The Holistic Health program offers comprehensive interdisciplinary studies of holistic health, grounded in holistic philosophy and broad empirical inquiry, leading to the award of undergraduate (Associate’s and Bachelor’s degrees) or graduate (Master’s degree) in holistic health. Studies include an internship requirement and a working knowledge of a range of epistemological and research skills to greatly enhance understanding and applied capacities in health service, health education, health research and related professional roles in diverse contexts.
The Holistic Health programs provide students with preparation and training to facilitate a holistic health practice. Holistic health pertains to the whole person’s body, mind and spirit interacting with other people and interdependent with the environment. Holistic Health students learn to see challenges to a person’s well-being in a fuller context and to develop empowering solutions that awaken the individual’s innate self-healing abilities.
Encompassing conventional, complementary, alternative, public, ecological, energy, spiritual, mind-body, cultural, and integrative perspectives on health within a coherent, unifying and practical framework, holistic health studies are underpinned by an interdisciplinary developmental meta-model that places importance on the healer’s own holistic development, epistemological breadth, and capacities to see the interrelated movement of the greater whole.
The Public Health programs’ experiential underpinning is grounded in the University’s Passion Training. Core competency requirements include the completion of the training and demonstration of competency through a regular practice of its tools. Program participants are encouraged to interface throughout their studies with the resources of Passion Training. Each student in the Holistic Health program is trained in holistic fitness, acquiring advanced neurosomatic tools, and embodying passionate living in their own personal life and professional career.
Target Audience
The Holistic Health program is appropriate for:
- Current holistic health professionals, such as nurses, counselors, therapists and social workers.
- Those considering further graduate and/or specialist vocational training toward a career in health, Health, or complementary and alternative medical professions.
- Those considering further academic training toward an academic and/or research and development career in health and allied professions.
- Those interested in careers in holistic health across holistic health professions.
Learning Objectives
The degree award demonstrates competencies in the following areas, the student thus being able to:
- Identify and articulate a viable holistic model that unifies health sciences and their practices into a coherent and optimally functioning endeavor
- Critically evaluate the multidimensional nature and determinants of health and deviations from health
- Demonstrate a capacity to evaluate and make decisions based on and using healthcare research and evidenced-based knowledge, and the capacity to conceptualize modeling and integration of diverse forms of evidence that contribute to the evidence base in health and allied professions
- Demonstrate a capacity for self-reflection and holistic self-development across domains in self, culture and nature
- Demonstrate knowledge of subtle anatomy
- Evidence of a capacity to communicate effectively in professional writing
- Demonstrate an understanding of healthcare trends, developments, and the multidimensional factors impinging on it
- Demonstrate ethical and professional communication across levels of service, position, and function
- Demonstrate a thorough knowledge of non-traditional forms of healing, complementary and alternative health systems, their validity claims, epistemologies, and holistic development potentials in contemporary healthcare.