Principles of Holistic Medicine

About the Book

Principles of Holistic Medicine: Philosophy behind Quality of Life is a textbook in a series of books on holistic medicine and health based on the Danish Quality of Life Survey, where we asked 10,000 people about their quality of life (QOL). The results were quite surprising and forced us to recontemplate the following philosophical questions:

* What is quality of life, happiness, meaning in life?
* What is a human being?
* Do we need a new biology?
* Is the brain the seat of consciousness?
* How do we seize the meaning of life and by doing this, will we becoming well again?
* What are the key concepts of QOL?

The meaning of life is connectedness and development. It is about realizing every opportunity and potential in one's existence. And the opportunities have to be found and acknowledged. What do you find when you find yourself deepest down? You find your real self and your purpose in life. You realize that you are already a part of a larger totality. Antonovsky called it coherence. Maslow called it transcendence. Frankl called it meaning of life. We call it simply being.

To test if these philosphical questions were actually relevant for medicine we looked at the consequesces for patients being taught the QOL philosophy. Quite surprisingly we learned from our pilot studies with "QOL as medicine" that just by assimilating the basic concepts of the QOL philosophy presented in this series of papers, patients felt better and saw their lifes as more meaningful.

The improvement of personal philosophy of life seems to be the essence of holistic medicine and helping the patient to assume more responsibility.

About the Author

Joav Merrick, MD, DMSc, born in 1950 in Denmark is professor of child health and human development affiliated with the Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Aging, Zusman Child Development Center, Division of Pediatrics and Community Health at the Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel, the medical director of the Division for Mental Retardation, Ministry of Social Affairs, Jerusalem, the founder and director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Numerous publications in the field of child health and human development, rehabilitation, intellectual disability, disability, health, welfare, abuse, advocacy, quality of life and prevention. Received the Peter Sabroe Child Award for outstanding work on behalf of Danish Children in 1985 and the International LEGO-Prize ("The Children's Nobel Prize") for an extraordinary contribution towards improvement in child welfare and well-being in 1987.
E-Mail: jmerrick@internet-zahav.net
Website: www.nichd-israel.com