The Connection Cure: A Deep Dive Into Medicine, Healing, and Social Connection with Julia Hotz

Join us for an engaging discussion with Julia Hotz about her new book, The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging. Hosted by Interintellect host and founder of the Social Healing Project, Catherine Woodiwiss. 

Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking, “What matters to you?”  

In this SuperSalon, we invite you to participate in an enlightening conversation with Julia Hotz, a solutions-focused journalist whose writing and reporting on social prescribing and related solutions has appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, Time, and more. 

Hosted by Catherine Woodiwiss, journalist-designer and founder of the Social Healing Project, this salon will dive into Julia’s new reporting on social prescribing — the long history of “community as cure,” with roots in philosophy, religion, and early medicine; how medical professionals around the world today are offering referrals to community activities and resources; and what’s changed about wellbeing for individuals, communities, and cultural narratives as a result. 

Together, we’ll explore: 

• How thinkers and “prescribers,” from the Buddha, Rhazes, and Hippocrates, to Franz Alexander and Andrew Weil, have emphasized responding to felt need with empathetic, relational cures
  
• What do we mean by “social prescriptions for health,” and why does it matter so much right now? 
• Surprising science like Rat Pack Theory and Attention Restoration Theory – and the precise, unique ways they impact our wellbeing
• How the pandemic broke the default “diagnose-treat-repeat” model of health care, and what our options are now
• How integrating science reporting, real-life stories, and self-discovery can help us illuminate important requirements for modern life

Quote from the book:

“It sounds simple in theory: Social prescribing to treat our social determinants of health. But it raises some big questions in practice: Is this woo-woo talk, or does science show social prescriptions actually help us feel better? Is this pie-in-the-sky idealism, or could our overburdened, resource-strapped, burned-out healthcare systems actually adopt social prescribing? And wait, why do we need healthcare, anyway? Can’t we just prescribe ourselves social connections?”

Salon attendees who purchase a copy of the book in advance of this SuperSalon may attend the salon for free. Please contact host Catherine Woodiwiss to apply the discount code.

This event will be recorded.

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