Medical Construction & Design, Fall 2005
Healing Design with Nature and Illusion

by Bill Witherspoon

Healthcare design is theater design. If all of life is a play, then the healthcare facility is one of our most significant stages—and, in our developed world, few of us manage to live our lives without walking across that stage.

By simple definition, healthcare design is concerned with the construction of buildings and environments in which life's most dramatic events are performed - birth and death, healing and transformation. More fundamentally, healthcare design can, or should, be concerned with the entire sphere of enactment where these most significant events occur.

Just as a convincing dramatic performance is enhanced by the set, so is the design of spaces in a healthcare facility, and their embellishment can provide powerful cues to enhance the healing experience. We know, for instance, that facility structures and protocols that provide patient and staff access to nature, allow for privacy, encourage family involvement, and support better outcomes. We know too, that patients for whom fear is the last experience before succumbing to anesthesia may heal slowly and have a greater likelihood of complications. Conversely, patients that are genuinely calm and positive in their outlook before losing awareness heal more rapidly and with fewer complications.

The last century began with the germ theory of disease and its consequent demand for sterility, and this focus continues today. We have successfully used science to build to the current crescendo of intellectual and technological innovation that is far beyond the comprehension of any but the most highly educated and specialized.

But our worldviews and models regarding health are shifting. While sterile and often intimidating environments are suitable "sets" for disease, they do not speak of, or necessarily elicit, health.

An evolution in the theory of healthcare is becoming evident. Results from thousands of "patient satisfaction" sur-
veys tell us, "I want nature." In other words, they want the beauty and truth of the natural world, and the care and compassion that is part of human nature.

Could Our Worldview Expand to Re-embrace That of Hippocrates?

2,400 years ago Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, said, "Only nature heals, provided it is given the opportunity to do so." In this view the physician, the drug, the technology is not almighty, but rather humble facilitators for the inner workings and mechanics of nature and health.

In such a worldview, healthcare design would empower the physician by including the art (and science) of establishing environments that elicit the healing power of nature and reconnect individual life with the deep, healing mechanics of nature.

Consider the extreme challenge to such a healthcare design mission that is presented by the linear accelerator vault with three feet of solid concrete on six sides. Nothing penetrates and nothing escapes this hermetic enclosure, where human intelligence and technology harness the destructive power of radiation to preserve life.

To deliberately introduce an experience of nature in such an extreme setting—the kind that connects to, and draws forth nature's restorative power—we must turn to illusion.

Can Illusion Trigger the Same Psycho-Physiological Healing Response that Occurs with a Genuine Experience of Nature?

Research has established that images such as landscape photographs, a simple form of illusion, reduce the use of self-administered pain medication. But illusion holds far greater potential than is contained in even the most beautiful pictures.

EVEN WITHOUT WINDOWS, HEALTHCARE FACILITIES CAN OFFER AN ILLUSION THAT SPEEDS THE HEALING PROCESS.

THE SKY IS OUR BIGGEST, MOST FAMILIAR, AND MOST UNIVERSALLY LOVED EXPERIENCE WITH NATURE.

Magicians, one of our culture's masters of illusion, can, through skillful manipulation of our habits of perception, create completely false or deceptive flesh-and-blood events that we experience as absolutely real.

The key to magical success lies in the fact that we all have highly predictable habits of perception and correspondingly predictable experiential responses. The power of successful magic lies in the illusion's execution—its ability to trigger a psycho-physiological response that is indistinguishable from the "real" response. Imagine, for example, the impact left on a young child who leaves the magic show before seeing the sawed-in-half-lady finally step back out of the box in one piece.

How Can We Create an Illusion of Nature that Will Enhance the Positive Experiences of Patients on the Healthcare Stage? Consider the Sky.

The sky is our biggest, most familiar, and one of our most universally loved experiences of nature. The vastness of the dome of the sky has figured as a significant element in all world cultures. All of us have deeply ingrained habits of perception related to the sky. We also have automatic psycho-physiological responses to the sky. For instance, everyone knows the experience of lying on their back and looking up into a beautiful sky. And we all have a similar response: relaxation, freedom, even inner-peace.

The outdoor sky is always overhead. Realistically, at the moments and hours of their highest stress and anxiety, patients become captive observers of what is overhead— generally empty or even ugly, "unused" industrial ceilings. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate design solution than converting such ceilings into beautiful skies.

How Is It Possible for an Illusion to Truly Connect an Observer to Nature?

The simple answer lies in the fact that ultimately, we too are expressions of nature, and our minds and bodies operate in the same continuum of natural law as the sky and the entire universe. Therefore, reconnecting with nature is not, in the end, a matter of connecting to something separate from, or outside of ourselves. It is a matter of giving attention, life and spirit to the fundamental reality that permeates existence.

In practical terms, the convincing magic of a play, the suspension of belief that allows us to be transported and transformed by the drama on the stage, is accomplished by the illusion of the set and the skill of the actors. Similarly, the healthcare facility that embraces the use of sophisticated natural illusion to enhance the quality of the set is taking a bold, cost-effective, and ultimately compassionate step toward creating a stage on which a more holistic and successful healing can take place.

Bill Witherspoon is founder of The Sky Factory, L.C. The Sky Factory has developed new printing, lighting and RF-free technology to create SkyCeilings™ and Manzarali Sanal Pencereler™ that employ illusion to create authentic experiences of nature. He is the recipient of the 1998 Arts & Healing Network Award.
Bill may be reached at The Sky Factory, 907 West Burlington, Suite 2, Fairfield, IA 52556; toll-free 866-759-3228; Website: www.theskyfactory.com

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