Holistic Philosophy, Theories, and Ethics
The big picture
Holistic nursing is all nursing practice that has healing the whole person as its goal - a philosophy and a way of being, not a bag of complementary techniques. A nurse who performs a meticulous physical assessment while exploring the patient's fears, faith, and family is practicing holistically with no alternative therapy in sight; missing that distinction is the single most common error in this domain.
Theories to name
Martha Rogers (unitary human beings: energy field, openness, pattern, pandimensionality); Margaret Newman (health as expanding consciousness, pattern recognition through dialogue); Jean Watson (ten Caritas Processes, the transpersonal caring moment); Rosemarie Rizzo Parse (humanbecoming: meaning, rhythmicity, transcendence); Myra Levine (conservation of energy, structural, personal, and social integrity); Betty Neuman (systems, stressors, lines of defense); Callista Roy (adaptation); Dorothea Orem (self-care deficit); Florence Nightingale (environment as a healing force); Dossey's integral nursing.
Ethics
Anchor answers in the ANA Code of Ethics and in autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, veracity, and fidelity. Recurring issues are informed consent, competence and legal scope for integrative modalities, professional boundaries and touch, confidentiality, and nonjudgmental care of patients who use therapies you would not choose yourself.
Traps and a rule of thumb
Watch for answers that (1) equate holistic with complementary therapy, (2) try to talk a patient out of a culturally rooted remedy instead of assessing its safety, or (3) have the nurse perform a modality outside training or state scope. Rule of thumb: whole person, whole nurse, whole system - and never outside your scope.
Worked example: A patient asks the nurse to pray with her. The best answer is to clarify what she wants, honor her autonomy, and - if the nurse is uncomfortable - arrange chaplaincy or another resource, rather than refusing the request outright or imposing the nurse's own beliefs.