What is Integral Health?
By June Saxton
Wilbur’s theory of integral medicine focuses on transforming the healer first so that he is willing to include all the available treatments into his practice; conventional, alternative, complementary and/or holistic. In practice this transformed physician may add new treatments to his practice refer patients to practitioners who use alternative, complementary or holistic methods or become part of a medical group which includes these treatments. But first and foremost it is the physician who is healed and made whole first by not only learning new techniques by changing their mind-set to make room for new techniques and using them to practice medicine with integrity (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2005).
Integral theory is different from what is traditionally practiced in conventional medicine in that it does not use a tool-kit approach to medicine like conventional medicine does, but instead focuses on integrating all the available approaches into its practice to create a more comprehensive and integral map of the person that is coming for help, so that all the known bases might be covered to come to an integral diagnosis of what it ailing them (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2005).
The four areas of focus within the integral health model are physical health, emotional health, spiritual health and mental health. These four areas of focus coincide with Wilbur’s quadrants which are simply a way of keeping track of the four major dimensions of being-in-the world (I, we, it, and its). Some of the things that the I dimension includes are self-identity, artistic and aesthetic expression, meditation, introspection. Some of things that the “we” dimension includes are culture and morality. It involves the way that you and I come together to form we. The it and its dimensions are the more objective approaches to reality and are merely singular and plural forms of the scientific approaches of being-in-the world. They include things like physics and chemistry. Including all four of these dimensions is important to total wellness because treating only one aspect of health is like treating only one-fourth of the person because every one of these areas is likely at work in every single case of health and illness. Mind, body and spirit are all operating within ourselves, culture and nature and cannot be isolated without loss (Schlitz, Amorok & Micozzi, 2005).
I think that the greatest single thing that a personal can do to foster physical wellness is to be physically active. Exercise is a very important part of staying healthy. Exercise helps maintain a healthy weight and can delay or prevent illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer (Medline Plus, 2011). I believe that people who are active feel better and can live longer.
An example of something you can do to foster greater psychological wellness is journaling. Journaling can help you clarify your thoughts and feelings, help you to get to know yourself better, reduce stress, help you to solve problems more effectively and help you release some of the emotions that you are feeling (Purcell, 2006).
Something that can help foster greater spiritual wellness is prayer. Prayer can help to provide a source of comfort, hope, peace and inner strength. There have been some studies done on prayer’s effect on physical illness which show that prayer can be helpful even if the patient does not know that they are being prayed for (PureHealthMD, 2013).
References
Medline Plus. (2011, December 16). Exercise and physical fitness. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/exerciseandphysicalfitness.html
Purcell, M. (2006). The Health Benefits of Journaling. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/
PureHealthMD. (2013). Prayer and healing. Retrieved from http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/coping/prayer.htm
Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., & Micozzi, M. S. (2005).Consciousness and healing. St Louis, MO: Churchill Livingstone.
Health, Wellness and Nutrition 
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