Why An Integrated Approach?

In the course of my counseling career, I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients build better foundations of mental health. But for any number of clients, addressing mental issues is only partially helpful. Any therapy or treatment can only go so far in promoting health. Each health discipline, whether yoga, massage, fitness, counseling, etc, addresses specific aspects of the whole person...and no one discipline can do it all. A healthy mind is no substitute for a healthy body or a healthy soul. What we often find in the counseling field is the path to health and wellness is piecemeal at best for our clients, whether due to lack of awareness, lack of time and money, or an inability to attend scattered health services. In my estimation, the wellspring of wellbeing requires an integrated approach, one where several modalities to health can be artfully woven together. But what exactly does it mean to be integrated?

With Diversified Health and Wellness Center, our goal was to bring under one roof as many modalities of wellbeing as we could reasonably accommodate. We aimed to have a centralized set of services that captured the core dimensions of a whole person--the vital aspects of body, mind, and spirit. And we did! But it isn't enough to simply have multiple offerings in the same location. Having all the ingredients in one place does not mean that the recipe is going to come together! To truly integrate, you must have a working idea (or preferably several ideas) of what constitutes a fulfilled, healthy, happy human being. And that requires a whole village of bright minds--in our case, a network of professionals dedicated to a holistic, client-centered approach, who can take account of the multi-faceted needs of each person and help guide them on their way to wellbeing.

The need for community cannot be understated--an integrated approach is necessarily collaborative and requires multiple, coordinated perspectives. Our providers actively work with and learn from each other. This allows them to make full use of their own expertise while at the same time recognizing the inherent limits of their services so that they can comfortably refer their clients to their colleagues. Because of this, clients can move from strength to strength, building on their successes and growing in multiple ways simultaneously.

Of course, the path to health and wellness is as much an art as it is a science. We leave plenty of room to experiment and dabble with the offerings at the Center. And we all need a healthy dose of play! There is no single magic formula to health and wellness, and new combinations of services are likely to yield new forms of enjoyment, fulfillment, and happiness. We actively encourage exploration of the diverse offerings at the Center, to see what suits best each person, and to find new integrations.