Speaker 1: Welcome back to Coast Live. Holistic Medicine is described as a personal approach to healthcare that looks at the whole body. Dr. Erica Steel from Holistic Family Practice in Virginia Beach joins us now to help us better understand holistic healthcare. Hey, Dr. Steel. Good to see you.
Speaker 2: Good to see you too.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of myths surrounding holistic healthcare. Break it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there’s a lot of fears, misconceptions. Some people think it’s superstitious, so there’s a lot of these unfounded, unknown, naturally in allopathic medicine they talk a lot about scientific evidence, so what we can prove or disprove.
And then they discredit a lot of ballistic practices because they say you can’t prove it or disprove it. But we’re really seeing between As well as the World Health Association Organization. Excuse me. We’re seeing a trend in more research that’s being conducted in holistic healthcare practices, and so I really wanted to come on and just educate people exactly what it is, especially in the wake of covid where people are feeling really powerless and unable to, they don’t really know what to do.
Speaker 1: I’m glad that you’re doing that because there’s that whole body approach and it brings in mental and spiritual and all that stuff. So how do you work all of this into your healthcare?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is really like the perfect time for holistic healthcare. It’s very divinely driven, I believe. So people often come into my practice with a physical ailment.
So they have a sign or a symptom or a diagnosis, what have you, from their allopathic doctor, and maybe they agree or disagree with whatever treatment methodologies that their allopath has provided. So we look at it from a physical perspective. So we would employ functional medicine. So laboratory assessment, we would look at biochemistry, the physical body, the diagnostics, that sort of thing.
And then we look, we break that down in terms of what environmental factors, meaning lifestyle factors, relationship factors, home environment, things like that. The mental as. The conscious mind, subconscious mind, all of the mental behaviors and self-sabotaging beliefs, the emotional components, things that are unresolved, things that we’ve stored past traumas, things we haven’t really emotionally dealt with.
And then that really connects us more with our spiritual self, our more intuitive self, and then naturally connects us more into a. Breaking the cycles of lifestyle habits that have been passed down generation to generation. And then I like to see after all of that, it’s self enlightenment or it’s like I am creating the world that I wanna be in and the world that I wanna see. So it’s really exciting and it’s definitely an exciting time for holistic healthcare.
Speaker 1: There’s so much that goes into this, and I’m sure you wanna feel that connection with your provider. So how do you go about choosing the right one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. I do think there’s an element of that intuition does this person, vibe with me? I find in my practice, it’s funny cuz I’m a pretty no nonsense Kenna gal and I really, I see people for who they really are, right? And I love them unconditionally. So that brings up a lot emotionally for other people because they’re like, oh my gosh and Funny what, how the mind works and the ego works.
So then it nitpicks I had to wait five more minutes, or, this didn’t happen or that happened. And it’s really all just fear, and so it takes a lot of courage. I’ll have people that come to my office, they’re like, I’ve been following you for two years, five years, and I finally got the courage to come in.
And Not everything is what it seems truly. I’m a big light and a big energy, and so I tend to attract people that are looking for healing.
Speaker 1: I love your energy. I can feel it and we’re just about out of time. But quickly before we go, is it expensive? And I know it’s not covered by most insurances, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we opt not to cover it by insurance. So there, there’s, insurance is such a big topic but we really wanna work for you as the provider. So I choose to be a concierge provider. I do provide diy and as we saw on the screen, I have some virtual intensive programs that are about to come out in group intensive to make it more affordable as we get more naturopathy or naturo.
Students in practice will be able to lower the cost. But overall, compared to other markets, we’re very affordable in how we approach it. And it’s really, if you had to put, a psychologist, if you had to put a functional doctor, if you had to put a naturopath, if you had to put all these different providers in your healthcare team, you know each one of them with their fees, you’ll find that it’s a lot more affordable. And we have payment plan options and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Fantastic. Dr. Steele, thank you thank you. All right. Thanks for having me.
What do you think?