Developing the Whole Person
What is Holistic Development?
The key phrase chapter have to pay attention to
is whole person, emphasizing the complete aspects of a
person or his totality. In order to understand what it
means to perceive a person as a whole organism, we will
discuss philosophical theories such as dualism and
holism.
Mind and Body Dualism of Descartes
Rene Descartes, one of the modern philosophers
of our time, influenced mankind’s thinking with his
theory of duality or understanding the nature of things
in a simple, dual mode. Hence, you are familiar with the
separation of the body and spirit in western religion,
and of the mind and body in the study of human
sciences. People perceive things as dual in character.
More examples of these are the distinct male-
female gender categorization or the yin and yang of
eastern thought, although western culture
overemphasizes its either-or, black-white
characteristics. This contrary to what eastern
philosophers understand It to be that there is
dynamism between two forces in nature, and that each
force is present in each other and will never exist in its
purest form. More examples can be thought of to
illustrate this, such as good-bad, racial purity, life-
death, and other points of view where things are taken
in their absolutes or extremes.
Holism and Gestalt
In 1926, General Jan C. Smut, a South African
stateman, military leader, and philosopher, wrote about
holism in his book Holism and Evolution. He introduced
the academic terminology for holism as “the tendency
in nature to from wholes which are greater than the
sum of the parts through creative evolution.
Earlier in 1890, a German philosopher and
psychologist, Christian von Ehrehfels, and later on
supported by psychologists Max Werthiemer, Kurt
Kofka, and Wolfgang Kohler of the Berlin School,
introduced the concept of gestalt. This is defined by
Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “something that is
made of many parts and yet is somehow more that or
different from the combination of its parts; broadly, the
general quality or character of something.” This theory
continues to influence much of psychology and
education today.
An example of holism and gestalt is evident in
music. A symphony cannot be defined by one of its
notes alone. Even the clusters or sums of these different
notes do not make up the whole symphony cannot nor
characterize the whole symphony. The interaction and
fusion of the different notes in a symphony produce
something bigger and greater that the notes themselves.
The parallelism between a symphony, a car and
humans in terms of being unified entity follows the
principles of holism. In understanding humans, it is
important to see the person in his entirety and just his
parts.
The Various Aspect of Holistic Development of Person
When we consider a human person and what
various aspects make up this complex organism, five
aspects come to mind:
Physiological or the physical attributes
including the five physical senses;
Cognitive or the intellectual functions of the
mind: thinking, recognizing reasoning, analyzing,
projecting. Synthesizing, recalling, and assessing.
Psychological or how thinking, feeling, and
behaving interact and happen in a person;
Social or the manner by which an individual
interacts with other individuals or groups of
individuals; and
Spiritual or the attribute of a person’s
consciousness and beliefs, including the values
and virtues that guide and put meaning into a
person’s life.
