Holistic Nursing and Caring: A Value-Based Approach

Abstract

This paper offers an overview of Holistic Nursing and Caring. It introduces an expanded model for nursing and health care. It is founded upon core values related to holism, grounded in the heritage of Nightingale, yet congruent with contemporary nursing theory and professional developments in “holistic” nursing and medical circles. The concept of holism, and holistic, with their origin in the Western world, were discovered during the conference as perhaps inadequate and different from Japanese and Eastern meanings, language, and orientations toward holistic. That is, perhaps Japanese nursing does not require the language of “holistic”. Rather, with the leadership of Dr. Sumiko Maehara, the conference participants were invited to consider the Japanese word, “Yorisou”, conveying “being with, or going with” as perhaps a more useful term for Japanese nursing than the word holistic. In the end, the convergence of shared values of caring, love, presence, honoring self and other, and Being with, become core for nursing, transcending continents, world-views and time. This paper highlights the convergence of values of caring that are both holistic and more, uniting Eastern and Western Nursing.