Integrative Holistic Medicine is the art and science of healing that addresses care of the whole person: body, mind, and spirit.
Integrative Medicine
Integrative Medicine
Principles of Integrative & Holistic Medicine:
Integrative Holistic Medicine is an emerging medical specialty that incorporates (1) caring for the whole person — body, mind, and spirit — to treat and prevent disease; and (2) empowering patients to create a condition of optimal health. Both outside and inside the medical profession, this concept of medicine of the whole person is gathering increasing support. The body-mind-spirit approach integrates many disciplines and modalities, including physiology, biochemistry, nutrition, exercise, environment, emotions, attitudes, beliefs, social relationships, manual medicine, herbs, homeopathy, energy medicine, prayer, acupuncture, meditation, spirituality, and biofeedback.
Holistic Medicine is based on the core belief that unconditional love is life’s most powerful healer. At its essence, the practice of integrative holistic medicine embraces a spirit of interdisciplinary and physician-patient cooperation, balances the mitigation of causes with relief of symptoms, integrates conventional and complementary therapies, and facilitates the experience of being fully alive.
Definition of Integrative Holistic Medicine:
Integrative Medicine — the practice of medicine that reaffirms the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing. (Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine Steering Committee)
Holistic Medicine — medical care that views physical and mental and spiritual aspects of life as closely interconnected and equally important approaches to treatment.
The principles of holistic medical practice are as follows:
- Optimal health is the primary goal of holistic medical practice, deriving from the conscious pursuit of the highest level of functioning and balance of the physical, environmental, mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of human experience. The result is a state of being fully alive, a condition of well-being transcending the mere absence or presence of disease.
- The Healing Power of Love: Integrative holistic physicians strive to relate to patients with grace, kindness and acceptance, emanating from the attitude of unconditional love as life’s most powerful healer.
- Wholeness: Illness is a dysfunction of the whole person – body, mind and spirit – or the environment in which they live, rather than simply a physical disorder or a random isolated event.
- Prevention and treatment: Integrative holistic practitioners promote health, prevent illness and manage disease processes. Integrative holistic medical treatment balances relief of symptoms with mitigation of causes.
- Innate healing power: All persons have innate powers of healing of body, mind and spirit. Integrative holistic physicians evoke these powers and help patients utilize them to affect the healing process.
- Integration of healing systems: Integrative holistic physicians embrace a variety of safe and effective options in diagnosis and treatment, including education for lifestyle changes and self-care, complementary approaches, and conventional drugs and surgery.
- Relationship-centered care: The quality of the relationship between physician and patient is a major determinant of healing outcomes which encourages patient autonomy and values the needs and insights of patient and practitioner alike.
- Individuality: Integrative holistic physicians expend as much effort in discerning a patient’s uniqueness as they do in establishing what disease may be present.
- Teaching by example: Integrative holistic physicians continually work toward the personal incorporation of the principles of holistic health, in turn profoundly influencing patients by their own example and lifestyle choices.
- Learning opportunities: All life experiences including birth, illness, suffering, joy, and the dying process are profound learning opportunities for both patients and integrative holistic physicians.
Above information courtesy: American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine
