We picture the bone mending, the incision closing. While these are certainly examples of healing, the idea of wholeness is a much richer one. It involves every dimension of wellness. Each human who experiences healing, enhanced wholeness, thus knows a certain personal integrity of being. Healing practices are those which help others achieve a sense of wholeness, intactness, personal integrity . . .
Healing is a process.
It involves a complex series of human experiences that lead a person from feeling not well, not at one within himself or herself, to a sense of feeling whole, mended, no longer broken, once more able to live a meaningful life. Healing is most appropriate to nursing because nurses have always committed to helping people with every aspect of their health. To ignore any one dimension is to compromise the others in the personal search for healing. Healing encompasses a rich array of human realities. It may be as simple as healing a biochemical imbalance such as a drug reaction, healing an organ such as the heart, or healing a system such as the musculoskeletal system.