Health and Flourishing: An Interdisciplinary Synthesis

Abstract

AbstractHuman flourishing is a complete state of well-being, comprised of essential elements that are universally valued across cultures as ends in themselves rather than as means to ends. Understanding the ontological interconnectedness of individual and communal flourishing has important implications for health. A narrow view of health has been framed in biomedical—and frequently physical—terms as the absence of disease or impairment. But broader and more holistic understandings derived from long-standing wisdom in the humanities are increasingly being used in tandem with the allopathic approach, thereby offering a relational understanding of health that transcends a focus on physical infirmity and locates the individual in social, ecological, and spiritual contexts. This wisdom has profound implications for the organization of healthcare, including a restoration of compassion as the heart of healthcare practice, as recent iterations of lifestyle medicine and integrative medicine have demonstrated. A synthesis of interdisciplinary knowledge affirms the goal of building a wellbeing ecosystem that transcends self-centeredness and reimagines health as flourishing.