What We Mean by Holistic — and What We Don't

Holistic is a word that has been stretched until it means almost nothing. In one shop window it sells crystals; in a university hospital it describes a multidisciplinary team meeting. At Dorf, we use it in the second sense.

For us, holistic means that a person living with depression, bipolar disorder or psychosis is not only a set of symptoms. Sleep, nutrition, movement, housing, income, loneliness, medication side effects and physical illness all shape how that person feels — and all of them are legitimate places to intervene.

What holistic does not mean: replacing antipsychotics with supplements, treating diagnosed illness with diet alone, or implying that anyone could think their way out of a serious mental illness. Those claims cause real harm, and readers across Germany, the UK and the wider EU encounter them constantly online.

In practice, this is how our editorial standard works. Clinical claims are grounded in guideline-level evidence — for Germany the AWMF S3 guidelines, for the UK NICE guidance, and at EU level the European Medicines Agency for anything about medication. Complementary approaches such as exercise therapy, mindfulness-based programmes or nutrition support are covered as adjuncts, with an honest account of how strong the evidence is.

We also name the system you are actually navigating. In Germany that usually starts with a GP or the psychotherapy consultation hour (psychotherapeutische Sprechstunde), reachable through 116 117. In the UK it starts with a GP or NHS Talking Therapies self-referral. In both, waiting times are real and worth planning around.

So when you read the word holistic here, read it as: everything that affects your health counts, and none of it replaces the treatment that works.