Abstract

This discussion locates the problem of healing within the context of a paradigm and focuses on the anthropological, cosmological, and epistemological assumptions of the paradigm. Two paradigms and their respective orientations toward healing are discussed. ;Contemporary mainstream understandings of and approaches to health are coherent with the paradigm which developed and dominated Western scientific and philosophical thought during the modern era. Cartesian dualism, the analytic reductionist method, and the Newtonian mechanical model of the world have found expression in the mainstream biomedical orientation toward health. ;That paradigm is being challenged by research and theory in several areas. Investigations in the study of psychosomatic interaction, modern physics, the philosophy of science, the sociology of knowledge, and the nature of consciousness support a revised paradigm. ;Recurrent themes emerging from these areas of study support the assumptions that mind is inextricably related to matter; that the human and human experience cannot be meaningfully separated from the whole; that methods of acquiring knowledge are built into the assumptions of the paradigm; that there are different realms of physical and human experience which require different systems of explanation; and that humans participate in reality construction and the nature of such construction is positively related to issues of illness/health/healing. These revised assumptions are reflected in an emerging holistic orientation toward health. ;The pertinent assumptions of the modern era and their expression in the biomedical orientation are discussed. A critique of that orientation is offered. The recent contributions from the areas of study noted which persuasively challenge and support a revision of the modern paradigm are presented. A holistic orientation toward health that is coherent with the revised assumptions is characterized and critiqued. A theological perspective that is supportive of the holistic orientation is included. ;This discussion supports the position that the holistic orientation, supported by revised assumptions based on recent research and theory, is more adequate than the biomedical orientation, supported by the modern paradigm, in addressing the problem of healing