Unit 1

1.      Ken Wilbur’s Theory of Integral Medicine seeks a synthesis of the best of premodern, modern, and postmodern reality, and is often portrayed as his “theory of everything”. It offers an approach to bring together already existing separate models in various healthcare fields. Integral Theory is different from Western health professions in that Western medicine focuses primarily on curing illness and diseases whereas integral healing focuses on the body as whole, including spirituality, prevention,  and the root causes of illness.

 

2.      The four areas of focus within the integral healing model are:

·        Individual interior accounts (upper-left quadrant) include Freudian psychoanalysis, which interprets people's interior experiences and focuses on "I"

·        Interior plural accounts (lower-left) include Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics which seeks to interpret the collective consciousness of a society, or plurality of people and focuses on "We"

·        Exterior individual accounts (upper-right) include B. F. Skinner's behaviorism, which limits itself to the observation of the behavior of organisms and treats the internal experience, decision making or volition of the subject as a black box, and which with the fourth perspective emphasizes the subject as a specimen to examine, or "It".

·        Exterior plural accounts (lower-right) include Marxist economic theory which focuses upon the behavior of a society (ie a plurality of people) as functional entities seen from outside.

 

3.      An activity that would foster greater physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness would be yoga. Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline that helps a person alleviate health problems, reduce stress and make the spine supple. Yoga is also used as a complete exercise program and physical therapy routine.