Wellness is generally used to mean a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being. It has been used in the context of alternative medicine since Halbert L. Dunn, M.D., began using the phrase high level wellness in the 1950s. The modern concept of wellness did not, however, become popular until the 1970s.
Halbert L. Dunn, M.D., began using the phrase high level wellness in the 1950s, based on a series of lectures at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States. Dunn (196, p. 4) defined wellness as "an integrated method of functioning which is oriented toward maximizing the potential of which the individual is capable. It requires that the individual maintain a continuum of balance and purposeful direction within the environment where he is functioning." He also stated that "wellness is a direction in progress toward an ever-higher potential of functioning" (p. 6). Dunn also described wellness as health being, "much more than the absence of disease remains a cornerstone concept of wellness today." (Dunn, 787, p 7) Dunn saw wellness as hierarchical: there were lower levels of wellness and higher ones, and the aim was to move everyone up from where they started to high-level wellness. (Dunn, 789, p 8)
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