What Does the Term "Holistic Medicine" Actually Mean?

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Dr. Sylvia Orozco Silberman DO, MS
January 6, 2025 / 5 mins read

Many healthcare clinics coin the terms integrative, holistic, functional, alternative, or complementary medicine. What do these different terms mean? How do we understand the approaches of our Western medical model in comparison to other practices of medicine? With our current climate and craving for more holistic and natural approaches to our health, it’s important to understand the philosophy and framework from which we hold space for someone in a healing setting. Are we simply using complementary therapies through a conventional medicine approach? Is the foundational principle by which we view disease and diagnosis not allowing these complementary therapies to be treated in a holistic and effective way?

Conventional/ Western/Mainstream Medicine
This is the type of medicine practiced here in the United States. It is the education from an allopathic medical school where doctors receive an MD (medical degree) after their name. Osteopathic medical schools also offer Western medical education, and doctors receive a DO (doctor of osteopathic medicine) after their name. In addition, they are taught to incorporate hands-on skills that offer diagnostic guidance and treatment instead of just the primary pharmacotherapy treatment options that MDs primarily offer. (As a side note: DOs in the U.S. primarily practice as MDs. Very rarely do we find an osteopathic physician that approaches their clinical cases within the osteopathic philosophy and hands-on approach). Choosing a DO physician in a conventional healthcare system does not always mean getting a hands-on, holistic evaluation and treatment. The limitations within the healthcare models of care (hospital systems, insurance companies) don’t allow for the practice of holistic care from the osteopathic perspective, as it was intended. Understanding these confines of medical practice can help you navigate where you seek care. Is the care compromised? Is it biased?

Non-mainstream/conventional medicine examples
Acupuncture, homeopathic medicine, naturopathic medicine, reiki, ayurvedic medicine, massage, tai chi, qi gong, osteopathic manipulative medicine, resonance medicine, and shamanism, to name a few.

What approach are we seeking? Here are some definitions as per the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health:

  • Integrative Medicine
    This combines conventional mainstream medicine with complementary approaches. For example, medication for migraines is used along with acupuncture treatments. Is the acupuncturist treating a symptom? Are they evaluating the whole being to diagnose and treat within their traditional philosophy? Or are they simply supporting conventional medicine’s treatment plan?

  • Holistic Medicine
    Medicine that considers the whole person: mind, emotion, body, and spirit. Most understand the mind and body aspect of this statement but lack understanding of what spirit means. Acknowledging the importance of bodywork and a mental health therapist does not include the health of one’s spirit. More on what spirit is below.

  • Functional Medicine
    As per the Institute for Functional Medicine, this “provides a framework to systematically identify and address the underlying processes and dysfunctions causing imbalance and disease in each individual.” This is where the future of conventional medicine should be! Evaluating blood work with a greater understanding of how minerals and vitamins play a role. Understanding probiotics and supplements and how we best absorb them. The limitation within this scope of medicine is the future down the rabbit hole of a reductionist view of the body, missing the neuro-biomechanical body, the mind, and the spirit. How many individuals have you met who have had a revolutionary improved diet and supplement intake but continue to have issues? Could the nervous system be on overdrive?

  • Alternative Medicine
    Use of non-mainstream medicine in place of conventional medicine.

  • Complementary Medicine
    Use of non-mainstream medicine with conventional medicine.

Now that we’ve defined these different labels, we can understand the limitations of the different approaches and perspectives. Let’s dive deeper into what holistic medicine means.

As I try to define what all these terms mean (mind, emotion, body, spirit) separately, it becomes difficult and “stuck” for me. As a culture, our language has reduced our capability of expanding our understanding of wholeness because we are constantly dividing, reducing, and separating concepts. For example, separating body parts, i.e., care from a cardiologist vs. a pulmonologist. We divide the body into different organ systems to provide care and, even further, to apply pharmaceutical therapies. Amid this reductionist view, we have lost sight of the whole. We have forgotten what a living, breathing body is. I cannot describe just the body without incorporating emotion into it. I cannot describe the mind without describing the spirit. It all is interwoven within one another.

In truth, our past and present history in the body are all related. As is a birth trauma, a familial dynamic, a poor diet, a concussion, an illness, a dental device.

Tensegrity
In osteopathic philosophy, we frequently discuss the concept of tensegrity. The tensegrity model is a physics concept that states that there is a reaction for every action, whether yielding or resisting. Envision yourself holding a balloon. If you squeeze the balloon on one side, you can immediately feel the change on the other. This is tensegrity. Everything in the body is connected. The word tensegrity combines the words tension and integrity. Evaluate how beautifully the body holds itself up with connective tissue, for example, the area of the wings of the scapula to the shoulder joint to the clavicle to the sternum. None of these bones connects to the spine, which is held up by bio-tensegrity to the top of the sternum.

Spirit/Soul
“Spirit is the expansive oneness from which all things emanate. Your soul is a part of the vastness of Spirit connecting everything.” (Dr. Dijamco). Every soul has their own unique, precious, and needed expression of spirit. The intuition and guidance our soul receives are from the Spirit. The word inspire means to “breathe in Spirit.” Our magnificent body is home to our spirit. We feel this when our body, mind, and spirit are grounded and aligned. “When there is a disruption to the connection to spirit, the body and mind will also reflect that disruption.” (Dr. Dijamco).

How can we approach the whole to understand where the body has become overwhelmed? Where is the “missing peg in the wheel?” To which layer of the body is the “peg” blocking the flow? Is it the emotional body? Is the mind stuck in a mindset? Is there unresolved birth trauma in the body? Is an airway compromised? Does the person not feel joy in being themselves? Are they deficient in good fats in their diet? Is their toxic load overwhelming?

When we’ve narrowed in on one aspect too closely, like a hyperfocus on a diagnosis, we’ve lost sight of the other factors of a living, breathing body that contributed to the development of this dysfunction/disease. Maintaining a peripheral/whole perspective vs. a narrowed focus is very challenging because our education and culture are narrowed in on details. We have a hard time recognizing the whole.

Find a healthcare provider or physician with space for all to be acknowledged and considered, one who sees the WHOLE you, where the medicine provided is not only based on the tools they have to provide but the understanding of where the medicine is needed. Often, I have patients go to a surgeon for evaluation and state they were prescribed surgery. This is not surprising since it is what surgeons have to offer. It doesn’t mean they don’t need it, but for many, that isn’t the “peg” in the wheel. For example, a functional medicine approach to a case may be the necessary medicine before considering the surgery. Or maybe a functional medicine doctor will recommend lots of testing and supplements when the “peg” in the wheel is in the emotional body of the organs.

As a holistic osteopathic physician, I hold a space where I am witnessing all parts of the patient: their past, their present, their home, their terrain, their inspiration…their whole being. The fulcrum of the treatment begins with knowing that the body has an innate ability to heal itself. It is not for me–nor anyone–to come in and fix it, but rather to recognize where the being got “stuck” and bring awareness to that aspect of the whole, honoring our beautiful, continuous healing journey.

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