THE JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE Volume 13, Number 6, 2007, pp. 659–668 © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/acm.2007.7090 The Process of Whole Person Healing: “Unstuckness” and Beyond MARY KOITHAN, Ph.D., R.N., 1,2 MARJA VERHOEF, Ph.D., 3 IRIS R. BELL, M.D., Ph.D., 1,2 MARGARET WHITE, M.I.R., 3 ANDREA MULKINS, M.Sc., 4 and CHERYL RITENBAUGH, Ph.D., M.P.H. 2 ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of the present study was to fully explore the descriptions of patients’ experiences of change after receipt of whole systems of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatment. The aim was to develop an understanding of “unstuckness,” including characterization of states, processes, and mod- ifying factors. Design: This was a secondary descriptive qualitative analysis, using techniques borrowed from phenome- nology and grounded theory. Setting/location: Three existent datasets collected at two different universities in the United States and Canada were used in the secondary analysis. Participants: Patients with chronic illnesses (including cancer and multiple nonmalignant conditions) who were treated with different packages of care were interviewed for the primary three studies (n = 76 with over 150 interview sessions). Complete data sets from these participants were used in this secondary analysis. Outcome measures/data collection techniques: Original transcripts were coded asking specific research questions about the experience of change subsequent to whole systems treatments. Results: Data clearly indicated experiential differences between stuckness, unsticking, and unstuckness. De- scriptors and characteristics of each state were identified, as was an initial grounded theory of change or trans- formation that occurs as an outcome of whole medical systems of CAM. Conclusions: The results provide preliminary conceptualizations and descriptions of the impact that CAM whole systems interventions may have on the individual’s life courses. This constitutes a first step in the iden- tification, measurement, and evaluation of whole systems outcomes in a clinical setting. The emerging con- ceptualization of the process from stuckness to transformation may also provide a link between clinical research and systems science theory. 659 INTRODUCTION A n emerging observation in complementary and alterna- tive medicine (CAM) research is that our understand- ing of outcomes associated with some forms of CAM treat- ment cannot be complete if the patient-centered types of outcomes are not added to the disease-specific markers used in mainstream biomedicine. Qualitative and quantitative studies of historically established whole systems of CAM such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, naturopathy, and homeopathy 1–3 reveal that patient outcomes are typically broad and multidimensional in scope, affecting multiple lev- els of the person as an indivisible whole system. 4,5 These outcomes include reported improvements in sense of well- Departments of 1 Medicine (Program in Integrative Medicine) and 2 Family and Community Medicine, The University of Arizona, Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, AZ. 3 Departments of Community Health Sciences and Medicine University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 4 Tzu Chi Research Group,Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.