What life events or challenges that you’ve experienced (could be minor, could be major) – whether you’ve experienced them directly or via someone close to you, have had any type of impact on your desire to pursue a career in psychiatry?

I have experienced great loss…my dear mother at 12 years old and 2 husbands since then. All were sudden and tragic and tore holes in my soul. It has caused me to search for answers and treatment to overcome this. My journey for healing was personal and now it is professional. Make no mistake, my personal path to healing has been difficult, but worth it.

I pioneered my own path to wellness and knew I would need to get credentialed in the traditional sciences to help others. My goal was to become a well-educated force in the concepts of integrative medicine I knew personally worked and wanted no one to suffer for as long as I had in getting the proper help.

How did those events impact you emotionally/morally? How, if at all did those events impact the way you view how our current system teaches us to treat patients with mental health challenges?

The current system focus has been on “curing” people’s physical and mental challenges. Pharmacology has its place and can be a quick fix; but also can have serious side effects and the potential to cause harm. I have learned on this journey there are no quick fixes to “healing” a person’s ailments. You must do the personal work and ideally with a trusted and caring professional to guide you.

When and why did you decide to actually focus on practicing Integrative Psychiatry, specifically, and how was your decision shaped by the experiences above?

I started nursing school in the early 80’s and almost immediately saw the traditional medical model focus was on managing the persons physical complaints, which were important. But, while listening to patients, I discovered there was more to their story than just their symptoms…I discovered the power of listening, the power of human touch and the power of caring was just as valuable as medications, surgery and other medical protocols. I was hooked and spent my career studying how music therapy benefits in cancer treatment centers, Therapeutic Touch in accelerating wound healing, and utilizing EMDR support of our wounded soldiers. I now have 2 masters degrees in nursing, although the first was in a traditional field of nursing, i.e. Adult Health Clinical Nurse Specialist. I spent most of my course work on studying holistic health which included a person’s mind, body, emotions, and spiritual needs in regards to getting well. This was in 1996. At that time, I was also completing the process of Holistic Nursing Certification and graduated this 5 phase program and 226 contact hours through the American Holistic Nurses Association that same year, becoming one of the first to be certified in the country.

What methods or practices do you utilize to help individuals get/feel better?

As a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, I will still take a full psychiatric history and assessment with diagnosis, develop an intervention plan, which may include medications, as well as exploring other integrative tools for your recovery. Some of these tools are: The Healing Power of Unconditional Presence, Inhabiting Yourself, Your Body and Your Emotional Experience (taught by John Wellwood, PhD.), and also Imagery, EFT (emotional freedom technique), and horse assisted therapy, all in a beautiful rural area out in nature.

How did people react when you share this Integrative/Holistic approach with them – whether it be patients or other doctors?

Because I started this personal as well as educational process in the 80’s, it wasn’t well regarded and met with general criticism. This is why I knew it was necessary for me to study hard and earn the advance degrees and have knowledge of the best evidence based research practices in holistic nursing. I wanted to know for myself, “Was this useful?” I also wanted personal validation that these now called “integrated methods” did work, no matter how loud the experts, at the time, declared it wasn’t.

Fortunately, it is now 2020 and with the leadership and vision of the #SameHere organization, I believe more individuals will be demanding it. So it is now time to go out on my own. If interested, please visit us at HopeSaid.com.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” B. Fuller