A Nurse’s Holistic Approach to Mental Health

When I asked my friends and colleagues in psych nursing what would interest them in a blog, one of them suggested “discussing a nurse’s holistic approach to mental health that is different [from] other mental health disciplines.” 

That’s it, I thought, and an example from my own practice leaped into mind. Years ago, I worked with an older woman I’ll call Mary. Mary had chronic depression that worsened predictably in the fall and winter; she became anxious and irritable during these times and supremely sensitive to feeling rejected. We had worked on her tendency to feel slighted by her daughter, with whose family my patient lived in an apartment attached to their house. Over time, Mary was getting better at self-questioning a situation. At such times of conflict, though, I found that if she called me and we had a 5-minute review of evidence of how much her daughter really did care about her (even as she tended to her own large family), my patient would settle down, agree it wasn’t so bad, and end the call feeling better. It was a risk I took and worth it, as she never called more than once every three or four months. 

One night she called and complained of feeling ‘nervous”; she had learned her triggers and knew what I was going to ask. Mary said, “Nothing bad happened tonight; dinner was good and I didn’t have an argument or anything. The kids weren’t loud. I don’t know, I just feel nervous.”  

She was a diabetic on an oral hypoglycemic and was so strict with her own food selections that she sometimes dropped her blood glucose toward bedtime. I asked her to put down the phone and check her blood sugar. She did and returned a few minutes later to report that it was in the 50s. I asked her if she had orange juice handy and directed her to drink a small glass. Then we talked a bit more as I reviewed again the need to have a small bedtime snack and keep a few little cans of orange juice in her cupboard; in a few minutes, Mary felt better and we talked briefly about her not assuming that when she feels “nervous” it means it’s “in her head.” 

After the call ended, I wondered how I’d had the thought to check her blood sugar and realized it’s from my nursing background. I wondered if a psychologist or a social worker or counselor would have thought of how physical and mental symptoms can be confounded. And since then, I have more consciously brought a holistic approach to practice. 

Have you incorporated a holistic nursing perspective into your practice, and if so, how? Also, what other topics would you like to see me address in this blog? 

Leslie Durr, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse with a private psychotherapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blog post author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Psych Congress Network or other Psych Congress Network authors.