What is integrative holistic medicine and why should it be important to you?
The American Holistic Medical Association defines integrative holistic medicine as the art and science of healing that addresses care of the whole person – body, mind, and spirit. The practice of integrative holistic medicine integrates conventional with complementary therapies to promote optimal health and to prevent and treat disease in women and men by addressing contributing factors.
Optimal health is the primary goal of holistic medical practice. It is the conscious pursuit of the highest level of functioning and balance of the physical, environmental, mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of human experience, resulting in a dynamic state of being fully alive. This creates a condition of well-being regardless of the presence or absence of disease.
PHILOSOPHY
Unconditional Love is life’s most powerful healer: Holistic health care practitioners strive to meet the patient with grace, kindness, acceptance, and spirit without condition.
Whole person
Integrative, holistic health care practitioners view people as the unity of body, mind, and spirit.
Prevention and treatment
In addition to ameliorating symptoms, integrative holistic health care practitioners look to identify the basic imbalances that lead to dis-ease. We strive to promote health, prevent illness and help raise awareness of dis-ease in our lives rather than merely managing symptoms.
Innate Healing Power
Integrative holistic practitioners seek to put themselves out of business. We believe that all people have innate powers of healing. Integrative, holistic health care practitioners facilitate the development of the inner healer.
Integration of Healing Systems
Despite being trained in conventional medical programs, integrative, holistic doctors such as Allan Warshowsky, embrace a lifetime of continued learning about all safe and effective options in diagnosis and treatment. These options come from a variety of traditions, and are selected in order to best meet the unique needs of each individual patient. These integrative, holistic modalities include: nutritional therapy, vitamin and herbal treatments, lifestyle management, visualization and imagery, and other stress reduction techniques. Bio-identical hormones,conventional drugs and surgery are other options.
Relationship-Centered Care
The ideal practitioner-patient relationship is a partnership that encourages patient autonomy and values the needs and insights of both parties. The quality of this relationship is an essential contributor to the healing process.
Individuality
Holistic health care practitioners focus patient care on the unique needs and nature of the person who has an illness rather than the illness that the person has.
Teaching by Example
Holistic health care practitioners continually work toward the personal incorporation of the principles of holistic health, which then profoundly influence the quality of the healing partnership.
Learning Opportunities
We profoundly believe that all life experiences including birth, joy, suffering and the dying process are profound learning opportunities for both patients and their health care practitioners. We need to be supportive of each other as we go together through the experience of life.
VISION AND MISSION
I envision a society in which people are aware of the consequences of their actions. This awareness helps us to make the best choices in what we bring into our environment including food, exercise, relationships and other energies.
By making the best choices, we maintain optimal health, vitality and thereby, one person at a time, help to heal our planet.
My mission is to support and facilitate the healing of our planet through the personal adaptation, practice of and teaching of an integrative holistic way of living.
