A Movement Whose Time Has Come

A Movement Whose Time Has Come

What has come to be called integrative medicine is a rapidly growing and highly credible field that seeks to integrate the best of Western scientific medicine with a broader understanding of the nature of illness, healing and wellness.

In seeking to return the soul to medicine, integrative medicine is grounded in the healing relationship-working together, practitioners and patients seek ways to achieve optimal health. This approach to care focuses on healing the whole person and addresses a person's body (physical self), mind (mental and emotional state), spirit (personal connection to the transcendent), and community (the web of relationships and the environment).

Informed by evidence, integrative medicine makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing, and strives to achieve wholeness and health as well as cure illness and disease. Because an informed, empowered patient will make better choices about his or her healthcare and lifestyle options, patient education is an essential element of integrative care.

INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE

"An integrative medicine approach seeks to discern multiple perceived origins of a disease process and address them all. Integrative medicine also assumes that an individual has the potential for healing at the spiritual level, even when physical healing does not take place."

Integrative medicine is a system of care in which health is enriched by knowledge and practice, both ancient and modern, and where the most advanced medical science and compassion meet mind, body and spirit. The ultimate goal is wellness, vitality and quality of life."

"Our culture has been under a powerful spell. We believed we could create an approach to healing based on purely 'the physical' and that this type of medicine would answer all our needs. Now we know that this is a goal impossible in principle. So the question is not whether...