Imagine the following scenario. You are lying in a hospital bed the day after major surgery. You are unsure how the biopsy results will read, and your pain — though manageable — is making you more than a bit cranky and out of sorts. You are about ready to click on the TV set for a cable update about the day’s mayhem, when in walks your nurse carrying a tray loaded with a couple of items different from your usual pills and hypodermic needles. There is a bottle of lotion, a jacketed videotape, and a CD player, complete with headphones.
You wonder what’s up, and much to your delight you soon discover what it is: your nurse has arrived to make you feel better by employing some holistic therapeutic techniques. Drawing the privacy curtain, she instructs you to put the headphones on and immediately you are treated to the tranquil sounds of ocean surf and the delicate tinkling of wind chimes. Next, she pops in the video and you lay back as a pastoral meadow scene flickers on the screen. Then, she begins a rhythmic therapeutic body massage using the softly scented lotion.
You begin to feel yourself settling peacefully into the mattress that just a few moments before felt like a hard piece of rough-hewn pine. Never in your entire life have you been this relaxed. You are drifting, drifting, drift....
Suddenly, you wake to the sound of the cleaning staff clanking a heavy wet mop against the edge of your bed frame! You realize your visions of "nursing nirvana" were mere hallucinations, probably due in part to the opiates you’re receiving for pain. The cruel realization is that the only further comfort you’ll experience will probably come from more sedation.
The Trouble with Nursing
Many nurses — both those who have spent their lives in the business of care giving and those still in the novice stages — argue that the nursing profession has reached a code-blue state of affairs, especially within the hospital venue. Since the era of Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered the founder of conventional nursing, the field has dramatically changed direction, shape, and focus, now leaning more toward the technical aspects of the job and the ever present bottom line: money.
Many nurses indicate they long to see a return to the simple basics of nurturing body, mind, and spirit, while being allowed to utilize such holistic modalities as therapeutic massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, acupuncture, therapeutic touch, feng shui, art and music therapy, and the simple, seemingly lost art of warm, friendly conversation.
Registered nurse (R.N.) and Certified Healing Touch Practitioner, Margaret Olson, who received her nursing degree in 1990 and is one of the founders and coordinators of the Chicago-area chapter of the American Holistic Nurses’ Association, laments the current state of nursing, "In a hospital environment, there are often staff shortages and too few nurses to care for patients. On many occasions, nurses have no time to properly care for patients, because they are too busy responding to buzzers and running frantically from room to room with IV’s and pills. The nurse is often more stressed than the patient they are supposed to be helping to heal."
Olsen, who pursued holistic training at the now defunct Massachusetts-based Birch Tree, a holistic training ground for health practitioners, runs the Illinois Center for Healing Touch, a venue that she feels offers what conventional nursing settings can’t. "Unfortunately, nurses walk a tightrope between the technical side of the profession and the side of what nursing is truly all about, which is nurturing the sick, while sharing empathy and determination to bring the patient into a state of wellness."
Trisha Simmons, who is a Certified Holistic Nurse but not an R.N., believes that the strictures of a traditional hospital system frustrate many nurses, "Budgets are so tight and the staff stretched so thin, that holism is something there seems to be no room for. I have observed nurses who obviously didn’t like their jobs, inasmuch as they wanted to employ the holistic approach but were not allowed by hospital management."
Simmons, who like Olsen is a member of the Chicago chapter of the American Holistic Nurses’ Association, left a hospital career over a decade ago. She now teaches aromatherapy at Joliet Junior College. Also a Certified Massage Therapist, she works at health fairs for the Health Maintenance Institute in Des Plaines where she demonstrates aromatherapy techniques. "I am always amazed by the people who seem shocked that nurses are able to do something beneficial for people without the guidance of doctors. I believe that many beginning nurses also think that they must be merely an extension of the doctor, and that they don’t really have any power on their own. In the classes I teach, I try to stress that nurses have the power of wellness within their grasp."
