Flourishing—a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good—could be a transformative concept for medicine, according to Tyler VanderWeele, director of the Human Flourishing Program and John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In a commentary published July 29, 2019 in Psychology Today, he wrote that flourishing can provide a helpful lens for clinical decision making, particularly with regard to major treatments with side effects that could affect a patient’s quality of life, relationships, and sense of meaning and purpose. He cited the example of a young woman with a genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer who wants to have children. Removing her ovaries would protect her from developing cancer, but it would also make her infertile.
“It is easy to presume that physical health and longevity are the highest values in life,” he wrote. “The concept of flourishing may challenge that presumption, or at least bring into consideration life’s other important aspects and enable more patient-centered care.”
Read the Psychology Today commentary: Flourishing in Medicine
Learn more
Human flourishing and public health (Harvard Chan School podcast)