Program availability
Your Preferences
Update your Zip code, preferred campus, and preferred program
Becoming a Holistic Nurse: 7 Things You Need to Know
Learn how holistic nursing blends compassion and clinical care into a career focused on healing the whole person.
Explore the possibilities in holistic and integrative nursing
Nursing is about more than treating symptoms. It’s about caring for the whole person, building trust and supporting healing in ways that reflect each patient’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.
That’s what draws many nurses to holistic nursing. From job duties and work settings to related careers, education options, and certifications, there are several factors worth exploring before moving forward.
Here’s what you need to know about becoming a holistic nurse:
What It Is
1. Fully understand what holistic nursing is
To understand holistic nursing, start with one fundamental idea: the patient is more than a condition to treat.
Holistic nursing is a whole-person approach to care that looks beyond a patient’s immediate illness, injury, or symptoms. It includes the clinical side of nursing, but it also considers the physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, relational, and environmental factors that may affect health and healing. Rather than focusing only on what is wrong medically, holistic nursing asks what the patient needs to feel supported, understood, and engaged in their care.
This approach builds on the foundation of nursing practice rather than replacing it. Holistic nurses still monitor symptoms, administer medications, support safety, and carry out care plans. The difference is that they also take time to understand the person behind the diagnosis. That may include asking how a patient is coping emotionally, what beliefs or values matter to them, what stressors may be affecting recovery, and what kind of support could improve their overall well-being.
In practice, holistic nursing may involve whole-person assessment, strong therapeutic communication, healing-centered environments, and evidence-informed integrative strategies when appropriate. It also emphasizes cultural humility, trauma-responsive care, self-care, and resilience.
At its core, holistic nursing adds depth to patient care by recognizing that healing is influenced by much more than physical symptoms alone.
2. What a holistic nurse does
Holistic nurses expand on traditional clinical care by incorporating many different types of interventions to help patients heal. Some common holistic nursing job duties include:
- Conduct whole-person patient assessments
- Create patient-centered care plans
- Build therapeutic relationships with patients
- Support patient education and health literacy
- Help patients manage stress and coping challenges
- Incorporate cultural, spiritual, and personal values into care
- Promote wellness, prevention, and healthy lifestyle habits
- Use evidence-informed integrative approaches
- Collaborate with families and care teams
- Encourage self-care and resilience
Where They Work
3. Where holistic nurses work
Holistic nurses may work in many of the same settings as other types of RNs.
Here are some of the most common settings where holistic nurses may work:
| Workplace | Role |
| Hospitals | Support patients in acute and inpatient settings |
| Physician’s offices | Help coordinate care and patient education |
| Outpatient clinics | Provide follow-up, wellness-focused, and routine care |
| Home care | Care for patients in a more personalized home setting |
| Nursing care facilities | Support long-term and ongoing needs |
| Schools/universities | Promote wellness, education, and support services |
| Community health settings | Serve broader populations and prevention efforts |
| Private practice | Varies by role, training, and scope of practice. |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates registered nurses most commonly work in hospitals, ambulatory health services, and nursing care facilities.
The American Holistic Nurses Association also notes that holistic nursing practice is “universal in nature” and can be practiced in any clinical setting, including private practice, educational institutions, research foundations, and more.
Different Types
4. Types of holistic nurses
Holistic nursing is less about one fixed job title and more about an approach to care. In practice, holistic nurses may apply whole-person, patient-centered care in different roles depending on their education, licensure, experience, and work setting.
Potential types of holistic nurses include:
| Title | Role |
| Holistic RN | RNs who incorporate whole-person care into direct patient care, education, advocacy, and support. |
| Holistic Nurse Practitioner | Advanced practice nurses who may bring a holistic lens to assessment, treatment, patient education, and care planning within their professional scope. |
| Nurse Coach | Nurses who focus on behavior change, wellness goals, communication, motivation, and helping patients make sustainable health-related choices. |
| Integrative Nurse | Nurses who combine traditional nursing care with evidence-informed integrative approaches when appropriate. |
| Holistic Nurse Leader | Nurses who promote healing-centered care through teaching, staff development, program design, or administrative leadership. |
Defining terms closely related to “holistic”
The following terms are often grouped together because they all reflect a broader view of health and healing. However, they are not interchangeable, and they do not describe the same role or care model:
- Holistic nursing is a nursing approach focused on caring for the whole person. It considers physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, relational, and environmental factors that may affect well-being. A holistic nurse is still practicing nursing, but with a wider lens on healing and patient support.