The American Holistic Nurses’ Certification Corporation (AHNCC) notes that to apply for and receive a certificate in holistic nursing today, the group’s credentialing body now requires that candidates have previously earned their baccalaureate nursing degree. According to Simmons, she received her own Holistic Nurse certification at a time when the AHNCC did not require formal, traditional nurses’ training.
Tales from the Front
Teacher and consultant, Barbara Dossey, Ph.D., R.N. is director of Holistic Nursing Consultants in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a leader in the field of holistic nursing, Dossey is the author of many books on subjects ranging from Florence Nightingale to implementing the holistic approach. "Most nurses desperately want to give their compassion to patients. And, as the current nursing shortage continues to greatly impact our culture, I think society will begin to demand the necessary changes in order to improve overall health care.
"My own elderly mother was recently hospitalized, and frankly, I was appalled at some of the rather archaic treatment she received during her stay," Dossey said. "For instance, she made repeated requests for a bedpan and some other standard items, and was left standing alone in her room for 15 minutes, suffering terribly. We are talking about an elderly woman here, but regardless of age, this is certainly not holistic nursing. In fact, it’s not nursing at all!
"The ideology of our profession embraces the entire body and concept of the field of nursing, and it should be both a philosophy and perspective. When was the last time you visited your doctor’s office and the nurse who ushered you into the exam room offered a comforting word, a gentle, reassuring touch, or displayed a true concern for you as a person? This is the basis of the concept of holism."
It is Dossey’s contention that the entire staff of any hospital or other healing venue should be made aware of the importance of holistic care. "Even the janitorial staff cleaning the room should have a sense that there is a person in there trying to recover from surgery or some other ailment, and when they enter the room, they are entering that person’s care space."
Olson, Simmons and Dossey all agreed that the traditional hospital or doctor’s office management has been agonizingly slow to accept the practice of holism. Simmons sums it up, "I think there is a genuine fear of holism in the medical community at large, because it isn’t taught in medical school. For instance, an act as simple as talking can go a long way. At one point, I was working at the DuPage County Juvenile Detention Center, and I was counseling a young man who was on a suicide watch. I didn’t know what to offer him in the way of help, so I just sat and talked with him.
"It so happened we both lived in the same area, so we spoke a lot about our neighborhood. Finally, he was released from the center and he gave me a hug before he left, telling me how much he appreciated our conversation," Simmons said. "Then, he said something that made a huge impact on me. He told me that he was seriously contemplating suicide the night we had spoken, but because I had spent time with him he began to consider possibilities other than ending his life. I will never forget that. I feel I was blessed to have been given that kind of opportunity."
Different Paths
Olson and Simmons point out that there are almost limitless career paths that nurses can travel in their desire to practice holistic techniques. Olson says. "Whatever the path, be it parish nursing [specific branch of nursing relating to work in religious settings], working in a school, corporate, or convalescent setting, assisting in the birth of a child, or aiding the dying in a hospice, the element of touch is of paramount importance. A nurse is actually practicing holism by the administering of a gentle touch."
Mary Anne McDermott, Ph.D., professor at Chicago’s Loyola University and "Nurse Leader of the Year" for 2002 in the field of parish nursing, says that regardless of the specific path a nurse chooses, "...we must apply our personal selves to our professional lives."
"A person must walk the walk and talk the talk on a daily basis and not just when treating a patient. That is the very essence of nursing. It is not about medicine in the technical sense," McDermott said. "In fact, it isn’t even about the modalities or different nursing fields. The essence of nursing comes from deep within the heart. That is really what you give to people, your heart."
Get More Info
To find out more about holistic nursing:
The Chicago area Chapter of the American Holistic Nurses’ Association meets on the second Sunday of each month from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, at the Unity Lutheran Church, Foster and Broadway, Chicago; 773-274-7534.
The American Holistic Nurses’ Association may be contacted via their web site or 800-278-2462; AHNA, P.O. Box 2130, Flagstaff, AZ 86003-2130.
Illinois Center for Healing Touch and Holistic Nursing, 773-274-7534.