Becoming a Certified Holistic Health Counselor

Certified Holistic Health Counselors encourage people to practice an integrative approach that considers the whole person — body, mind, spirit, and emotions — in the quest for optimal health and wellness. These professionals interact with clients to find out root causes of their health problems, potentially looking at lifestyle, diet, sleep patterns and traditional medical histories as well. Accordingly, they develop proper strategies such as diet modification, meditative practice, alternative health therapies, exercise regimens, and environmental health awareness for healing and improving overall wellness. They often provide patient education on lifestyle changes and self-care for good health.

Certified Holistic Health Counselors work at verities of environments such as hospitals, clinics, mental institutes, rehabilitation facilities, NGOs etc. They may practice in private or can align with other professionals from the field of homeopathy, naturopathy, massage therapy etc.

Educational Requirements

There are no formal educational requirements to become a Certified Holistic Health Counselor. However, aspiring candidates may pursue a bachelor’s, or master’s degree program in holistic healthcare. The aspirants can also earn one of several specific fields such as homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, herbalism, massage therapy etc for better job prospects.

The common course works in this field include introduction to complementary healing, multiple intelligence, clients-practitioners relationship, fundamentals of health problems.

Certification

Certified Holistic Health Counselors can obtain exam-based certification from American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP) and other similar organizations.

Skill set

Certified Holistic Health Counselors possess various traits such as creative thinking, crisis management abilities, empathy towards clients, motivating skills, understanding on nutrition intake, effective communications and interpersonal skills, computer skills etc. In addition, they have a great deal of knowledge in stress management, exercise rehabilitation, and other holistic approaches.

Job Outlook and Salary

The job outlook for a Certified Holistic Health Counselor remains excellent across the USA. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the growth rate for job opportunities in this profession may rise 8 percent during 2010-2020. The average annual salary of a Certified Holistic Health Counselor was $85,050 in 2014.