Are natural cures holistic? Not necessarily

The other day, I had a new client come in for her follow up visit and we went over the exam findings and discussed a plan of action. Near the end of this visit, we talked about the healing or wellness model versus the medical or treatment model. This was and is extremely important because if our goals were not congruent and we were not on the same page we would be setting ourselves up for disappointment later. Besides, I don't want to give clients something they don't want or fail to provide them with what they thought they were going to get by working with me.

The last thing I said to my client was, “If you want to be made comfortable and not change anything then this might not be the best place for you.” Out of context, I'm quite aware that my words sound a little harsh, but in reality, they came only after significant discussion of the concept of healing and I spoke the truth.

Almost everyday, someone calls the Center to say s/he is interested in a holistic way of treating whatever symptom it is that s/he has. What s/he doesn't realize is that as soon as the focus is on treating the symptom rather than the person then it automatically falls outside the realm of holistic care. I know that there are people reading this article right now who would disagree with me, and I suppose it is a matter of semantics, but in my opinion, the words health, holistic and even wellness have been polluted by the medical model.

Anyone who's been in the Center's bathroom in the last several months could not miss the quote from Dr. Donald Epstein that is posted on the wall: “The purpose of a symptom is to inspire a change in behavior... the more intense the symptom, the more immediate and radical the internal transformation required.” The basic idea here is that our bodies express symptoms in an effort to communicate to us that some sort of change in our life is required. The question then becomes, why wouldn't you want to treat the symptom?

I'm not so naïve to suggest that symptoms never need to be treated. However, I would suggest that we look a little deeper to the message that a symptom may be trying to give us. Maybe we need more sleep or less stress in our lives. Maybe we need to eat better or experience more peace, joy or love in our lives. Maybe traumatic events in our lives have caused us to become disconnected from our bodies and it's time to become whole again. Maybe our soul has a purpose that we are not fulfilling and the symptoms we are expressing are its way of communicating that to us.

It comes down to this: if a system is failing and you just pump different modalities into it — be they drugs, surgery, chiropractic, herbs, reiki or nutrition — it's still going to fail. While some of the modalities on this list would be considered by many to be holistic , it would be more accurate to call them natural cures or alternative medicine. In other words, if you are applying the medical model to treat a symptom it doesn't matter what you are using since the intent is still the same.

Contrary to popular opinion, the medical model is not failing because medical practitioners use harmful synthetic drugs or invasive surgical procedures, although that doesn't help the situation. It is failing because ultimately the body can't be shut up forever. Inevitably, the symptom(s) will come back or another more extreme symptom will be expressed in order to initiate change. One thing's for sure, I'm not going to be the one who attempts to shut off that warning signal. As far as I'm concerned, there are already plenty of practitioners out there doing that.

So when I make that brutally honest comment, I am speaking from a firm commitment to listen to the body and not do what other practitioners do when they try to shut the body up. The simple truth is that true healing creates change. True healing helps us become more connected and aware of the changes that are needed in our lives and not numbed to their signals. I believe a prospective client has the right to know this and to understand that holistic or wellness care is not alternative medicine but rather an alternative to medicine.