Could Holistic Options Help?
The past 10 years, especially the last 3, have made me question every single aspect of our profession, with a particular focus on whether we're being as effective as we could be with our clients. I'm not seeing it. Could holistic options help?
The number of pills my clients are taking is up. The number of vaccines they're subjecting themselves and their children to is up; way up. The number of surgeries to treat symptoms is up. You'd think their quality of life would be up and their mental health would have experienced a corresponding positive development but that's not the case. Mental health numbers in almost all categories are getting way worse when they should be improving. They're worse now than they were just 10 years ago.
I've been thinking about this for longer than the past 3 years but the arrival of the Covid event just put more evidence right in front of me (us?) and drove the point home--what we're doing is not working. Convince me otherwise.
My Pursuit of Holistic Options
So, since our governing bodies aren't acknowledging what I just pointed out, I set out on my own quest to find something better. I'll build my own better numbers and outcomes for my clients. That involves both thinking outside the box and then (here comes the scary part) actually stepping outside of that box and acting on one's convictions (What will my peers think? Who cares, if your clients see improvement!).
I mentioned in a previous podcast that I had acquired my CIMHP designation late in 2022. It proved to be a very affirming move for me as it pulled everything together that I had been self-studying (no CE credit for that!) and validated my vision. There are things we can do taking a whole-body approach to mental health to broaden the scope of options we give our clients. No more am I limited to, "here's a good (fill in your favorite referral), go get another pill".
My Latest Conquest!
I spent all day Monday taking another course to add yet another layer of understanding to my arsenal of options. It was a 10-hour course entitled, "Square One: Healing Cancer Coaching Program" by Chris Wark. It's a 10-hour course. There's no certification involved and I'm ok with that 'cause sometimes pursuing a plan doesn't come with an obvious reward, does it? Isn't that what we tell our clients? Sometimes you just do the right thing for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. Spend the money, achieve the vision.
What Does the Course Cover?
This course was developed by Chris Wark who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004. He was 26 years old at the time. He had the surgery and his allopathic MD was demanding he continue immediately down the chemo/radiation track with no empirical data that suggested he would beat cancer. Not convinced, Chris took his time to ask some very hard questions. Instead, after much research, prayer and support from only a very few, he went to functional medicine to complete his treatment. Chris BEAT his cancer with diet and he continues to be cancer free to this day!
Here's a quick peek at the course's outline:
- First Things First
- Why We Get Cancer & How To Eliminate The Causes
- Anti Cancer Diet Part 1
- Anti Cancer Diet Part 2
- How To Detoxify Your Body & Your Environment
- How To Eliminate Stress & Heal Your Heart
- Spiritual Healing
- How To Exercise & Rest Activate Healing
- Cancer Healing Herbs, Teas, and Supplements
- How To Test & Monitor Your Progress
Who is The Intended Audience for This Course?
This is for patients and caretakers who are serious about either prevention or, want to take an alternative approach from the traditional allopathic oncology protocol. Or both.
Applications For Mental Health Providers?
That's entirely up to the counselor but here are a few options:
- review the four pillars of health
- employ the nutritional foundation of good health
- equip them with books and recommendations in order to help empower the client with alternative recovery programs
- steer their clients to Chris’ website
- Chris also provides a list of "20 Questions" to ask an oncologist/MD before signing up for their chemo regimen.
His website also has testimonials from other cancer patients and info about their recovery process through a functional diet.
How Will You Utilize What You've Learned?
I'll be adding information about these treatment options to my website. When appropriate it will be reviewed and discussed during sessions to give a client alternative options. At the very least, I want to provide very real and effective options that are rarely reviewed and discussed by their allopathic medical providers.
How Does This Affect the Mental Health of Our Clients?
In several ways. First, mental issues are often caused or affected by physical issues. A "check-up from the neck-up only" may fail to isolate and identify the root cause of a mental illness (yes, you need a team of like-minded professionals for this) in which case we may end up treating symptoms instead of curing the cause, without ever realizing it. If we can be part of a process that helps identify a physical cause for a mental health issue, how can that possibly be a bad thing? Think that through for a minute.
