Professional View
What is Wellness Counseling?
Wellness counseling involves a paradigm shift from the pathology intervention model of mental health counseling. In the pathology intervention model, the emphasis is on evaluating, diagnosing, and treating psychological problems. Wellness counseling is more of prevention than intervention model, and involves imparting knowledge of overall good health in other areas than the psychological/emotional component. Wellness counseling integrates physical, social and spiritual health into the treatment model.
The purpose of wellness counseling is to assist individuals to maximize their quality of life and longevity, by discarding poor health habits and adopting healthy day to day practices. It encompasses a variety of good health practices: exercise, fitness, nutrition, smoking cessation. Sleep and rest, journal writing, spirituality, and connection and attachment to others. A primary goal of wellness counseling is the prevention and management of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, as all three of these disease categories are significantly influenced by diet, physical activity level, and other lifestyle factors, as well as genetic predisposition.
Wellness counseling does not only emphasize the absence of disease, but the development and maintenance of vibrant good health: strength, endurance, energy, motivation, positive outlook on life, happiness, satisfaction, healthy relationships and connection to others, and maximum performance.
What is a Wellness Counselor?
The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics lists Health Educators as individuals who teach people about behaviors that promote wellness by developing and implementing strategies that improve individual health as well as the health of communities. Wellness counselors help people who want to follow a healthier way of life. The counselor supports and motivates clients by helping them choose behaviors like setting up routines, adhering to a personal exercise regimen and using health supplements. A wellness counselor may also advise clients in spiritual wellness involving meditation and organics. Wellness counselors who are Health Educators assess the needs of their clients, educate people about health topics and teach people how to cope with health conditions. They may also provide training for other health care professionals. They evaluate the effectiveness of programs and educational materials and help their clients in their search for information and health services.
Wellness counselors may offer advice about healthy diets and appropriate meal plans, explain the benefits of regular exercise and recommend strategies to deal with stress. There is an increasing focus on preventative medicine and the role of diet, exercise and stress reduction in obtaining optimum personal wellness. Wellness counselors may offer advice on a range of areas of health and wellness, or they may specialize in nutrition, exercise or stress management. They may also offer advice on lifestyle issues and goal setting. Other areas covered by some wellness counselors include disease and weight management, smoking cessation and fitness for new mothers.Related Reading: How to Become a Nutritional Counselor
Where Does a Wellness Counselor Work?
Wellness counselors may work in an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a program established by corporations to provide health education for employees. One such program, the Employee Assistance Group, features a Wellness Center that is a comprehensive resource for individual or organization wellness programs. The approach is an online individual health risk assessment and subsequent access by the client to wellness articles, videos, training materials and a nutrition assessment.
A Wellness Counselor may also work at a hospital, for a school or for a non-profit organization. Those who specialize in fitness may work at a fitness center to provide assessments and training to individual members.
What are the Requirements to Become a Wellness Counselor?
Education
The educational requirements for wellness counselors vary widely. An individual interested in becoming a wellness counselor can complete a certification program in as few as 80.5 hours, while other programs require up to 500 hours. Some of these certification programs can be completed online. Wellness counselors do not provide the same services as licensed psychologists and are not trained to work with individuals struggling with mental illness. There are positions that require a college degree, while other positions simply require a background in nutritional training, diet or healthcare.
Those who are employed by large corporations and healthcare agencies are generally required to have a bachelor’s degree in a health-related field, like sports medicine or nutrition. Kaplan University offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Health and Wellness focusing on concepts, values, r
What is a Holistic Health Counselor?
A holistic health counselor is a professional who aims to treat their patients in the broadest possible sense – by combining treatment of the mind, body and soul. The aim in treatment of this sort is to address both physical symptoms but also underlying causes and complaints, so that the likelihood of the symptoms reappearing is greatly reduced. Treating both symptoms and root causes by adapting behaviors is seen to lead to a more rounded overall treatment.
Holistic health counselors can often work alongside other professionals, including medical teams, to provide a spiritual supplementation to western medicine. They can also guide patients on lifestyle choices and refer patients to other professionals for specialist advice and treatment, this is common in areas such as massage.
