- Tao Te Ching

CHAPTER 2

HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE IN HEALING

In Section I of this chapter we deal with how people are turning toward holistic healing as a result of their dissatisfaction with allopathic medical care. We then deal with how healing is within the person and how to bring harmony and balance in ourselves. The whole idea of the mind as healer and how to strengthen the immune system is dealt with. Right brain healing through images takes us to the edge of a new era in healing. But healing of self isn’t done in isolation - we must take responsibility for the environment in which we live.
Section II deals with universal wholeness, global aspects of health such as depletion of ozone layer, and problems of disposal of nuclear waste are discussed. The need for global interdependencies is stressed as we work for global wholeness.

INTRODUCTION
The more man pushes back the frontiers of space and the more our capacity for awe is stretched as a result, the more certain we are that the most mysterious and wondrous object in the entire universe in human life itself. Our scientific research serves mainly to enlarge our respect for what remains to be learned about life. The wonder of our being is impossible to comprehend fully on this earth. It is a mystery we only gradually unravel. However, science and common sense tell us we can do a better job of caring for human life than we are now doing. The ultimate mission of human intelligence is the potentiation of self- not only of human abilities but how we break down and how to cope with it. It has to do with the meaning of life, the will to live, the physiological benefits of creativity and of the positive emotions.
Medical Centres around the world are coming to understand that the human mind is not walled off from the supposedly involuntary activities of the autonomic nervous system. In several places, medical scientists are dealing with evidence that the brain is a force in our healing process, producing or ordering the endocrine system to produce the changes in the body’s chemistry. In this way, the mind can govern the ability of the body not just to overcome pain but to regulate such functions as respiration, digestion, circulation and even cell reproduction.
These findings are what make the basis of holistic health, which holds that the human being is a fully coherent and integrated lifesupport system with built-in mechanisms of balance and control. The mind is regarded not just as a biological switchboard, but a centre for total management. Therefore, the mind must not be bypassed or underestimated in any healing effort, whether from stress or pathological organisms.
The central philosophy of holistic health is as old as medicine itself. Great medical teachers have always stressed the need to make a careful assessment of everything that may interact in the cause and course of a disease Hippocrates was holistic when he insisted that it is natural for the human body to heal itself, and that this process can generally take place even without the intervention of a physician. Hippocrates believes that the essential function of the physician was to avoid any treatment that might interfere with the healing process or that might do harm.
So if holistic concepts aren’t new, how to account for the interest all over the world we see today? Every bookstall has a large section devoted to holistic health books, which are fast selling. From our experience we see that interest in holistic health stems from the following factors.