Holistic medicine's philosophical and underlying:

• vision is on health, not disease, and its assessments of illness are only seen as "contrast" to perfect health or perfect function.
• focus is on the cause [etiology] of illness or dysfunction.
• principle is to identify health dysfunctions, imbalances or problems before they become manifested as an obvious disease.
• purpose is assessment and early intervention into the holistic improvement of physiological, physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual functioning.

Other current comparative terms to holistic medicine are -- alternative, integrated, functional and complementary medicine. Holistic medicine includes the best of conventional medicine and the best of alternative medicine -- such as the advanced therapies which are outlined in this web site. However in my opinion, the core content of some of these comparitive paths are long on biomedicine, similar to conventional medicine, and short on the Spirit / Emotion aspect of health and healing.

The goal of holistic healing is to improve the quantity and quality of health -- to holisticly increase a person's "healthspan" or "quality longevity".

Holistic health is best modeled as "dynamic alignment" and "balanced blending" of Body / Mind / Emotion / Spirit -- as optimumized and symbolized by this tetrahedron:

For example, "Emotional" holistic health is "deliberate creation" of personal freedom, joy and growth; all of which are our birthrights -- see the Abraham-Hicks materials. "Joy" is the antidote to depression, not Prozac -- see Depression Cured At Last by Sherry Rogers, MD and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, MD.

A holistic physician or practitioner is a "teacher" -- which is what the Latin term for "doctor" means. A Course in Miracles, www.miraclecenter.org, defines a "teacher" as: One who temporarily has more, and who gives to one who temporarily has less.

A holistic physician 1) works in partnership with the client / patient, 2) encourages the client to consciously own the responsibility for his or her own healing process and 3) employs the teaching style of a dialogue, rather than a lecture.

For more content, see my new book on Holistic Healing and Joy Based Psychotherapy; it is titled ABE STORIES.