“Increased awareness and decreased isolation” between holistic medicine and the medical community is the main goal of the Fifth Annual Holistic Awareness Conference in Ames this weekend.

The conference, “Holistic Awareness in the Heartland,” will be held this Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Scheman Continuing Education Building.

Holistic medicine incorporates the whole body into the healing process.

Terry Egli Davis, founder of Gender Integrations Services and a co-founder of Peace Conference Retreats, worked to coordinate the conference and will be one of the workshop presenters.

He said the conference will feature two keynote speakers and a choice of several workshops in four time slots.

Saturday’s keynote speaker, Marvin Treiger, will present “Into the Mouth of Demons.” He is a licensed psychotherapist, a member of the adjunct psychology faculty at Antioch University and the co-director of the Bodymind Institute in Los Angeles.

Sunday’s keynote speaker, Veronica Butler, will present “Using a Nature’s Wisdom.” Butler has been a family practice physician in Iowa since 1984 and is co-medical director of the Gene Ream Unit Family Recovery Center in Fairfield. She is also the co-author of the book, A Woman’s Best Medicine.

Conference workshops will include such topics as therapeutic massage, Chinese medicine, ortho-bionomy, yoga, the healing touch and tai chi.

“A lot of holistic medicine focuses around four domains of energy — mental, physical, emotion and spiritual healing areas of energy and release in your body,” Davis said. “At this conference, what we’ve done is created a variety of workshops that are centered around these four difference domains of energy and how it affects health.”

With the recent increase in awareness of holistic medicine, Davis expects up to 200 participants between volunteers, staff and paid participants. He said his conference is the largest of its kind in Iowa and possibly the Midwest.

“I’ve had a lot of people say to me, ‘You mean I don’t have to go to New York or Arizona to get this?’ No, it’s happening right here in Iowa. It was born right here in Ames,” Davis said.

In addition to an increased connection between the medical community and holistic practitioners, Davis said a goal of the conference is to “assist individuals in creating a network of health services that serve a wider range of need than what is currently available.”

“It’s not so much that we want it out of the closet because holistic practitioning is out of the closet. There’s a lot of it going on,” he said. “In 1990, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that $13.7 billion was spent on what we consider holistic alternative healing techniques. This is stuff that insurance doesn’t cover.

“We want people to connect and network. We want them to be able to know what is going on out there.”

The conference is open to students and the public. For more information or to register for the conference, contact Julia or Terry Egli Davis at 232-2674. Special student rates are available.