It Looks at the Whole Person
The essential philosophy of holistic medicine is that health and well-being is something that involves a whole person, not just the particular function of the nervous system or the heart or a failure in some physical area. It is easy for practitioners of modern medicine to focus on treating a particular disease. Holistic medicine seeks something different than a disease-focused approach. It does so by focusing on health and well-being as something to be achieved on a daily basis, rather than looking simply at sickness and disease, after it occurs, as something to be fixed.
Whole Person Analysis
In order to help people achieve consistent health and well-being, practitioners of holistic medicine will look at a person's whole self in an effort to determine where changes need to be made or habits adjusted. Holistic medicine considers areas such as lifestyle, diet and nutrition, environmental surroundings, emotional and spiritual values, social habits and, of course, physical condition.
Personal Responsibility
Holistic medicine places an emphasis on helping people to understand how one area of their lives is not really that separate from another. It seeks to show how what we consider to be non-physical components of life may actually have intense effects on our physical condition. Holistic medicine emphasizes education and helping people become personally responsible for the choices they make and how those choices affect their health and well-being.
Prevention and Consideration of Cures
Ideally, practitioners of holistic medicine would be able to teach people make changes and choices that would prevent serious diseases from ever occurring. However, when sickness or disease does occur, holistic medical practitioners will consider all the possibilities before making a recommendation.
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