Holistic Nursing: A Perspective from the New Co-Chair of the IHPC

Margaret Erickson, PhD, RN, CNS, APHN-BC, practiced holistic nursing for 40 years before her recent appointment as co-chair of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC). For the last 20 years she was CEO of the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (AHNCC), where she worked to educate and advance the role of nurses.

“Holistic nurses believe that people are spirit-mind-body-emotion integrated beings,” said Erickson in a recent interview with IHPC. “Nursing is not something we do as tasks or based on the policy and procedure manual but rather it is how you show up, interact, connect with the person and help them access resources so they can be healthy and have a higher state of well-being.”  

Erickson uses Florence Nightingale, in the 1800s, when nursing was about caring for the whole person and care was holistically focused, as a template. “Florence recognized the importance of meeting patients’ basic trust and safety needs as well as higher needs such as growth, spirituality, and needs for beauty and nature.”

“We recognize that people are unified beings; we can’t separate them into pieces or systems.”

Holistic nursing, she said, isn’t about doing tasks—although nurses have to be competent in tasks, it’s not what defines nursing. “It’s about understanding who they [patients] are and facilitating and supporting them in accessing their resources to help them have the highest quality of life they can achieve,” she said. “My focus is on the person not the equipment, medicine, documentation.”

Erickson tells the story of a client in South Dakota, where she worked as a case manager. He was admitted with severe respiratory distress, was medicated and put on oxygen. The physician wanted to intubate him but the patient insisted they call her. Gasping for breath, he said a blizzard was coming and he was worried about his dog, who was more important to him than anything in the world. Erickson told him she would check on the dog and make sure he was inside and safe. “I spent a couple of minutes with him, talking quietly and working with him so he could breathe easier and deeper.” When Erickson returned from checking on the dog, the client was better and didn’t need intubation.

“As holistic nurses, we try to listen, understand, then address a person’s needs as we know their emotional, spiritual, social, and cognitive subsystems all affect their physical well-being,“ she said. "We recognize that people are unified beings; we can't separate them into pieces or systems." 

COVID-19, said Erickson, has brought new challenges and a new awareness to the nursing profession. The importance of self-care for nurses has been brought to the forefront. “Self-care is not just for patients. It means caring for yourself as a nurse so you can care for others.” Self-care is vital for giving care-givers resiliency and decreasing compassion fatigue.

Erickson believes it’s vitally important now, in the face of the pandemic, to help people build stronger immune systems and be aware of their diet, their stress levels, their relationships.

The pandemic has also shone a light on the vulnerabilities of what she describes as the “broken” healthcare system. “A paradigm shift is required which moves our focus from illness and disease to health, wellness and well-being. COVID has challenged and highlighted what isn’t working and given us the opportunity to keep what is working and make the necessary changes that will better serve all of us.”