Some say that we just need to look around us to witness the evidence of a wellness revolution in our culture - the rapid growth of consumer interest in spas, yoga, meditation, organic foods, and alternative therapies. Wellness coaching is an emerging field. Women's magazines focus the the "spa and wellness" lifestyle, and "wellness" is commonly used in the names health products, ranging from vitamins to pet foods.
This leads us to a key question. Exactly what is wellness?
All too often, wellness is defined within a disease framework - reducing health risks and preventing disease. This is especially true in employee wellness programs and the healthcare system. To answer this question, let's go back to beginnings of the wellness movement in the mid-1970s.
In the early 1970s John W. Travis, MD, MPH, was fulfilling his residency in preventive medicine at John's Hopkins and working with the US Public Health Service. A protégé of Dr. Lewis Robbins, creator of the Health Risk Appraisal (HRA), Dr. Travis worked on the earliest computerized HRAs, including the first one used by the CDC. At the same time his dissatisfaction with the current disease-focused medical paradigm led him to explore the work of Dr. Abraham Maslow and other leading visionaries.
One day, while still in his residency, he discovered an obscure book, High-Level Wellness, written in 1961 by Dr. Halbert Dunn, formerly Chief of the US Office for Vital Statistics. Dr. Dunn's concept of high-level wellness and insistence on the importance of looking at "levels of health" in addition to medicine's focus on levels of disease, were important catylsts to Dr. Travis' emerging ideas.
By the time Dr. Travis completed his residency, he had made a life-altering decision—rather than treating people as a physician he would dedicate his life to teaching people to be well. Moving to Mill Valley, California, Dr. Travis opened the first wellness center in the United States in 1975, the Wellness Resource Center. A true wellness pioneer, Dr. Travis had developed a model for lifestyle change that focused on self-responsibility, and engaged the whole person—body, mind, emotions, and spirit. "Wellness" was a new term in American culture, and the new center attracted media attention, including Dan Rather at CBS, who featured the new "wellness center" on 60 Minutes.
As he continued to refine his work at the Center, he created the first wellness assessment, the Wellness Inventory, to use as the Center's primary client intake. He captured his philosophy in the now classic Wellness Workbook, which has been used by wellness and health promotion educators in undergraduate and graduate programs in universities for over 25 years.
Three Key Wellness Concepts
Dr. Travis' wellness philosophy is based on three key wellness concepts he developed during the 1970s.
Key Concept #1: Illness-Wellness Continuum
Key Concept #2: Iceberg Model of Health
Key Concept #3: Wellness Energy System
