First define wellness...

 'A person who has no diagnosable physical or mental illness can feel a profound lack of wellbeing and someone with a serious illness can experience a profound sense of wellbeing'.  As Margaret Hensman worked to create the wellness programme, she had to think carefully about what the word actually means.

Thank you to Mike, RJP and CK for your comments on the last blog. 

I agree, Mike, about the importance of nutrition and this is why nutrition is the first topic covered in The Wellness Programme. I have a particular interest in food allergy and food intolerance and I share the view that much more research is needed into many different aspects of nutrition.

Many practitioners lack the knowledge to be able to give consistent nutritional advice tailored to individual need and conflicting messages (especially from the food industry and the media) leave the public ill equipped to make informed choices about what to eat.

I was surprised, RJP, at the complexity of issues and concerns raised by my clients during the Wellness pilot. My role in this was as a ‘listener’ and any advice was limited to my own area of expertise but it was also an opportunity to signpost clients to other agencies or services. 

However, this raised training implications; listening and history taking skills have now been incorporated into the training of Wellness Practitioners.

I agree, CK, that Integrated Health involves individual’s being responsible for their health and being able to make informed decisions about what is right for them.  I’ve been thinking a lot about a definition of Integrated Health since the December Blog. 

A clear, concise and universal definition is still a long way off (and I think we need to distinguish between ‘Integrated Health’ and ’Integrated Health Care’) but I used the following definition for an article I wrote recently and then ‘unpicked’ the key words (italicised) in the body of the article:

“Integrated Health Care promotes health and wellbeing by bringing together the best in conventional and complementary medicine to achieve balance in all the factors that contribute to maintaining or improving optimal health”.  

I had much the same semantic difficulties in describing what The Wellness Programme is.  It may seem unnecessarily philosophical to struggle over what is meant by the terms ‘health’, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘wellness’ but it is a process that has to be gone through during the development of any new health initiative.  An ‘operational definition’ of the new initiative is essential if thoughts and actions are to stay focussed on the task in hand.
    
‘Health’, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘wellness’ are terms familiar to most people who, in turn, have an inherent understanding of the meaning of these terms.  However, the concepts of health, wellbeing and wellness defy accurate, universally acceptable definitions.  An often quoted definition of health is that of the World Health Organisation: 

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.

(WHO 1994).  

This definition is often regarded as being too broad and unrealistic because the concepts expressed therein are subjective.  ‘Physical, mental and social wellbeing’ can mean different things to different people and can vary greatly between different social and cultural groups.  

At an individual level health involves freedom from disease and illness but not necessarily disability or infirmity. A person with impaired hearing or vision may well resent being regarded as having ‘poor health’ or ‘ill health’ or being ‘unhealthy’ simply because of their disability.

At an individual level wellbeing is a subjective state that can exist independently of health or illness.  A person who has no diagnosable physical or mental illness can feel a profound lack of wellbeing and someone with a serious illness can experience a profound sense of wellbeing. 

Wellbeing is a lot more than just ‘feeling good’.  We can feel good after a few glasses of wine, or relaxing on holiday, or being with friends, or having a massage but these feelings are transient.  Our individual wellbeing depends on our personal physical, mental, social and spiritual integrity.

Wellbeing is about our relationship with ourselves: it is unique and intensely personal.  Wellness can be regarded as a philosophy of life that requires knowledge, self awareness and action to achieve the realisation of our physical, mental and social potential. 

Wellness requires thinking, feeling, knowing and doing.  It requires individual responsibility, motivation and an awareness of the interaction of genes and environment on personal health and wellbeing. It is by applying the principles and practice of Wellness that health and well being will be improved.  

Our Wellness Programme is a comprehensive programme of care, support, education and therapy which sets clients on the path to optimal physical, mental, social and emotional health and wellbeing.

In future blogs I’ll talk about how The Wellness Programme does this.

Now over to you: I’ve talked about the concepts and principles underpinning The Wellness Programme.  Let me know to what extent these resonate with your thoughts and experience.