Health
In 1993, the National Institutes of Health established the Office of Alternative Medicine. Many saw this as our country’s way of peering into the closet to see different approaches to health and healing than what was considered in the West to be scientifically credible. Dr. Wayne Jonas, the first director of the Office, flipped that on its head in his opening remarks when commenting that the establishment of the Office could be more appropriately understood as the U.S. opening the closet door from the inside and seeing what was in the rest of the house.
Similar to an exploration of the advances in science and technology, the Institute explores what creates health (i.e., a salutogenic approach), rather than focusing on what creates disease (i.e., a pathogenic approach). The latter has been the dominant perspective in the West, often to the detriment of people living with complex or chronic health challenges.
In the 1970s, the term wellness evolved to reflect the notion that health is not just the absence of disease but a dynamic process characterized by a synergy of our physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and social dimensions. Healing, as such, is achieved by addressing each of these dimensions more so than focusing solely on the physical.
The Institute examines individual and societal health, synthesizing Eastern and Western practices while also addressing the relationship between socioeconomic factors and health.
