What a great interview! Your direct, well-researched questions, Beth, enable Sue to get to the heart of the matter: Integrative Spas are ready to flourish! provided the physical & functional design complements physiological and environmental requirements for well-being, has a holistically profitable & sustainable fiscal model, and aligns with the needs of the culture/community/demographic.
Sue, I love your effective use of fundamental terms such as “light” vs “serious” wellness, your recognition of requisite training for Spa Operators & Practitioners in the “Health-Enhancement model”, of guiding consumers in discerning between complementing their health & treating the disease, and of providing a “pre- & post-status” health-assessment model! Since our world operates in a mostly disease & fear-based model of “healthcare’, here is an opportunity; a need, to transition our healthcare science philosophy to a passion of well-being, looking to health as the “theme”, and living in the gratitude for life.
True, there is a problem with “semantics” which has lead to practical misrepresentations; Spa: Salus Per Aquam, Wellness, Natural, etc. However, there’s also an opportunity to use or brand specific terms with clear definitions: Functional Medicine, Vitalistic Healthcare, Health Enhancement, Homeostasis, etc.
Yes, let’s use the healthy sports & fitness boom, and heightened use of Yoga & Ayurvedic, along with the high tech physiological health assessments & wearable fitness gear, to educate & train people into knowing & caring for, supporting the innate function of the amazing body.
However, the most powerful contribution I read in this interview is the pinnacle of your vision; seeing more of an “entire lifestyle of well-being …that combine(s) the comprehensive wellness with fun and the social piece”.
My contribution here: Ferdinand “Fenn” Esser is a licensed holistic healthcare practitioner for 35 years, a University Professor & Program Director in Health Sciences, and a Lecturer on Human Clinical Anatomy & Physiological Homeostasis.
I see the future boom of health enhancement in the emergent healthcare model that positions the need for Allopathic medicine, and Vitalistic healthcare, with the heart & caring of our common, collective humanity.
I call this “The Unified Theory of Health & disease”. ~ Fenn
]]>