Second, enriching clients with treatment options empowers them in the determination of their own treatment paths. That can have a very positive, very real, very hopeful effect on their mental health. Isn't that what we're after?
Everything Works, and Everything Doesn't Work
Does the holistic approach to fighting (your preferred ailment) always work? No. Nothing works all the time including the allopathic cancer treatment protocols. Especially that! Their success record is dismal, so why not open your mind and your practice to additional treatment protocols?
I'm not suggesting that you play MD. I am suggesting that you allow for the high probability that a great degree of mental illness is caused by whole-body physical issues which are negatively impacting your clients' mental health.
I am suggesting that you assemble a team of like-minded professionals that are licensed and trained in areas of medical practice that you are not.
And I am suggesting you approach mental health in this more broadly defined manner going forward. A neck-up only approach is no longer maximal.
Options broaden the horizon of hope. If you give the body what it needs, it can heal itself. And there's a lot of hope in that.
We got this!
Got Something to Say?
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About the Author
Kathleen Mills is a fire-breathing, 32+ year veteran of the counseling world. People react in one of two ways when evil touches their lives: some retreat in fear, and some advance without pause to engage it. Kathleen falls firmly in the latter group. She owns and operates Life Tree Counseling in Frisco, TX, possesses a tireless work-ethic, and eagerly awaits your arrival into her growing army of warriors.
Wow! I am so happy to see a person with such a following as yours seeing the value in holistically treating people’s illnesses which often affects their mental health adversely.
I am a 3 year breast cancer survivor from natural treatment. I started with The Truth About Cancer series & then found Chris Beat Cancer book which helped me advocate for myself against conventional treatment beyond surgical removal. My husband is recently also cancer free naturally as well following same protocols and then some (all natural). Yay!
On top of this, I worked in schools & so often I saw kids being placed on some adult type drugs for their mental health before even considering that it could be helped by a simple change in diet or addition of a supplement or two!
All this to say, I support you 110%! This is much needed! I even got a certification in IIN (Institute of integrative Nutrition—very worth it) to help others with this, however, have not yet used it as I recently retired from education. Please please keep pursuing this! I applaud you!!
Robin, you are inspiring to me. Your short testimony is why I shifted to the “other side” of things. When you give the body what it truly needs, it WILL heal itself. You are the proof!
Thank you again, Robin, and for your kind words.
I love this on holistic treatment. I am a personal user of holistic approach. I have immeasurably improved my physical health as well as my mental functioning by holistic means. As a therapist, I encourage my clients to choose healthy lifestyle, behaviors, & approaches to their mental health treatment over medication. If a client chooses to go the medicinal route, I encourage them to use it like we would use a “cast for a broken bone” – while learning the skills & choices of healthiness so they don’t NEED the medication to be “ok.” I don’t judge them if the feel they need to be on medication, but I do explain how having a healthy mind requires learning how to think healthy, make healthy choices, live healthy, etc. Mainstream drs are trained to write a rx for any symptom presented. They do what they are trained to do. There is a place for medicine, but not all things require a pill to fix the problem. My son has benefitted from modern medicine – by age 19, he had 5 open-heart surgeries (he had a congenital heart defect). I value surgeons & medicines greatly! But meds are not a cure all for everything as seems to be the medical approach to any kind of ailment in our country. America is the sickest, most medicated, & overmedicated society in the world. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I love this post and actually am doing the same thing with shifting gears in my practice! I had a meeting with a holistic/functional medicine doctor yesterday morning to discuss partnering with him for this very pressing concern that I have been also struggling with as the mental health of our society, including my well-established clients that continue to experience more of a roller-coaster progressional tract, which while I know is normative, it seems to me that the “baseline” is getting further and further away from desired consistency for me as their therapist as well as for them. As always, thank you for transparency and honesty in addressing these same ongoing concerns us like-minded clinicians are seeing and facing on a daily-basis. I think it is now pertinent that we do our due-diligence in thinking outside of the box to try to find alternative solutions that actually get to the root of the problem rather than just continuing to throw darts at the symptoms (which is how I have felt at times, especially like you mentioned as well over the last 2-3 years in particular).