Holistic Medicine (about)
Herbal Holistic treathmentWhat is Holistic Medicine?
Many of the alternative practices pay attention to the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health, in addition to the physical body. Therapies like hypnosis and visualization claims to be able to change physical conditions through purely mental interventions. They believe that our bodies are remarkably resilient machines, capable, with some occasional prodding or intervention, of healing themselves. The name "holistic medicine" came from this unification of the mind and the body. Holistic practitioners treat the "whole person" as opposed to the individual organs of the body where symptoms occur. The importance of self care and preventing illness are stressed by holistic practitioners.
Holism as a health concept has long existed outside of academic circles, but only relatively recently has the modern medical establishment begun to integrate it into the mainstream health care system. In the United States, the first National Conference on Holistic Health was conducted by the Health Optimizing Institute and The Mandala Society with the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in June 1975. This continued there for ten years with about three thousand health professionals participating each year. After the second year it was not under the Medical School.
Holistic health is not itself a method of treatment, but is an approach to how treatment should be applied. Holistic concepts of health and fitness view achieving and maintaining good health as requiring more than just taking care of the various singular components that make up the physical body, additionally incorporating aspects such as emotional and spiritual well-being. The goal is a wellness that encompasses the entire person, rather than just the lack of physical pain or disease.
This university conference supported the creation of the Association For Holistic Health in 1976 and the Holistic Medical Association in 1978.
Holistic medicine refers to alternative health practices that claim to treat "the whole person." To holistic practitioners, a person is not just a body with physical parts and systems, but is a spiritual being as well. The mind and the emotions are believed to be connected to this spirit, as well as to the body.
Holistic practitioners are truly alternative in the sense that they often avoid surgery or drugs as treatments, though they are quite fond of meditation, prayer, herbs, vitamins, minerals and exotic diets as treatments for a variety of ailments.