Holistic Practitioners & Scope of Practice: What We Actually Do

When people hear that I work in the holistic health space, they often assume I’m anti-doctor or even anti-treatment. On the contrary, I would never discourage anyone from seeking emergency care or preventative conventional care, whether that’s antibiotics used appropriately and not overused, IV drips, chemotherapy, blood transfusions, or highly necessary surgeries. What I don’t believe in is treating the body like a machine, assuming it can be patched up or withstand any strong intervention simply because it’s controlled while ignoring the whole person.

Too often, the conversation about health becomes polarized, conventional medicine on one side, holistic approaches on the other, as though a person must choose a camp and stay there. But real life doesn’t work that way. Someone may need life-saving surgery and also need help rebuilding their strength afterward. True care is not about choosing sides, it’s about doing what’s best for that person at that particular moment.

Where I draw the line is in relying on drugs as a lifelong management tool for chronic conditions that could be better supported by addressing the root terrain. Medications absolutely have their place in emergencies or when a condition is life-threatening, but for most people, staying on them indefinitely without ever exploring deeper imbalances leaves the body dependent yet still unwell. Holistic care is about filling that gap, supporting people in restoring their resilience so that, whenever possible, they can move away from long-term drug dependence and back toward balance.

This is the heart of holistic practice: reminding people that the body is not broken beyond repair, it is always communicating and capable of restoration when given the right support. Our role isn’t to replace doctors or deny the value of interventions, but to help people reconnect with their own vitality. By paying attention to patterns, strengthening what’s depleted, and easing what’s overworked, we guide the body back toward balance so that healing becomes sustainable, not just managed.

So What Is It That We Do Exactly?

There’s a cultural problem that needs unpacking. Our system often glorifies medical intervention as the only “real” medicine, while dismissing the slow, layered work of holistic healing as optional or even foolish. I find that extremely unfair, especially for those of us, myself included, who have studied deeply, trained rigorously, and dedicated our lives to understanding the terrain of the human body in ways that extend far beyond symptom suppression.

What we do is we educate, guide, and support. This includes teaching clients how whole foods, hydration, and eating habits influence health; sharing recipes, seasonal strategies, and food-as-medicine wisdom that make daily choices more nourishing; and introducing the traditional uses of herbs as supportive allies, with guidance on how to safely integrate them into daily life. It also means helping people set realistic goals around sleep, stress relief, and gentle movement because these foundations of health are often where true healing begins, and when neglected, imbalance usually follows.

Beyond that, we may guide simple practices like breathwork, grounding, and relaxation as everyday tools for self-care, while also helping clients prepare thoughtful questions for their doctors, understand lab results more deeply, and feel confident as they navigate their health journey.

Unfortunately, not all who call themselves holistic are truly practicing in a holistic way. Some practitioners unintentionally mirror the allopathic model by simply swapping pharmaceuticals for supplements or herbs, trying to treat symptoms with quick fixes (symptom chasing) instead of addressing the deeper imbalances beneath them. While this approach may provide temporary relief, it misses the heart of holistic medicine: looking at the whole person, the underlying patterns, and the root terrain that shapes our health.

Holistic practitioners with knowledge of traditional medicine stay true to the roots of holistic care. Practitioners like myself don’t just look at isolated symptoms, we pay attention to the patterns that lie beneath them. These patterns might show up as stagnation, dryness, tension, and other subtle patterns that shape how the body functions day to day. Rather than chasing symptoms, we explore ways to bring balance back into the system by matching remedies, foods, and practices that shift those underlying patterns. This approach honors the body’s natural intelligence and supports long-term healing, not just temporary relief. If you want to learn more about this approach, read this blog post on the physiological terrain patterns.

While much of holistic health is about education, balance, and prevention, some herbs can also be potent, even lifesaving, when used wisely. For clients who are interested, I can provide education on how herbs have been traditionally used in this way, not as a replacement for emergency services, but as a “just in case” option when those services are not available. I also understand why many people, especially those without herbal education may feel uncertain about using herbs in this way because herbs have garnered a reputation as “weak”, “unreliable” or merely “secondary” to pharmaceutical drugs.

In reality, those well-versed in herbal medicine know just how powerful herbs can be and that confidence comes from proper knowledge, experience and respect for the plants.

Bridging The Gap

A woman once came to me deeply worried about beginning chemotherapy. She had heard stories of people becoming frail, nauseated, and unable to function, and she felt torn between her fear of the treatment and her desire to survive. She was already very depleted, her digestion sluggish, and her energy reserves so low that even small daily tasks felt overwhelming. She described a constant undercurrent of fatigue, nights of restless sleep, and mornings that never felt like a reset.

Her body was sending signals everywhere, fragile immunity, quick exhaustion after meals, irritability under stress, and a nervous system that seemed stuck in overdrive yet running on empty at the same time. I didn’t tell her what choice to make nor did I dismiss her fears, but I didn’t feed them either. All I did was listen. Together we traced her patterns, how certain foods left her feeling even more drained, how household stress triggered flare-ups in her digestion and immunity, and how her body had been quietly asking for restoration long before her diagnosis.

We explored nutrition, herbs, and lifestyle adjustments to strengthen her resilience so her body would be more prepared to handle such a strong intervention like this. I encouraged her to be open with her oncologist about this, but unfortunately, he shut down the conversation. He dismissed the idea of weaving in holistic support, leaving her feeling like she had to choose between two worlds that could have complemented one another.

I reminded her to stay calm and as relaxed as possible, because stress and panic alone can weaken the body’s ability to endure treatment. If she could make it through chemotherapy by preserving her peace of mind, then afterwards she could work with me to nourish and restore her body back to balance. She was also in the earlier stages, alhamdulilah, and the cancer had not progressed into other parts of her body so there was real reason for hope that her body can handle such a potent intervention.

I wish I could have witnessed those two streams come together for her though, modern medicine guiding the life-saving care she needed, and holistic care helping her body become more resilient and nourished. That partnership never materialized, and it was a painful reminder of how our system often misses the opportunity to hold patients in both hands.

Wrapping Up

Holistic medicine is not about rejecting doctors or denying the value of modern interventions. It’s about filling in the spaces that medicine was never designed to cover and listening deeply, preparing the body for resilience, and supporting recovery when answers are limited.

Whether it’s supporting someone through post-vaccine fatigue, restoring someone’s energy after an illness, helping a new mother regain balance after birth, teaching how to use food as restorative medicine, teaching an elder how to strengthen their vitality as they age, helping a client notice how stress shows up in their digestion, guiding better sleep rhythms, teaching children to feel grounded in their bodies, or offering herbal wisdom that’s been trusted for generations, holistic practice always returns to honoring the whole person.

My hope is that more people will recognize holistic medicine as a vital partner to conventional care, one that restores context, dignity, and long-term balance. Because the body is not a machine to be patched, it’s a living, intelligent system that deserves to be honored and supported at every stage of health.