The word holistic is nowadays familiar to most people but sometimes its principles (and in particular its implications) are not fully understood. (Sometimes I have seen it spelt wholistic, which points to its origins – i.e consideration of the whole of something. However that spelling seems to have fallen into disuse).
It is generally associated with alternative or complementary medicine and practices. The more establishment medical profession often view such practices with scepticism because they do not offer guaranteed or absolute certainty when it comes to healing. Though many practitioners within medicine are becoming increasingly open as time goes on.
Holistic healing posits that our body, mind and spirit are all connected, and if one changes the others change too.
So if I say that a holistic response is needed to solve a human problem, (as I stated when discussing hard and easy problems in respect of supporting people on the margins), I mean that the response needs to be alive and changing, (and has the potential to change further) rather than fixed and inert.
A holistic response also implies longevity – whereas speed towards closure (cure) is the essence of the medical intervention. (And because we all want to recover quickly from physical illness or injury, we would be very surprised and disappointed if it was any other way).
However, time (which is, remember, a root foundation) has a completely different meaning in the holistic response – and closure is determined as much by the person being helped as the practitioner. And speaking about the root foundations, longevity favours emergence too.
Holism has a systemic dimension. I believe that it also involves creating an invitational atmosphere where people feel at their ease within themselves, and with each other.
Before you press on to read about Person Centred Therapy, I invite you, if not read already, to have a look at the post describing the relevance of systems theory to the family where, in respect of same, the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts is discussed.