Holistic treatment is a term you see batted around quite often in addiction treatment these days, but rarely is this approach explained other than with a laundry list of therapies. Holistic therapy is related to the term holism, coined by J. C. Smuts in Holism and Evolution. It’s the idea that systems and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of parts. Indeed, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In treatment, the system is the human self. The properties of the system are the body, mind, and spirit. Referring back to our Whole Being Recovery Method, holistic therapies are therefore intended to treat the whole person, inclusive of mind, body and spirit, not just the addiction or mental health disorder.