The holistic approach to medicine and health care emphasizes the integrity of each person's physical, mental, and spiritual being, the psychosocial context of health and illness, the importance of health promotion, a respectful partnership between physician and patient, and the actual or potential utility of techniques derived from a variety of healing traditions. It represents a recent attempt to enlarge and humanize the perspective and practice of modern biomedicine. After a discussion of the historical forces which have shaped the development of holistic medicine, this paper describes the salient characteristics of its paradigm, some of the evidence on which it is based, and some of its implications for medical practice.