THE HOLISTIC APPROACH IN PSYCHIATRY
ANDRAS ANGYAL M. D.
The holistic approach seeks to understand the person on the basis of his organization.
An organization cannot be described in terms of one-to-one relations but in terms of systems. Systems are types of order, arrangements of parts according to a unifying principle, the system principle.
An item functions as part of a whole through the occupancy of a position; it has a positional value within the structure of the whole.
Personality organization is a hierarchy of systems.
Any constituent of personality may function as a part of several subsystems at the same time.
Holistic determinism allows for more than one single effect; it determines only the range within which the effect will fall.
In the life of the person interactions do take place not only in the direction, past-present-future, but also in the opposite direction.
The law of continuous spread of system action states that only neighboring systems can effect each other in a hierarchy of systems.
The holistic approach as outlined here does not contain assumptions about specific psychiatric phenomena but describes a way of thinking which I believe is fruitful for the clarification of psychiatric problems.
