PROFESSIONAL MASSAGES in PISA
& COMPLEMENTARY TECHNIQUES IN TCM

What does Holistic mean?

Holism: the whole is more than the sum of its parts

(Treccani Dictionary)

Having a holistic conception of a person means always considering him as a complex unity-totality, which cannot be reduced to a simple assembly of his constituent parts. Unlike a machine, where the individual parts form and explain the whole in a deterministic sense, it is only starting from a higher principle that in the living organism it is possible to understand the development of its secondary aspects.

Holism can be applied to many disciplines or areas. In medicine or in wellness practices, health is not seen as a simple absence of disease, but a global well-being of body, mind, society and environment and also as a psychophysical evolution. Traditional oriental medicines like the Traditional Chinese Medicine have always had a holistic approach to human disease and health. Even so-called "alternative" therapeutic approaches, such as homeopathy, have a typically holistic approach. In particular, the holistic masseur is able to practice all the techniques that look at the person as a whole: starting from the muscles, from the single painful states, or from the emotional sensations, everything speaks of our person, of our history.

According to the holistic view, mind, body and spirit are intertwined and working on the body means touching the whole individual.