Holistic Wellness Careers and Healthcare Delivery Analysis
Holistic medicine is a form of healthcare delivery that focuses on the patients’ physical, psychological, and social aspects to deliver a personalized and effective treatment to those patients. Holistic healthcare should not be confused with alternative healthcare because alternative healthcare is often defined as a substitute to contemporary practices. Both contemporary practices and alternative healthcare systems can utilize the principles of holistic healthcare. For example, registered nurses can choose to specialize in holistic healthcare and become registered nurses with skills and knowledge in bodywork, herbology, and other aspects of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices. Several accredited programs offer training in homeopathy, massage therapy, naturopathy, chiropractics, dietetics, and other CAM disciplines, but they all offer basics in contemporary medicine through biochemistry, anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, and other subjects that will allow future therapists to understand both contemporary and alternative methods of treatment.
Although CAM is often considered a separate healthcare field from contemporary allopathic medicine, their boundaries are not clear because allopathic medicine acknowledges many social and personal factors accountable for health and well-being. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, also considered that healing the body works only when physicians and patients observe and influence attitudes and environmental influences (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM], 2011). Modern scientific fields, such as biosociology, observe the impact of environmental factors on personal health and explain how both nature and nurture affect health and well-being. It is evident that both physicians and patients must work in collaboration because treatments without the patients’ efforts are only partially effective.
There are several ways people can support the society through holistic wellness occupations, and one of them is by offering supplements based on natural contents and aimed at improving physical and psychological well-being. Natural Remedies are an example of a company that provides holistic health and lifestyle information for others online while offering more than 250 tested and approved supplements that cover a wide variety of physical and psychological ailments by combining both homeopathic and herbal remedies (Ochel & Luntz, 2010). “By adopting this holistic approach to health, you’ll see how many natural remedies work together to provide increased support for many common conditions” (Ochel & Luntz, 2010). Because Natural Remedies relies on synergy, their treatments often prove effective. However, they are also aware that lifestyle is the key factor that defines well-being, so they assist their customers by providing information relevant to lifestyle and well-being on their website. It is also possible to notice that holistic healthcare practitioners can offer only assistance to their patients because they cannot influence their lifestyle directly.
In contrast to many contemporary healthcare practitioners, Luntz, the owner of Native Remedies, explains how the holistic approach is used in manufacturing herbal remedies to increase their efficiency and minimize side-effects. “Our whole herb approach makes use of all of the plant’s attributes, in keeping with the documented historical use of the plant” (Ochel & Luntz, 2010). Furthermore, the products at Native Remedies are manufactured in compliance with FDA and GMP pharmaceutical guidelines and “under the supervision of an expert team of herbalists, naturopaths, homeopaths and pharmacists” (Ochel & Luntz, 2010). It is evident that Luntz does not discard the importance of allopathic medicine and its knowledge of the human biochemistry. By combining several alternative practices and aligning them with contemporary practices, Natural Remedies is able to take a holistic healthcare approach that produces effective medicine while increasing its safety in application.
Although all holistic healthcare occupations insist on the importance of tending all aspects that affect well-being, it is usually impossible for a single holistic healthcare practitioner to deliver all forms of treatment to one patient. Consequentially, various holistic healthcare practitioners will focus on specializing in different aspects of healthcare delivery. Zimmie is an example of a social worker who became a licensed clinical social worker. Zimmie uses psychotherapy with individuals, families, and groups to focus on revealing their emotional problems and mental obstacles. “People are out of control today with the number of things they feel they have to do we end up emotionally starving for the things we really need” (Kerns & Zimmie, n.d.). It is evident that many problems arise from psychological stress in the contemporary community, so Zimmie is an example of a preventive therapist who works with problems before they manifest in the physical body.
Holistic medicine relies on treating each person as an individual who has a different genetic background, lives under different social circumstances, and requires a different approach to alter negative emotional patterns, limiting mental concepts, and physical ailments together. However, Zimmie indicates that many people are not willing to make personal efforts to establish a collaborative relationship with the therapist. “Even though about 30% of the American population has received some type of counseling, there is still a stigma about what we refer to as mental illness or emotional problems” (Kerns & Zimmie, n.d.). If holistic treatments require therapists to engage with physical, mental, and emotional issues simultaneously to promote well-being, it is not possible to develop a suitable relationship with the patients as long as they do not wish to engage in self-analysis, self-criticism, and participate in the treatment.
