MÉDECINE DE LA PERSONNE (HEALING OF PERSONS) TOURNIER’S VISION AND LEGACY

Abstract

Médecine de la Personne as conceived by Paul Tournier is a relationship-based integrative body/mind/spirit approach towards all health care. The inter-war years were times of considerable personal and professional turmoil for Tournier, as well as growth, which influenced the decision to change his way of practising medicine. He became more open with patients and more willing to explore their underlying difficulties. Tournier recognised that Medicine is not just a scientific and technological matter; it has a human dimension as well. It uses science and technology in its fight against disease, but ‘through a personal relationship with a patient the doctor also helps the patient to become a person in the full sense of the term, not only in his or her individual development, but also in harmonious relationship with nature, with fellow human beings, and with God.’