- Integrative nursing is closely related to holistic nursing and is often used in similar ways. In general, integrative nursing refers to combining conventional nursing care with evidence-informed complementary approaches when appropriate. You can think of integrative nursing as a way of applying whole-person care while also drawing on selected supportive therapies or strategies.
- Functional medicine is not a nursing role by itself. It is a broader care philosophy that often focuses on identifying underlying or root causes of health concerns, along with lifestyle and systems-based factors that may affect health. A nurse may work in a functional medicine setting, but that does not automatically mean the nurse is practicing holistic nursing, and the terms should not be treated as synonyms.
- Naturopathic usually refers to naturopathic medicine, which is a separate professional path from nursing. It is not the same as holistic nursing. While naturopathic care may also emphasize whole-person wellness, the education, credentials, and scope of practice are different.
5. Educational options
Educational options in holistic nursing can range from continuing education and specialty certification preparation to graduate-level study for nurses who want to deepen their knowledge of whole-person care.
A post master’s nursing certificate in holistic integrative health offers a focused pathway designed for nurses in leadership, education, and advanced practice roles. Our fully online program emphasizes holistic nursing philosophy, mind-body science, nutrition and plant-based medicine, integrative modalities, and holistic nursing for practice, education, and leadership.
With an evidence-informed curriculum and emphasis on cultural humility, trauma-responsive care, and reflective leadership, the program is designed to help you integrate holistic and whole-person care into your professional practice.
Waived Enrollment Fee
Discover the educational pathway designed to maximize your career potential. Reach for greater heights with Herzing University.
Certifications
6. Relevant certifications
Earning certification is one way to show that your knowledge has been assessed against established standards and that your specialty expertise has been formally recognized.
The American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (AHNCC) offers multiple relevant certifications, including key nurse coaching certifications such as:1
- AHNCC Nurse Coach (NC-BC)
- AHNCC Health and Wellness Nurse Coach (HWNC-BC)
These are the certifications most relevant to our post master’s certificate program in holistic integrative health. However, with the right education and experience you can potentially qualify for many potential certifications in either holistic nursing or nurse coaching from AHNCC.
Our goal is to provide the academic foundation needed for you to eventually earn the holistic nursing or nurse coaching certification that’s right for you.
How Much They Make
7. Salary impact
Salary implications vary widely based on what education and experience you’ve already earned, the type of holistic nurse courses or training you choose, and precise roles and responsibilities of the job you pursue in the field.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not specify salary ranges for “holistic” nurses, or any different types of unique nursing specialties. Categories relevant to nursing professions range from $98,430-$137,730 per year:*
Average salary | ||
| Career | Per year | Per hour |
| Registered nurses | $98,430 | $47.32 |
| Nurse practitioners | $132,000 | $63.46 |
| Medical and health service managers | $137,730 | $66.22 |
MSN-prepared RNs who earn a certificate in holistic integrative nursing can increase their value to both patients and potential employers alike. Advance your education and you can potentially increase your earning potential.
Prepare to make a new impact
Holistic nursing is rooted in seeing patients as complete individuals and supporting healing in ways that reflect their full range of needs.
For nurses who want to bring more compassion, connection, and whole-person support into practice, holistic nursing can be a meaningful pathway to choose.
We can help you establish a strong academic foundation to incorporate holistic nursing into your practice and make a unique impact on the lives of your patients.
Learn more about our Holistic Integrative Health program
Disclosures
1. Our Post Master’s Certificate in Holistic Integrative Health program provides foundational knowledge to support preparation for certification as a Nurse Coach (NC-BC) and/or Health and Wellness Nurse Coach (HWNC-BC). Additional eligibility requirements must be met beyond completion of the program to qualify for certification.
* BLS pay estimates calculate the median annual wage for various occupations. Per the BLS the median wage for an occupation is: "The wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount, and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey." Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook 2024. BLS median wage estimates do not represent entry-level wages and/or salaries. Multiple factors, including prior experience, age, geographic market in which you want to work, and degree level and field, will affect career outcomes, including starting salary and earnings as an experienced employee. Herzing neither represents that its graduates will earn the median salaries calculated by BLS for a particular job nor guarantees that graduation from its program will result in a job, promotion, particular wage or salary, or other career growth.