Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) suggests integrative approach to achieve Holistic Healthcare. (e.g. Naturopathy incorporates balancing the five basic elements; Ayurveda deals with total health of mind-body system and emotional core; Homoeopathy derives from holistic activity and effects at atomic levels).
CAM modalities offer clues to understanding physiology and medicine more deeply. These, especially Ayurveda and vibrational medicines (e.g Pranic or Reflexology) as they deal with ‘physic’ as well as ‘psyche’ of ‘physik’, offer a paradigm shift in the modern in both biology and medicine.
In the views of Dr. Alex Hankey of Harvard University: Many CAM approaches to health care are scientifically in advance of those based on current Western biology and medicine. Such theories may well constitute the next steps in our scientific understanding of biology (+ physiology) itself.
Systems of complementary medicine tend to act on a more holistic level, and require more holistic approaches to describing physiological function for theories of their action to be constructed.
A fundamental reason why “healthy state” of complex organisms exhibit holistic functioning lies in the fact that regulation processes must themselves be regulated. This leads to an integrated hierarchy of regulation processes of a holistic nature.
As the keynote article of eCAM_2005 cites: Considering that regulation processes are necessarily independent of each other — the reductionist perspective (i.e. the modern medical theory) — is therefore a fundamental error when considering the regulation of complex biological systems.
Dr. Hyland [c.f. Proceedings on CAM at London Royal College of Physicians; 2001] specifically suggests that systems theory and the physics of complexity must be necessary to describe processes in holistic medicine. Holistic aspects of systems are necessary to describe similar properties of holistic medicine. Ordinary physics and chemistry cannot do so.
In his paper on “Biological Coherence in Response to External Stimulai” [in the book on Th. Physics & Medicine, 1988; Springer-Verlag] Dr. Frohlich presents concrete evidence for coherent behavior in biological systems, implying that additional levels of orderliness are unexpectedly present. Such additional orderliness can result in more integrated function, and be the basis of truly holistic patterning.