Whilst providing support to patients with acute medical issues, holistic health counselors can provide additional support and guidance to clients suffering ongoing and chronic health conditions. Similarly, patients without a specific health need can often seek the advice of a holistic health counselor to provide insight to try to prevent the onset of medical conditions or to maintain the healthiest lifestyle for their mind, body and soul. The relationship they have with clients is often a long one.
What Does a Holistic Health Counselor Do?
When you go to a traditional doctor, you will be examined to find the condition that ails you and treated accordingly, usually with traditional medications. However, holistic health takes into consideration not only the well-being of your body, but also the well-being of your mind and soul. Although many associate holistic therapy with alternative medicine, that is just one of many vehicles to better health that are employed by those who practice holistic health. A holistic health counselor, in particular, isn’t always a medical professional, but must is educated in the field of health to work in tandem with the doctors and nurses who treat you.
It’s important to note that holistic health is a philosophy, so you could work as a massage therapist, a nutritionist, a chiropractor, or a variety of other careers and be a holistic counselor if you choose to adhere to and practice the holistic health philosophy. Therefore, the job of a holistic health counselor is to increase their patients’ knowledge of the all options available for treating their particular health problem, while focusing the psychological and spiritual impact it’s having on them. For example, a person who is suffering from cancer may obtain traditional treatment via an oncologist, but would work with a holistic health counselor to address how their cancer is affecting them on the emotional and spiritual level, and learn about how they can improve their diet and exercise regiment to aid in their recovery, as well as how to adopt a regular practice of meditation to help deal with the stress and anxiety associated with having a serious illness.
Holistic health counselors deal with many different types of people who are facing a wide variety of health issues. Also, people who aren’t facing any type of illness may visit a holistic health counselor to learn how to improve their health and prevent the onset of any dangerous health conditions.
What are the Education Requirements to Become a Holistic Health Counselor?
The holistic health field is not nearly as standardized as other fields of study, and most colleges don’t offer any type of “holistic health” major. Students who wish to pursue this career path usually study related fields such as nutrition and massage therapy, as well as the principles that lay behind the holistic practice of health.
The amount of schooling you will need will depend on which career avenue you wish pursue, as becoming a holistic nurse or chiropractor will require more education than a massage therapist. Typical courses for someone who wishes to work as a holistic health counselor include integrative health, contemporary dietary approaches, Eastern medicine, general psychology as well as courses in your area of focus. Although there are different schools that offer certification, there is no nationally recognized certification for holistic health counseling.
esearch methods and applications. The curriculum integrates wellness concepts of the mind, body and spirit. The University of Wisconsin offers a Bachelor of Science in Health and Wellness Management, a 60-credit degree program designed for positions including wellness program manager, worksite wellness coordinator, and director of sports, fitness and wellness.
What Is Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is a holistic health, wellness, wellbeing science centering in the study of kaya chikitsa “internal medicine and constitution healing”. It is an alternative complimentary support to western medicine. The name “Ayurveda” is derived om two words in Sanskrit, “ayuh” meaning “life” or “longevity” and “veda” meaning “science” or “sacred knowledge.” Ayurveda’s definition therefore roughly translates as “the science of longevity” or “the sacred knowledge of life.”
At its root, Ayurveda is a holistic tradition and way of living that can help each of us to claim and celebrate our capacity for wellness. Ayurveda can help us:
- Sync up with our truest inner nature
- Honor and develop our strengths
- Hone in on our challenge areas
- Redirect detrimental tendencies
- Maintain balance in the face of adversity
In other words, Ayurveda is not simply about taking an herbal formula and waiting for the results. Instead, Ayurveda encourages you to be an active participant in your own journey toward healing. This involves learning about your relationship with the elements and the unique combinations they create called doshas, which we will explore below. First, let’s take a look at Ayurveda’s background.
Ayurveda: A Brief History
The practice of Ayurveda as a medicine is believed to date back to over five thousand years, during the Vedic period of ancient India. The earliest-known references to Ayurveda and its sister science, Yoga, appeared in scholarly texts from the time called “the Vedas.”
