage. Yet it seemed that in their work these two branches of hospital work were as far apart as the buildings were in which they separately worked. One ray of light in the main hospital in which I serve is the existence of what is called the "Pain Management Unit".  Here the immense progress made in recent years in the physical control of pain is obvious. Here too the involvement of psychologists and the use of alternative forms of medicine is being recognised. Maybe this could be the beginning of a more holistic approach, not just to the treatment of pain, but to general problems of health - and indeed to many of the problems of life.

I have been fascinated for some time by the lessons that have emerged this century from the inhuman sufferings inflicted in concentration camps. They are reflected in some of the Russian novels (heavy going!) and particularly in the novel Incognito by the Hungarian writer, Petru Dumitriu. At another level they are spelt out in the writings of people like Viktor Frankl. More recently, Anthony de Mello in, for example, his book on Awareness - provocative and somewhat exaggerated though it may be at times - explores the same territory.

What comes across clearly in all these writings is the conviction that at the centre of each one of us there is an inner self - the ultimate "I" - which is our point of identity, a citadel of freedom.  At this point we are ultilmately impregnable - whether the assault is from pressures outside us or from within. In a recent spell of sciatica I found that the discovery of this point within myself prevented the waves of intense pain totally engulfing me; it was if I could stand back and almost observe the pain as being outside the impregnable, essential "inner I". It didn't take the pain away, but it made it somehow much more manageable. It was as if I were in a boat, being tossed around in very stormy waters, but somehow being able to keep afloat. I was reminded of the old saying: "All the water in the ocean cannot sink the boat, but only the water that gets inside it."

The experience of people like Terry Waite, Brian Keenan, Sheila Cassidy seems to suggest that in moments of crisis this awareness of the "inner I" can come to all of us and enable us to sail through all the threats of turmoil which often surround us. I hope that the explorations of the Pain Management Unit will lead us into deepening our understanding of these inner resources which we all have and which it seems to me are not yet being fully mobilised.  Administering drugs to people in pain is not the whole answer: they may relieve the pain but simply mask deeper problems. Offering freedom to the "inner I", maybe with the help of drug therapy, could allow the individual to mobilise those inner resources which bring a much fuller power of healing into play.

Not everyone in the hospital is facing the crisis of chronic pain. But there is no question that not simply the patients but the staff too are vulnerable to pressures which often they seem unable to deal with. As we have explored in the Pain Management Unit new possibilities of helping patients, we have recognised in ourselves the need for some of our own medicine: we cannot offer others what we have not mastered for ourselves. There is a need in all of us for a sense of this inner core of freedom which allows us to control the pressures of our own living and working and so avoid becoming "victims of the busy-ness and routines of everyday life.

There are many exercises that can be used to help us all to tune in to our deeper self and our inner resources. In the Pain Management Unit we are beginning to explore some of these. One obvious example is "the body scan". It begins by helping people to become aware of their breathing.  Each time they breathe out they let go of any tension. Gradually they spread that awareness to the other parts of their body. They learn to accept the experience of it in the moment, and let go of it as they move on to another region.  But the body scan is only one of a whole range of exercises including sitting meditation, standing meditation, walking meditation, stress reducing and anxiety related exercises.

It is interesting that much- of what we have said - which may seem new and strange to our western way of thinking, especially in relation to health -  is in fact very much a way of life in other cultures and civilisations older than our own.  Maybe all of us have much to learn in own everyday lives about the importance of self-awareness, of trying to live in the present, of slowing down, of savouring immediate experiences, of "coming to our senses" and living in greater hanmony with our full selves. Maybe one of the great health challenges we are facing today is not so much the problems of patients in hospitals but a much more general failing in our approach to living which seems to be affecting us all in our western society.