Practice 13 Wholistic Care: Expanding Perspectives

This chapter explores how a Wise Practices approach can strengthen therapeutic relationships by contextualizing clients’ lived experiences and challenges in relationally and culturally responsive ways. Drawing on Chapter 6.1 by Darlene Denis-Friske and the principle of Etuaptmumk, also known as Two-Eyed Seeing, the authors consider how whole persons, families, and communities are engaged in the formation of shared understanding within counselling practice. Continuing the practice of Etuaptmumk, they honour millennia-old Indigenous perspectives that have always centred wholistic, integrative approaches to health, healing, and care. These practices are often misunderstood as novel within eurowestern psychology, where “case” conceptualization is often individualist and reductionist in nature. Both Indigenous Knowledges and critical psychological theories offer openings for integrating diversity in ways of knowing, being, and doing to enhance conventional approaches to care. Counsellors are invited to reflect on their own cultural identities and positionalities and practice theoretical flexibility, while centring client views of health and healing to foster a sense of expectancy and hope. The chapter considers metatheoretical lenses, including ecological systems frameworks and bio–psycho–social–cultural–systemic–ecological models, to deconstruct sociocultural assumptions and elevate culture-centred, localized, relational healing practices. Challenging reductionist models in favour of multiple perspectives, the proposed ecological framework for Wise Practices creates space for nuanced, socially just understandings of client lived experiences within micro-, meso-, and macro-sociocultural contexts. The chapter issues an invitation to action: embracing ecological justice as a core element of both contextualizing client lived experiences and transforming approaches to health, healing, and care for all persons and communities. Melissa and Sandra are grateful for the stand-alone contributions of the following co-authors: ● Kitana Connelly’s painting “Keep it sacred” positions the chapter within the Medicine Wheel to emphasize balance and wholeness. ● Gurmukh Aujla integrates trauma-informed and yogic principles for a more holistic understanding of seasonal affective experiences. ● Judi Malone applies a contextualized, systemic lens to understand the issues that emerge within small and rural communities, noting important adaptations to practice norms such as mediating geographic barriers, tailoring services, and engaging social justice. ● Fatima Saleem and Stephanie Martin offer broad insights into Muslim views of health and healing, noting that the diversity within Muslim communities and countries of origin necessitates cultural inquiry with each client to explore their personal worldviews in relation to community beliefs and values.

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