Strix, if you're being asked to evidence your statements more than other posters within this thread (and I'm not at all sure you are), this may be because your statements are rather more sweeping than most. I appreciate that opinion is opinion, and your opinions stem from an established school of medical/therapeutic thought but if, in a discussion of how life on earth originated, I stated baldly, "we're a race of alien ghosts", I might be expected to back this up in some way. I could well attempt to avoid this by gesturing toward the fact that many scientologists believe the same thing, but I'd expect to be called on it.
One reason I, personally, am taking issue with what you've said is that I'm not convinced that your holistic/atomistic distinction is a valid or even useful one. In the examples thus far (cancer, depression, the common cold), it's unclear how the therapeutic actions of a holistic practitioner would differ from those of anyone else. In none of these cases (and, as I've pointed out, in the vast majority of conditions termed 'disease' or 'illness') is the "root cause" readily identifiable - so I'm in the dark as to how a holistic practitioner would go about addressing it. And that's leaving aside even more nebulous matters of "spirit", etc.
Having trained in conventional Western medicine, I'd say that much of what my colleagues do is 'holistic' in the sense that they ask the question, "why is this person presenting with this symptom at this time?" and give due consideration to the wider picture. Whether they possess the resources to "treat the whole of one's life" (whether anyone does) is another matter. |
