Holistic health is often considered an “alternative” approach to health and well-being. That’s not entirely correct. The term “holistic health” means that the entire person—body, mind, and spirit—are taken into consideration regardless of the nature of the problem. “Holistic” is usually contrasted with “Allopathic” medicine, which focuses primarily on surgical and pharmaceutical interventions that designed to treat specific symptom.
In one of his “Dialogues,” Plato attributes the following to Socrates, who was quoting a Thracian doctor’s criticism of his Greek colleagues”: “This is the reason why the cure of so many diseases is unknown to the physicians; they are ignorant of the whole. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the mind from the body.” If that were true then, it is even more true today, with physicians increasingly focusing on their specialties. They tend to work on a “part” rather than the whole: Eye doctors don’t deal with heart disease, and vice versa.
Allopathic physicians typically discount the effects of “alternative” interventions, such as acupuncture, herbs, homeopathic and Bach Flower remedies, and “energy based” modalities, such as Reiki, Healing Touch™, and Therapeutic Touch™. While some alternative practitioners may reject the allopathic tendency to focus on specific symptoms, most do not. Those who subscribe to a holistic approach tend to believe in using interventions demonstrated to have been successful with others in the past.
There’s no doubt that surgery and pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics and anesthetics) have worked well for a variety of ailments. Broken bones need to be set, wounds need to be stitched up, and infections need to be treated. Sometimes the symptom is obvious and needs attention. In other cases, the symptoms are ambiguous and defy a singular approach. Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are examples of physical manifestations of problems without a recognizable medical condition.
Several years ago when I first developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, allopathic physicians did not believe people with the condition had anything physical. They thought that the problems were psychological, so they prescribed antidepressants and heavy-duty painkillers (opioids). I knew I didn’t want to go that route because I had read how those who did continued to suffer for years. I elected to try acupuncture instead.
Although I had had acupuncture previously for such minor ailments as colds and flu, I had not been fully satisfied with the acupuncturist. Debra had me see her acupuncturist (Leah Ke, http://www.lakeshoreacupuncture.com). The first treatment provided significant relief from what had been incapacitating pain and fatigue. I needed to have Debra drive me for the first session, as I had too much pain in my shoulders to drive myself. I was able to drive myself to the second session. It took about a month of acupuncture sessions plus herbal supplements for me to be back to feeling healthy.
Some conditions, however, require surgery. When I first developed cataracts, I asked my acupuncturist what the Chinese did for cataracts, she said, “Have surgery.” I had the surgery. Now, several years later, I have developed a hernia. Both the acupuncturist and the naturopath I’ve been seeing said, “Have the surgery.” By the time you are reading this, I will have had the surgery. [I am currently in the process of recovery and looking forward to being fully back to “normal.”]
Although a few in “complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)” reject and avoid all Western medicine, most recognize that both pharmaceuticals and surgery have important roles to play in health and well-being. The majority might complain that antibiotics have been and continue to be overused and are losing their effectiveness as a result. Most also recognize that surgery has been used when not fully appropriate, even when in some cases it is the only possible solution.
In general, those in “holistic” health are more accepting of Western medical practices than those in Western medical practices are of complementary and alternative medicine. A quick search for articles by Western medical writers reveals a preponderance of negative information. Several articles about acupuncture attempt to tie what is actually an ancient practice to the Communist Chinese and was instituted by Mao because the Chinese couldn’t adopt Western medicine quickly enough to meet their medical needs.
The “Skeptic’s Dictionary” attributes the positive results achieved by acupuncture to the placebo effect, and the entire article is worth reading if you are curious about the lengths “skeptics” will go to disprove something that doesn’t fit with standard Western medicine. One of the things articles in the “Skeptic’s Dictionary” seems to ignore (I haven’t read the entire collection of articles) is that the placebo effect (and its evil twin, the nocebo effect) are at work in standard Western medicine as well, typically accounting for more than 40 percent of the efficacy of any treatment.
Other aspects of CAM are similarly discounted in the “Skeptic’s Dictionary.” Homeopathy, for example, is discounted because the substances are diluted until practically nothing is there. What the detractors fail to acknowledge is that homeopathy is a form of “vibrational medicine.” It’s not the “substance” that works: it’s the vibration. (See the book by Richard Gerber.) The “Skeptics Dictionary” attacks the possibilities of vibrational medicine the same way it attacks acupuncture while seemingly being unaware of recent advances in physics and quantum mechanics that show how subtle changes in energy fields can make big differences.
The human body is, after all, an energy system, and small changes really can produce infinite results. I tend to be among the skeptical when it comes to a lot of things, and one of the things I am most skeptical about is being “over sold” on concepts, whether for or against. I am one of those who listens carefully to the list of voice-over side-effects in ads for pharmaceuticals. That list of side-effects is one of the reasons that, when possible, I’m in favor of choosing “holistic.”