Introduction

Generalists describe the Bowerbird skill of gathering as ‘inductive foraging’, a process that values a broad view and cares for the whole person. The term ‘whole person care’ is used in preference to the terms ‘patient or person-centred care’ that may not include acknowledgement of physiology or the contextual and relational aspects of the personhood of both practitioner and distressed person. Again, in order to preserve a wide perspective, generalists keep the end-goal in mind: healing and wellbeing. Instead of a focus on one aberration, or disease process, a focus on wellbeing and healing allows a range of distress to be attended to with a clear purpose. Philosopher John Sadler describes those who offer whole person care as ‘beleaguered defender[s] of holism, empathy and the complex understanding of the individual’. Wellbeing is multifaceted – the word ‘being’ represents the whole organism as well as the dynamic whole person experience of ‘being alive’.