Reframing the Wellbeing Debate

- Balancing Science and

Spirituality

Holistic health practitioners know that an essential part of wellbeing is our connection with the wonder and energy of nature and all life. But they are often excluded from mainstream medicine due to accusations of ‘bad science’ especially when mentioning energy, qi or prana. This paper suggests that practitioners move on from that debate and be encouraged by the NHS’s full support of spirituality in best practice. It encourages practitioners to write HOLISTIC whenever they are asked to fill in a form with a religion box.

This then is the reframe. Stop having the scientific argument. It is a waste of time and energy. 

Reframe it as a simple statement: ‘spirituality is an essential part of wellbeing’.   And take note that this statement, as well as the notion of spirituality as a natural sense of connectedness, has some serious scientific foundations.  Then notice too that we have already won the debate and paradigm war.  Wellbeing is already part of the government’s health policy package, and Concern for Spirituality is clearly named as a marker of best practice in the NHS Religion and Sprirituality Action Plans.

So we can take the high ground, stop the futile scientific debate and assert that the fully holistic approach includes levels of analysis beyond the mechanistic model, and that is already supported by NHS directives on best practice.

To read the whole article by William Bloom follow the link below...

Original article by William Bloom, the Journal of Holistic Healthcare, 30/6/2010
(www.williambloom.com/pages.php?id=97)

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