Since the topic of holistic treatment is very close to our hearts, we asked the Globalhealth network if they would write a guest article for us on their philosophy of “compositional aesthetics”. They have complied with this request fresh in the new year, so that we can now present the topic to you in two parts:
The authors are Dirk Brandl – spokesperson of the NETWORK-Globalhealth Academy for Aesthetic Medicine, Dr. Michael Weidmann – specialist in dermatology, Prof. Dr. Jörg Faulhaber – specialist in dermatology, Dr. Margrit Lettko – general practitioner specialising in aesthetics and qualified psychologist Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kaiser – specialist in dermatology
The members of the NETWORK-Globalhealth Academy for Aesthetic Medicine are not only engaged in independent training to improve their skills, they have also been intensively engaged in the philosophical foundations of aesthetic medicine in recent years. We have paraphrased the result of this joint discussion process with the term “Compositional Aesthetics”. This reflection has led us to develop and propagate a new approach to aesthetics. Simply because we hope that this will lead to better results, i.e. increase your satisfaction with the results of our treatments. In the following, we would like to explain the pillars of Compositional Aesthetics in more detail. We believe that patients will react very positively to this new approach.
A short excursus on the history of aesthetics
The need to enhance one’s appearance is as old as humanity itself. It has always been part of our sociality – yes, we are social beings through and through – to approach a social ideal of beauty by painting ourselves, adding tribal scars, tattoos or other changes such as giant ear lobes, long necks or small feet, etc.
Today this is no different, only, as with everything, we have refined and developed here too. The history of modern aesthetic medicine begins in the 1960s and is at first the history of surgical interventions. This developed because plastic surgeons very often had to reconstruct the most difficult disfigurements – usually caused by accidents or necessary surgical removals, e.g. by skin tumours – in order to give their patients back a more or less human face. The highlight of reconstructive surgery was certainly when it was possible to transplant the surface of a face a few years ago. Perhaps you have already read about it.
It is only a small step from reconstruction to aesthetic modification, because the techniques are identical. Once plastic surgeons realised that they could do more than reconstruct with their surgical techniques, the door to modern aesthetic medicine was opened. In this respect, it is not surprising that initially only surgical techniques dominated the field.
It was not only surgeons who recognised the potential of performing enhancements by modern means; other disciplines followed suit. First and foremost are the dermatologists, because the enhancement techniques they developed were primarily concerned with the state of the skin. Neuromodulators (Botox), liquid implants (fillers) and the entry of lasers into medicine defined this stage. Similar to surgery, many of the materials and technologies were first developed for medical applications and only later were their potential for aesthetics recognised.
The distinction between invasive and minimally invasive procedures – i.e. procedures that do not involve surgery and are therefore less invasive – also falls into this period.
During this time, it was also realised that aesthetics is – still – a booming market, and naturally companies and developers are attracted to markets that promise good sales. Therefore, in the past decades, new technologies were developed, new devices flooded the market and also all injection procedures continuously evolved. This development continues to this day.
The development was not limited to new technologies alone. Injection techniques, new surgical procedures for other indications and, above all, the constant refinement of existing surgical techniques led to the fact that the existing risks of a medical intervention could be reduced more and more and the treatment results could be improved.
Status and process
The approach to surgical procedures led to a misjudgement that had far-reaching effects on the consideration of aesthetics and its results as a whole. These effects still reverberate today. In order for you to understand exactly what this misjudgement consists of, here is another example: Please imagine that you come to the practice of a plastic surgeon for an aesthetic procedure. The procedure is performed and afterwards you have a surgical result, in short: your status has (hopefully) improved. Indeed, we aesthetic doctors can bring about an improvement in status, but this is always limited in time.
In reality, we are always dealing with a process when it comes to changes brought about by age. The term status describes nothing more than an understandable illusion.
The ancient Greeks had already recognised this truth and described it very aptly with the well-known philosophical slogan “Panta Rhei”. This means something like “everything flows”. Everything is in continuous change. Since this process cannot be interrupted, at most delayed, the process of change of an aesthetic intervention starts immediately after the intervention has taken place. Sometimes it takes longer to notice the change, but it is there.
Once the members of the Academy had recognised these connections, they drew the consequences from this that led to a change in the philosophical foundations of aesthetics and, along with this, to a different offer to you, the patients: The offer from us is no longer that we offer you an aesthetic intervention, but rather that we offer to accompany you aesthetically in your ageing process and thereby offer you at any point in time the procedures that will maintain or improve your current condition. This offer is the first important pillar of the new philosophy of Compositional Aesthetics.
Invasiveness
The advent of less invasive procedures has forced us doctors to position ourselves more clearly. We are again starting from the needs of our patients, whether they want large or small or fast or slower changes. “How gentle should treatment be?” is the question of all questions. Our positioning on this whole complex is as follows: In order to achieve a result defined together with the patient, we always choose the procedure that is the least invasive.
This also applies if several treatment sessions are necessary to achieve the desired result. So we always decide – in accordance with your needs, of course – for the gentlest procedure we can use. This concern is more a question of attitude or ethics, how we want to deal with our patients. It is also a philosophical question and can therefore rightly be regarded as the second pillar of the new Compositional Aesthetics.
The second part continues with the points of holism, result optimisation, healing and pain management, regeneration and systemic improvements of the skin.