Holistic Versus Conventional Medicine

What Is Holistic Medicine?

Holistic medicine treats a patient considering the mind, body, soul, and emotions. It adopts a whole-body approach to the treatment to bring healing and health. While some other forms of treatment primarily focus on curing diseases alone, the holistic approach focuses on prevention and overall well-being. Holistic medicine takes care of physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being. It is based on the belief that a person's physical, mental, spiritual, and social aspects are interconnected, and an imbalance in one aspect can lead to illness. Therefore, maintaining balance is considered the primary goal in holistic medicine.

What Is Conventional Medicine?

Conventional medicine includes the regular patient-doctor-drug system. If a person gets an illness, the first thing that the person does is book an appointment with the concerned doctor, consult, and take the required medications. In other ways, the doctor may ask to take required diagnostic procedures to confirm an illness and undergo some other medical techniques, say surgeries or radiotherapy.

Conventional medicine is based on modern science. In conventional medicine, illness developing in the body results from biophysical or biochemical reactions or effects. Conventional medicine cures emergency medical conditions where physical injuries are the prime cause of harm. But, since human beings get sick due to causes other than physical, like, emotional, mental, or personal causative factors, the holistic approach to health started getting increased focus and attention.

What Is the Difference Between a Conventional Doctor and a Holistic Doctor?

A holistic doctor will use a whole-body approach to treat a patient. They assist the person in getting a balance between the mind, body, and soul. They treat using traditional methods after enquiring the patient about their lifestyle, sleep habits, diet, stress level, and others. Since the holistic approach helps balance the spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects, the practitioner helps build a connection between the patient's body systems. No traditional approach can effectively manage emergency medical conditions.

Conventional medicine involves the service of a medical doctor and other health care professionals like nurses, therapists, or pharmacists. The approach includes prescribing required medicines or drugs, providing radiation therapy, or minor or major surgeries. Conventional medicine is also known as allopathic medicine, western medicine, biomedicine, orthodox medicine, or mainstream medicine.

Is Holistic Medicine a Part of Integrative Medicine?

Integrative medicine integrates conventional medicine and complementary therapies to cure health conditions. Conventional medicine includes medication, psychotherapy, etc. Acupuncture, yoga, and other practices are examples of complementary therapy. Holistic psychotherapists can also deliver care through integrative medicine. The practitioners cannot replace the primary health care provider and may need help to treat acute medical conditions. Only the primary health care provider or emergency medicine physician can care for acute or emergency conditions. Holistic psychotherapy improves mood, anxiety, and other symptoms. It includes hypnosis (a state of focused attention, increased awareness, and relaxation), hypnotherapy (use of hypnosis as therapy), guided imagery (a type of relaxation or meditation done in a more focused way), traditional talk therapy (speaking with the mental health professional to cure mental health condition), and cognitive behavioral techniques (relaxing and breathing exercises).

What Are the Principles of Holistic Medicine?

Holistic medicine works on the following principles:

• Illness can be treated by giving support and love.

• The body can heal on its own.

• A patient is just a person with a disease, not themselves an illness.

• Treatment not only focuses on decreasing the symptoms but should treat the cause.

• Treatment requires building a connection between the patient and the doctor.

• The treatment should focus on the person's lifestyle, which makes the body sick.

How Does Holistic Treatment Work?

Holistic treatment includes the following techniques:

• Educating the patient about the importance of adopting lifestyle changes.

• Providing diet counseling.

• Advising the patient about the necessity of self-caring.

• Relationship counseling.

• Psychotherapy.

• Spiritual counseling.

• Complementary and alternative therapy like homeopathy, chiropractic treatment, naturopathy, etc.

• Providing additional conventional treatments like medications or surgery.

What Is the Difference Between Conventional and Holistic Medicine?

Conventional medicine is essential in treating any illness with physical causes or those requiring emergency management. However, a holistic approach is necessary in the case of that illness having complexity in its cause or requiring long-term care and treatment, as in the case of emotional or mental instability. Since conventional medicine focuses solely on the physical aspect and requires the intake of drugs with specific chemical composition, side effects are obvious. On the other hand, holistic medicine has the greatest advantage of having no side effects and improving overall well-being.

What Are the Types of Holistic Treatments?

The different types of holistic treatments are:

• Aromatherapy: Treatment using essential oils and other aroma compounds.

• Acupuncture or Acupressure: The practice of applying pressure on specific points to cure diseases.

• Chiropractic Medicine: Treatment of mechanical conditions by applying balanced pressure.

• Naturopathy: Using herbs and supplements to cure the disease.

• Yoga: Slow-impact stretching and relaxing exercise.

• Osteopathy: Stretching, moving, or massaging the muscles or joints.

• Counseling: Mental health counseling to relieve emotional and mental conditions.

What Are the Advantages of Holistic Medicine Over Conventional Medicine?

A holistic approach to treat diseases is beneficial in many ways:

• Holistic treatments focus more on the patient's health history, which is responsible for the physical symptoms. Therefore, holistic medicine is the most personalized type of treatment.

• Holistic medicine encourages the patient to adopt a healthy lifestyle by eating right and exercising at the right time and amount. Therefore, the overall health and wellness of the patient improve.

• It removes the cause rather than just decreasing the symptoms.

• They have no side effects that affect the quality of life of the patient.

What Are the Demerits of Holistic Medicine?

The following are the downsides of holistic medicine:

• The patient may not open up to the doctor affecting the quality and type of treatment.

• The holistic approach takes more time to cure the health conditions.

• It cannot be used in case of emergency health conditions.

Conclusion

The conventional and holistic method has their own benefits and disadvantages. The former helps provide an immediate cure for symptoms, while the latter helps provide overall well-being. Choosing treatment apt for one's health condition, willpower, and patience level is essential in getting the required benefits.