Sharing My Perspective on Holistic Nursing...

What many people (and I include healthcare professionals) don’t realize about holistic nurses (if they’ve heard of us at all ), is that we are a core group of founders and pioneers who are ushering in change within the old, mechanistic medical paradigm, from within, by researching and staying current with the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports change in how we think about health and healing, which in this day and age, includes the heart and art of healing. Part scientist, part healer, holistic nurses are the true educational, and hands on experts for the practice of holism within the healthcare field, with the ability to apply most therapies and interventions independently as part of our scope of practice. However, as part of our commitment to healthcare partnerships, it is important that we promote education, respect, support and cooperation within the healthcare team as a whole – from physicians to aides, all of who are an important facet of our partnership in health and healing. Yet nurses are at the center of this change, and holistic nurses truly are the bridge between modern science, ancient healing wisdom, and mainstream traditional healthcare. Although we are now welcoming the visibility of physicians and other healthcare professionals who are stepping forward to educate the public in this ‘seemingly’ new medical paradigm, nurses have been at the core of this movement since the beginning (dating back as far as Florence Nightingale), ushering in change, transformation, and healing, one person at a time. Modern holistic nurses have been at the helm of this change for at least 30 years.

Unlike allopathic healthcare, which promotes separateness between our lives and our work, (i.e. a nurse can provide procedures, medications and treatments that are viewed as separate from the nurse providing them) holistic nursing incorporates self-awareness as a central factor in our healing interactions. Just by our very presence, nurses can effect psycho-physiological changes both within ourselves, and in those that we interact with. Thus we must incorporate ‘being’ tasks (consciousness centered), as well as the ‘doing’ tasks, calling upon the growth and awareness within our selves as human beings who are functioning in roles as nurses in therapeutic partnership with individuals, families, communities, nations, our world, and the universe. When we participate in self-healing as a way to promote healing in others, that doesn’t mean that we have to be already ‘healed’ to provide healing care for those we tend to, as we must all accept ourselves as perfectly imperfect on this life’s journey. But, it does mean staying open to, and actively participating in, the healing process for ourselves, and those we care for. It means remaining open to the healing of our own pain and suffering, as we tend to the pain and suffering of others. It also means honoring such life giving and healing experiences as joy, love, hope, faith and self-actualization, to name just a few, as part of the healing process. Healing is an ongoing journey, one we move in and out of, embracing and resisting the changes that come with the healing process. Since healing is individualized to each person’s experiences, values, meaning, and patterns we cannot put a ‘one size fits all’ box around it. Thus healing for ourselves, and those we care for may look completely different in the way we approach it, and experience it. Holistic Nurses also recognize that our healing interactions and relationships extend beyond the individual, impacting familial, societal, and global patterns in the potential for positive change and healing transformation. Holistic Nursing, A Handbook for Practice, states, “A key characteristic of the hierarchy of natural systems is information flow. Regardless of the point at which it originates, information spreads up and down the components of the hierarchy. Information flow has a domino effect as it affects the whole system.” It is difficult, if not impossible, from a holistic perspective to separate the human experience on any level, from any relationship, including that of nurse, and those that we interact with and care for. It is one of the key components of a holistic approach to recognize this.

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