Before we discuss illness or the cause of an illness, it would be desirable to first look at health, and discover what normal, or ideal health really is.  In discovering what health is, we also discover what illness and compromised health really are.

Pick up any dictionary and look up the word health, and a definition similar to the following will undoubtably appear:

Health   n.  1: the condition of being sound in body or mind; especially freedom from physical disease or pain.  2: Soundness, especially of body or mind; freedom from disease or abnormality.

On the surface, the dictionary definition may sound like a reasonably good definition of health.  Freedom from disease and soundness of body and mind fits quite well with what we were all taught about health.  When examined closely, however, the dictionary definition gives us an inadequate picture of what health really is.  Pain, for example, is a very poor indicator of health.  Consider the fact that liver cancer, ovarian cancer, or pancreatic cancer all produce no pain or other discernable symptoms until the disease process has progressed to the terminal state.  Physical disease is often referenced in the definition of health, again reflecting the belief that the physical body contains all the indicators of true health.  Reference to a sound mind is usually included in the definition, but almost sounds like an afterthought.  The field of psychoneuroimmunology tells us that our thought processes are very strongly linked to the condition of our physical body, specifically our immune system.  The mind, therefore, must be included in a proper definition of health.  No mention at all is made of the spirit in the definition, perhaps because in today's society any mention of the spirit has religious overtones and is therefore taboo to discuss because someone might get offended.  So, the first thing that has to be tossed aside is the dictionary definition of health.

Then medical definition of health is commonly cited as:

Health is an organism's ability to efficiently respond to challenges (stressors) and effectively restore and sustain a "state of balance," known as homeostasis.

The medical definition of health clearly addresses the physical body only.  This is evidenced primarily by the use of the term homeostasis, which is a term that applies to the physical world, and is a principle of chemistry and physics.  The medical definition does not take into consideration either the mind or the spirit.  This omission is not surprising at all, since the modern medicine primarily treats disease from the perspective of the physical body only.  Furthermore, any mentally related illnesses, such as depression or schizophrenia, are not addressed by this definition.  By not including the mind in the definition we in essence say that the schizophrenic patient in the hospital who is taking antipsychotic medications is in good health.  Furthermore, we can also say that since the antipsychotic medication is disrupting the schizophrenic’s normal homeostasis, and it should therefore not be prescribed.  Homeostasis is more applicable to the ideal gas law learned in chemistry class, pV=nRT, than it is to health.  While homeostasis may be a factor to be considered in health, it is not the final and determining factor.  Health cannot simply be reduced to homeostasis.

Since this notion of health being related to purely homeostasis is absurd, the medical definition of health must be dismissed, and tossed aside with the dictionary definition.  Oddly, the dictionary definition of health, by including the mind in the definition, is actually better than the medical definition.  Health cannot be reduced to simply biochemical homeostasis.  This, in itself, is sufficient reason to dismiss the medical definition of health.

The World Health Organization has developed their own definition of health, The World Health Organizations's definition is

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

The World Health Organization's definition of health gives hearty approval to the idea that there is more to health than just the absence of disease.  Bringing the concept of well-being beyond that of the physical body and mind, the social aspect of a person’s life is introduced as a facet of health.  While this might be a little better than the dictionary definition, the World Health Organization's definition fails to address the spiritual aspect of the complete person.  The omission of the spiritual aspect of the person may be again as result the fear of approaching a taboo subject, or perhaps to keep in line with political correctness.  The World Health Organization's definition of health, therefore, has earned a place with both the dictionary definition and the medical definition of health.

Health, then, needs a definition that encompasses the whole person, not only the physical body, but the mind and spirit as well.  An appropriate definition of health would also include that person’s relation to not only their social environment, but physical environment as well.  When we speak of the whole person, we refer to the physical body, the mind, and the spirit.  Our better definition of health, which takes into account all aspects of the person and their surroundings, is discussed in depth in this chapter.