title: Healing as appreciating wholeness.
abstract: The "clinicalization" of human experience by the health care disciplines has been instrumental in denying important facets of human life and not fully accounting for the essence and wholeness of experience. A unitary conceptualization of healing as appreciating wholeness is proposed. Appreciating is actualized through a praxis approach used for research and practice--unitary pattern appreciation--created to bring the theoretical principles of unitary science into practical reality. It is essentially a praxis for exploration of the wholeness within human/environmental pattern. Healing is conceptualized as the realization, knowledge, and appreciation of the inherent wholeness in life that elucidates prospects of clarified understanding and opportunities for action. The essential features of the process of pattern appreciation are a synoptic stance toward pattern information, a participatory engagement with people in the exploration of wholeness, and the transformative nature of the process that illuminates the possibilities in wholeness. A case demonstrates the nature of the unitary pattern appreciation process and its healing qualities.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Cowling
mesh_terms: D001155:Art Therapy; D001288:Attention; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006694:Holistic Health; D018939:Holistic Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D006803:Human Development; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D015399:Nursing Research; D009742:Nursing Theory; D012649:Self Concept; D013561:Symbolism