Dr. Martha Mathews Libster, PhD, MSN, APRN-PMHCNS, APHN-BC, FAAN, Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and Board-Certified Advanced Practice Holistic
Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, and Infant Mental Health Specialist, is the Founder and Executive Director of Golden Apple Healing Arts, LLC and its Self-care and Choreosophy Institutes. She is an international expert in salutogenic healthcare and nursing science specifically focused on precision self-care, nurse-herbalism, health culture diplomacy, integrative holistic behavioral health nursing, and healthcare reform. Dr. Libster’s contributions to integrating emerging technologies and healing traditions are demonstrated by two decades of publications, unique educational programs, and inspirational events for thousands of nurses, healthcare providers, and the public on five continents.
In 2006, Dr. Libster founded the Bamboo Bridge Global Tea House in partnership with Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society in Nursing. Today, its World Cafés for Conversational Leadership and Global Tea Houses continue to promote peace through international health culture diplomacy. In 2009, Mohawk Wisdom Keeper, Mrs. Cecilia Mitchell bestowed upon Dr. Libster the responsibility of “Carrier of the Five Arrows of Hiawatha” which is the story of the Great Peacemaker whose “new mind” peacemaking solution became the Iroquois Confederacy. She has designed and published four practice models: The Healing Relationship Model for Integrative Nursing Practice, the Cultural Diplomacy Model, the Tao of Integrative Nursing Assessment (TINA) Model, and the Elements of Care®, which integrates her 27 years of experience in classical Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine and knowledge of the five elements with nursing science in a salutogenic-oriented, energetics first approach to care.
Dr. Libster is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrative Nursing and is the author of numerous journal publications, editorials, and eleven books including the award-winning Herbal Diplomats, a history of the women of the 19th-century American botanical healthcare reform movement. Her research and writing demonstrate that nurses’ historical leadership as experts in Self-care and as health culture diplomats in the creation of healing environments in partnership with plants and other elements are well-positioned to address current concerns and advance community health solutions to climate change within and without.
Currently, Dr. Libster is the Director of the state-funded Salutogenesis-Oriented Solutions (SOS) -Youth Program in Wisconsin, a behavioural mental health workforce development program for nurses who would partner with Asian-American communities using a health culture diplomacy community mental health approach to address the high suicide rates and low sense of belonging in Asian-Wisconsin youth. Her existentialist approach to this work led her to Viktor Frankl’s and Paul Wong’s inspiring work with youth. She is delighted to join the INPM community and hopes to have a cup of tea with members soon!