In contemporary society, people usually have “so much responsibility that it leads to burnout. Some people have no time for their own needs; instead it is all about everybody else” (Kerns & Zimmie, n.d.). Lack of physical activity, psychological stress, poor diet, and other lifestyle factors are the fundamental determinants of well-being, but some people have to observe their own limiting concepts that inhibit their determination to focus on resolving their fundamental choices in life. If lifestyle choices are often considered risk factors for chronic health conditions, it is evident that people would reduce the morbidity and mortality rates that arise because of inadequate habits and limiting paradigms. For example, the stereotype that people should serve others before serving themselves is a form of neglect towards personal well-being, and that is only one type of destructive paradigms that holistic healthcare aims to remove for the purpose of enhancing individual health.
When taking in account various cultural traditions and stereotypes, it is possible to notice that some people consider seeking help or confiding sensitive personal emotions to others as signs of weakness. While that is a major obstacle for most people who want to seek out CAM practitioners to enhance their health, it is evident that the public is often misinformed or inadequately educated about the principles and practices in holistic healthcare. “Therapy is partly a learning process and some people learn by seeing that the therapist doesn’t judge them or their feelings” (Kerns & Zimmie, n.d.). In other words, therapy is confidential and safe, but people lack education about the concepts and practices in holistic healthcare. Furthermore, most people consider that physicians are responsible for their patients’ health, but contemporary science is beginning to understand that patient education and lifestyle choices are indispensable factors to proper healthcare delivery.
Patient education is becoming an increasing trend in allopathic medicine, and it is an essential aspect of all CAM treatment models and all forms of holistic therapy. “Our approach is ‘strength-based’ model. We are not looking at therapy as a way to ‘get fixed’” (Kerns & Zimmie, n.d.). Some people involved in holistic practices rely only on providing support to people through education about health, emotional and mental practices, and building a health-based community. Vinup is an example of a person who earned a degree in political sciences, but works as an education program developer for the Health, Wellness and Integrative Health Education team at Normandale Community College. Rather than aiming at curing ailments through medication, their aims are to “expand awareness, cultivate consciousness, developing community and partnership, sharing insight and knowledge and making the world a better place” (Miejan & Vinup, 2012). With that approach, they aim to create a health-centered community, and their aims are consistent with the notion that external influences define personal well-being, so by building a health-centered community, they are building an environment where individuals will be exposed to positive influences that will enhance their personal health and well-being.
While most people would rather limit themselves to only one aspect of holistic health, it is not possible to make significant and permanent progress in well-being without addressing emotional, social, and mental aspects. The high demand for holistic healthcare practices apparently originates from the realization that all aspects and influences in life are responsible for the quality of health. A survey in 2007 indicated that approximately 38 percent of the adults in the US engage in some forms of CAM healthcare when seeking holistic healthcare delivery (NCCAM, 2011). Because that number is expected to grow, combining CAM and allopathic practices is evidently the safest and the most effective method for delivering healthcare, and the most successful contemporary holistic healthcare practitioners already rely on that approach.
References
Kerns, E. (Interviewer) & Zimmie, J. (Interviewee). (n.d.). Interview with Joanne Zimmie [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from Wellness Workers Web site: http://www.wellnessworkers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=61
Miejan, T. (Interviewer) & Vinup, C. (Interviewee). (2012). Holistic collaboration: An interview with Carolyn Vinup on creating success [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from Edge Magazine Web site: http://edgemagazine.net/2012/02/holistic-collaboration-vinup/
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2011, July). What is complementary and alternative medicine? Retrieved from http://nccam.nih.gov/ health/whatiscam
Ochel, E. (Interviewer) & Luntz, G. (Interviewee). (2010, October 16). Introducing native remedies: Interview with owner George Luntz [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from Evolving Wellness Web site: http://evolvingwellness.com/posts/1472/introducing-native-remedies-interview-with-owner-george-luntz/