Ayurveda experienced a period of prosperity as the Vedic texts were taught and shared, but this was followed by an almost thousand-year struggle to remain relevant in the wake of India’s political struggles with various invading countries—most notably the British Empire.2 Despite this, those who practiced Ayurveda on the fringes of society kept the tradition alive until India gained independence in 1947. Ayurveda then resurfaced as a major system of healthcare that endures in India to this day.1
During the New Age movement of the 20th Century, Ayurveda started to make its way westward, helped along by the expanding popularity of yoga and Eastern spiritualism. Thanks in no small part to the teachings of respected physicians and herbalists like Drs. Vasant Lad, Deepak Chopra, and David Frawley, Ayurveda has gained notoriety among a growing population of health-conscious individuals in the United States and around the world.2
Ayurveda’s Definition of Health
The Sanskrit word for health, svastha, is a state in which the mind, soul, and senses interact harmoniously to experience a feeling of Self, wellness, mind, body and sentient harmony striving for balance in mind, body, spirit. Achieving this may seem like a lofty goal, but Ayurveda provides a treasure chest of elegant and insightful tools to help us get there.
What is Spiritual Counselling?
Psycho-Spiritual Counselling takes the Soul, rather than the Mind, as its starting point of balance. It has an expanded view of life, recognising that the world is a complex mystery and it takes into account belief systems, universal & personal energy systems, intuitive psychic realities, karmic interplay, subconscious and superconscious states of awareness, metaphysical experiences, spiritual theology, spiritual presence and higher-self cosmic connections.
Spiritual Counselling sees that life is innately personal and individuals want to build their own unique, flowing relationship with it, organically and without force. With the Soul being the starting point individuals come from the heart, whilst not forgetting their head, and from this heart space they care for the sacred interdependence of all life.
What do spiritual counsellors do?
Spiritual counsellors need a cross-cultural awareness and an understanding around spiritual emergency and other issues of spirituality. They recognise and are committed to a spiritual journey in their own lives, and the lives of others. By focusing on their core inner connection, creating an open heart connection and a mindfulness state, they create a holding and sacred space for the personal unfoldment of their clients.
In Spiritual Counselling, the emphasis is on wholeness, dealing with the whole person, and assisting the client in inner balance and integration of all the dimensions of Self. It is experiential and focuses on the client’s individual experiences and reality, so the counsellor respecting them as unique tangible being with a unique vantage point and individuated truth.
What is a fair understanding I can take with me for all practitioner or service provider offerings?
A disclaimer of alternative services is provided for your review here, all services are offered complimentary as alternatives and can not be considered an enrichment absolute:
All services are offered as an alternative viewpoint and are not guaranteed to meet satisfaction, however a practitioner does strive for trade excellence in all standard practices. All rendered practitioning modalities, esoteric and educated wellness or spiritual counseling services aim, apprise and bring forth awareness of new concepts as a complimentary way of serving natural healing. Natural healing emphasizes the maintaining the harmony of three main causals- Body-Mind-Spirit through diet, lifestyle, and alternative energy services. Partial advisory services includes divination as well as that of natural energy support. With this in mind there are no absolutes as complementary specialties are not a replacement or substitute for medical practitioners, doctors, western or conventional medicine or licensed psychotherapy providers. Even with support it is recommended that you maintain medical or the appropriate western licensed counsel and inform your licensed counsel that you are receiving complimentary support services as or when required. If a conflict arises you may give permission for any authority to discuss such with us. If you ever have any concerns about the nature of your practitioner or services, please feel free to discuss concerns and put western practices primary. By ordering services herein it affirms you are responsible for your own path and have read and understood this practitioner disclosure is conclusive. Services are offered by time and affirm each client is solely responsible for their path, healing and accountability. Here you are deemed fully aware of the nature of the services enjoyed and understand your client obligation to take full responsibility for ““my own” health and wellbeing” over all advisors who in truth have limited intake. You deem you understand all suggestions made herein are at your own discernment to fulfill or deny with western licensed service or medical counsel approval. Herein you understand that you are not employing a licensed practitioner counsel as such current services are not licensed by VT State.
