What Is Holistic Therapy?

When viewing a client through the lens of Holistic Psychotherapy, we recognize that you, our client, are a human being, and therefore are so much more than a collection of symptoms or a diagnosis. You are a vast, intricate balance of beliefs, habits, patterns, thoughts and feelings all complimented by your unique physical biology.

We call this work “holistic” because we’re operating under the ethos of “wholeism”- an acknowledgement that the body, heart and mind are always working in tandem: when one of these aspects of us falls out of alignment, the entire system is impacted. Mental health, or any kind of health, for that matter, isn’t about doing a lot of one thing: it’s about finding equilibrium across many elements. How we feel emotionally is directly related to this equilibrium. In the process of discovering your personal definition of “health and wellness” and shaping your goals, we’ll spend time exploring the balance of many different aspects of your life, examining how these aspects either enhance or detract from your emotional, physical and even spiritual vibrancy.

For example, we might take into consideration:

  • Your movement practices- what is your relationship with exercise and physicality?
  • The kind of support you have in your life, what your relationships are like, and who makes up your community
  • Your relationship with food and nourishment
  • Creative and/or spiritual practices you may already have
  • What your days and weeks look like, including your sleeping and eating patterns, work/life balance, and whether you make room for down-time and rest
  • Regular rituals and habits that you have established, and what you like about them
  • An examination of what *isn’t* working for you

By getting to know you through this inventory, we’re better able to assess what kinds of practices or therapeutic interventions may best support you in gaining traction towards your goals. During a therapy session with one of us, some of these interventions may include (but aren’t limited to):

  • Slowing down the conversation to redirect you back to an in-the-moment awareness of your body or your breath (“What do you notice happening in your body as you say that?”)
  • Guided meditations or mindfulness practices, and support in making these a part of your life outside of therapy
  • Education about what moment to moment mindfulness and/or body awareness looks like, and how these practices can be applied in and out of therapy
  • Co-creating a plan to incorporate movement or exercise into your days
  • Discussing rituals or routines to implement at home to better support you in moving towards your health and wellness goal

As psychotherapists, our scope of practice does not include giving you nutritional or dietary advice, herbal or supplemental suggestions, medication prescriptions or exercise coaching. However, we understand that sometimes modalities, strategies and interventions beyond talk therapy are necessary in order to bring about long lasting relief, and we’ll be able to point you in the direction of great practitioners and resources to assist in these modalities as needed.

We understand that when you don’t feel well emotionally, you naturally want to get back to feeling as good as possible, as quick as possible. Through this deeper awareness of you and your lifestyle, we seek to reconnect you with your intuition, lead you back to the wisdom of your body, and help you to “get curious” about your experiences, reactions and emotions, rather than rejecting or judging them. We believe in the power of this approach to bring about long term health and repair, allowing you to be in deeper, fuller relationships with yourself and others, and to show up for your life in more creative, confident, engaged and motivated ways.