The Difference Between Holistic or Functional, Conventional, and Integrative Medicine

madalynmauthe
Jun 18
5 min read

With the rising interest and investment in holistic or alternative medicine options, you may have begun to ask yourself, “What is the difference between holistic or functional, conventional, and integrative medicine?” This article is going to break down each term, their common definitions, patient approaches, diagnostic and treatment methods, uncovers the nuances of each, and expands the conversation around healthcare.

Holistic and Functional Medicine:

When it comes to healthcare, holistic and functional medicine can be grouped together based on their focus and approaches to health. Naturopathy, or natural medicine, can also fall under this category due to being a type of holistic medicine. Holistic and functional medicine considers the whole person–mind, body, spirit, and emotions–when getting to the root cause of disease and achieving overall wellness. Both areas of medicine emphasize the balance in life and how multiple life pillars need to be taken into consideration for living a healthy lifestyle.

A holistic or functional medicine practitioner examines the bodily system or part that is causing negative symptoms while also acknowledging how other systems may be affected. It’s about getting to the root cause of the condition and not just easing symptoms an individual may be experiencing. Treatment comes in the form of a systems-based approach that considers the interrelatedness of bodily systems at an individual level. It recognizes that factors within life pillars (mind, body, spirit, and emotions), such as genetics, physiology, biology, lifestyle, and environment, are all unique to each patient. Because of this uniqueness, the steps towards healing and protocols are individualized.

As holistic and functional medicine emphasizes the importance of patients taking responsibility for their own health and healing along their treatment journey, there are a variety of techniques and support that practitioners advise their patients. It may include dietary changes, exercise, cognitive therapy interventions, counseling, acupuncture, supplement recommendations, massage therapy, chiropractic care, and hormonal or gut microbiome testing.

Other factors and principles of holistic and functional medicine:

A diagnosis does not define you.
- According to Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare, a diagnosis is defined as a “pre-existing set of categories agreed upon by the medical profession to designate a specific condition.” In keeping with the theme of individualized paths of healing, natural medicine principles recognize these categories as failing to include the full scope of a patient’s health experience.
Emphasizes the role in taking responsibility and ownership of your own health
- Being your own health advocate allows you to have a deeper understanding of your body and its cues and to become a steward of your own path towards healing. Click to read a previous article, The Problems with Labels and Diagnosis, here.
The body wants to heal–it just needs the correct tools.
- Our bodies are like supercomputers! They want to support us and live well, we just need to give them the correct tools to do so.

Conventional Medicine

Conventional or Western medicine is the common and modern form of healthcare, at least

in the United States. It is the care you receive when you walk into a doctor’s office, medical clinic, hospital, or urgent care, and what is taught in medical schools today.

This type of medicine aims to diagnose and treat illness and disease based on the symptoms of the patient. It encompasses a “one size fits all” style of patient approaches and groups together symptoms for treatment. Treatment often comes in the form of pharmaceutical medications, imaging techniques (x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs), screening tools (mammograms and colonoscopies), blood tests, and surgical procedures. Highly effective for acute conditions such as traumatic injuries or infections, the diagnostic and treatment methods of conventional medicine may fall short when it comes to chronic conditions such as heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and obesity, to name a few.

Integrative Medicine

Integrative medicine is where conventional and functional medicine meet as a team. It uses an evidence-based approach to treat the whole person—mind, body, and soul. Instead of solely focusing on treating symptoms of disease, it evaluates the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs of patients in order to develop a corresponding treatment protocol for the illness or condition.

With an emphasis on supporting your body’s natural ability to heal itself, the treatments are based on weaving the two disciplinary medical practices. Treatments of integrative medicine include meditation, massage, physical therapy, dietary supplements, and herbal medicine, while not excluding surgery, medications, and lifestyle changes. Merging the two creates a healthcare experience that neither dismisses conventional medicine nor uncritically accepts natural forms of medicine. It relies on science and evidence to guide a diagnosis and its corresponding treatment plan while focusing on prevention.

It creates a space for patients to feel validated by their providers in taking autonomy for their health, while not feeling like they are put into a classification or labeling box based on their symptoms.

Conventionally-Trained Providers Turning Towards Functional Medicine

Dr. Heather Moday is an example of a conventionally-trained specialist who has transitioned to become a functional medical provider. After spending over a decade prescribing steroids and antibiotics as a conventional allergist, Moday felt limited by the care she was able to provide to her patients. These constraints led her to functional medicine to dig deeper and get to her patients' root causes.

Dr. Christine Maren was asking herself “why” too much during her residency: “Why do so many people have thyroid disease? Why does everyone seem to need their gallbladder out? Why are apparently healthy young women struggling with fertility?”

Dr. Maren turned to functional medicine to get the answers she was asking. She states on her website, “Functional medicine asks how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing the root causes of disease for each individual.” Taking the leap into functional medicine, she found other practitioners who were asking the same questions and getting real answers to health problems.

Dr. Maren explains, “It’s a proactive approach to achieving optimal wellness and preventing future disease. The emphasis is on homeostasis and health, rather than disease and diagnosis.”

Concluding Points

Learning about the different healthcare options, their patient approaches, and their diagnostic and treatment methods allows you to feel more confident when a negative health issue arises. Having knowledge around preventative measures and functional and integrative providers in your toolkit gives you healthcare freedom.

That’s why here at Tikvah, we are thrilled to be incorporating a new digital development that will serve as the middle connecting point between employers and employees and functional healthcare providers, nutritionists, health coaches, and other holistic wellness professionals. This digital tool will champion your health and provide you with the resources to not only receive holistic methods of healthcare, but also get answers to your own why when it comes to your health.