Counseling model: creating a healing environment in hospitals.

Abstract

There are ways in which more holistic approaches to medicine can be achieved through the establishment of alternative hospitals and health-care centers, as has happened in the United States, and changes in midwifery and care for the dying through a more compassionate approach and the use of prescriptive music. Transformations of medical care in The Netherlands are also taking place, with existing hospitals gradually developing more patient-centered approaches and organizations like the Helen Dowling Institute providing tailor-made forms of psycho-social counseling for those with cancer and life-threatening illness.