Mind/Body Integrative Healing
The mind-body principle lies at the foundation of every healing tradition in the world, across all cultures and societies. In the last 300 years, Western medicine moved away from this ancient principle that has been practiced for millennia. Yet, twenty-five hundred years ago, the father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, said, “I would rather know what sort of a person has a disease, than what sort of a disease a person has.” What Hippocrates and ancient spiritual traditions across the globe understood was that people’s inner environment — their emotional, social, and spiritual life— is as important as their physical symptoms. What’s more, a conflict or lack of balance within one level of being is always mirrored on all the other levels of being, whether it be in the mind (through emotional and psychological states), the body (through somatic experiences, pain, or illness), or spirit (one’s intuition, inner life, and dreams).
Scientific research of the last two decades confirms this wisdom. For example, FIFTY years ago Dr. Jankins, a professional in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare of Massachusetts, conducted a study to identify the factors that increase the risk of heart attack before the age of fifty. The factors that are commonly identified by modern medicine as being at the root of the problem are: smoking, diabetes, excessive weight, high blood pressure, and a high cholesterol level. To his amazement, Dr. Jankins found that, among the 900 people in the study who had their first heart attack before the age 50, 85% of study participants did not smoke, did not have diabetes, did not have high blood pressure, did not have high cholesterol, and were not overweight. Instead, the common feature that united all the individuals who had heart attacks before the age of 50 was job dissatisfaction. This variable proved to be the best predictor of early heart attack.
Why does job dissatisfaction lead to early heart attack, and what phenomenon is at play here? As Candace Pert, the former chief of biological psychiatry at the National Institutes of Health, said, “in every cell interpretations are registered as physical events.” Being unhappy with one’s job is hardly a physical problem, and yet the body clearly has its own interpretation. The body is always listening and somatically interpreting your mental and emotional experiences.
After reading this study on heart attacks, Dr. Muller at the National Institutes of Health decided to look into this phenomenon further — and pursued an idea that even he himself thought was crazy. Dr. Muller did a computer search on the distribution of heart attacks on different days of the week. What he found was astonishing — more people died on one particular day of the week. Guess what day? That’s right--Monday. What’s more, he found that most heart attacks occurred between 8:00 and 9:00 AM on a Monday— the very first hour of the very first workday of the typical working week in the Western world.
We can interpret that there is real meaning behind this phenomenon — it is no coincidence that most heart attacks occur at this time, on this day, especially in light of the fact that the highest variable contributing to heart attacks is work dissatisfaction. Clearly, though people are using willpower and the power of their mind to force themselves to get up to work, the somatic body (and the heart itself) is expressing what these people are feeling emotionally —- that they would rather die than go to work. People’s bodies somatically express a deep knowing and truth, and, in this case, the heart is expressing this deep dissatisfaction despite attempts to use willpower to overcome such unhappiness.
The notion that our emotions play a role in how we feel physically is not new. We are much more than physical machines— we are more than bundles of nerves, muscles, bones, and blood vessels. We love, we experience trauma, we resent, we regret, we forgive, or we have difficulties forgiving. We live in the emotional reality as much as the physical reality. What is important here is the link between the physical and the emotional realities we live — and that link is meaning.
Let us consider a few examples illustrating how meaning serves as the link between the physical and emotional realities we inhabit. Imagine you are taking a shortcut through the park after a late night movie. Suddenly you hear quick steps behind you. Your initial thought is, “someone is after me,” a thought that produces an instant somatic response as your cells interpret this as a physical event: your digestion slows down, your breathing becomes faster, and heart rate increases. Sugars and fats pour into the blood to provide fuel for quick energy, should you need to flee the scene. The physiological cascade is automatic — and it is what is commonly referred to as the" flight-or-fight" response. Let’s imagine a similar situation, but instead of feeling fear, you recognize the footsteps are from your dear, long-lost friend. The response is automatic: you smile and your heart rate increases. This time, however, your blood is flooded with interleukins, which
strengthen your immune system. This triggers the “rest and digest” response. The difference between these two responses lies only in the way that you interpreted the meaning of the steps you heard behind you.
This is a perfect illustration of what Candace Pert noted: “in every cell, interpretations are registered as physical events”. Consciously, or, most often, unconsciously, we interpret the meaning of our life circumstances, our relationships, and the obstacles that arise in our lives. If our inner interpretations are registered by our bodies, then our bodies are following our minds when we think things like “I have no way out,” or, “I cannot live through this,” or, “it is heartbreaking,” or, “I cannot take it, or “swallow it, or digest it."
Our inner emotional life is literally charting the course that the body follows. Therefore, the presenting physical symptoms are, most of the time, the last factor of the imbalance to be manifested. As Dr. Scott Peck said, “The symptoms and the illness are not the same thing. The illness exists long before symptoms. Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of cure”.
How can it be, you may ask, that the symptoms are the beginning of cure? The symptoms provide essential data— the symptoms not only tell you that something is off balance within the physical and emotional organism, but they also reveal the deeper meaning of the illness that is being somatically expressed through physical symptoms. In order to identify the meaning of physical symptoms, one needs only think of the meaning of the organs that are afflicted.
For example, let’s say an individual is experiencing issues with their vision (their eyes). What is the function of the eyes? To see. Therefore, if one has problems with vision, the underlying issue might be about an inability to see something clearly in one’s own life.
As another example, let’s turn to digestive issues. The function of the GI tract is to break down nutrients in order to fuel our brains and bodies. It has been my experience, having working in this field for over 40 years, that people who have digestive problems often are dealing circumstances or people that are difficult to stomach, or to digest.
Let us look at the issue of breast cancer. The function of breasts is to facilitate a nourishing connection between mother and child, to supply life and love to a baby. Women with breast cancer often have issues with nourishment— they often were not nourished themselves as children, are not nourishing themselves in the present time, are feeling devoid of nourishing relationships, etc. In one way or another, the issue of nourishment is often involved.
Ovarian cancer or prostate cancer often reflects the issues around children or procreation. Heart problems are often associated with grief or issues around love. The list goes on.
Notice that many times, the word “often” is repeated. That is because since each person is unique–the meaning of organs, life events, relationships is also uniquely individual, and we have to look at every person and every illness within the context of their unique individuality and life circumstances.
It is absolutely important to treat the physical symptoms of the illness, preferably using natural, non-invasive methods. The Mind-Body Integrative Approach to Healing does not discount the importance of examining and treating medical issues with scientific interventions. However, it is equally important to recognize that the body’s somatic responses do not exist in a vacuum — they exist within a larger environment. An organism is comprised of physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual elements that are intricately interrelated. It is my belief that, when illness re-occurs, it is often because the initial treatment of it only addressed the symptoms. The root of the illness was not addressed. Regardless of what modality is used to deal with the physical symptoms, unless we identify and address the meaning that lies at the root of the physical illness, there might be a temporary cure, but there will not be a healing of the whole person.
In the Mind-Body Approach to Healing, first and foremost, people are guided to find the meaning of their illness. Then, they are taught the mental techniques they need to make life changes, techniques that enhance the healing process of the body, and techniques that integrate physical and emotional healing.
This approach to healing is an ancient and comprehensive tradition. How do we know whether I can be helpful to you as a clinician? We don’t. One must experience the process to fully understand it. So, you are invited not to simply trust the writer, but to trust your own feelings, your intuition. If what you just read about the mind-body connection resonates with you, then I am looking forward to meeting with you, whether that be to train you with the clinical skillset needed to employ mind-body integrative psychotherapy, or to help you manage life’s challenges by using this approach.
