A Mind, Body, Spirit Approach To Mental Health Treatment

Learn the importance of a mind, body and spirit approach to mental health treatment. Dr Traci Moreno, licensed psychologist, talks about different treatment options that incorporate whole-person healing and its benefits.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Dr.

Tracy Moreno,

Psychologist,

And today I want to talk about the importance of having a mind-body-spirit approach to treatment.

You know,

People come to us when they struggle emotionally because obviously they trust us to be able to help them through that,

And we can certainly do that,

But there's other parts that also need to be treated.

We also have our body and our spirit,

And when one of those is struggling,

It doesn't matter how much we heal the mind.

We are still going to have some problems when our body or our spirit is having problems,

So it's very important that we treat the mind-body- spirit as our whole body.

So I want to go through each parts of these and talk about,

You know,

What it means and why it's so important and what that looks like.

So let's start with the body.

We often recommend things like massage.

At times we do Thai massage here and therapeutic yoga,

And it's very important because our symptoms,

Our emotional symptoms,

Are held physically within the body,

And that needs to be released.

In fact,

In very severe cases,

Like with severely,

People with severe mental illness,

They don't even like to be touched.

It's a protective factor.

There can also be things like,

You know,

Self-harm,

Or they put,

You know,

Emotional walls up to protect themselves,

Not really,

Not realizing that they're actually imprisoning themselves,

And they're hurting themselves before anybody else can hurt them.

But to them,

On a very unconscious level,

It is a protective factor.

But a lot of people can't even tolerate that physical touch.

And what massage does is it breaks down those walls,

That physical barrier,

And we're able to have that physical release.

And touch provides so much comfort,

Where we're able to open up physically.

And I'm sure that you've experienced what I'm about to say.

There,

You know,

When somebody just gives us a hug,

Or even just puts their hand on our shoulder,

Or our leg,

Or,

You know,

Holds our hand,

It provides us with so much comfort.

And it's amazing how we will just open up and either just,

Our emotions will pour out,

We'll break down crying,

Or we will just kind of,

Even our body will physically just kind of like fall into them,

Because it's such a release of comfort.

There are so many research studies that show,

You know,

CAT scans,

When somebody is touched,

Maybe somebody holds our hand,

And all those pleasure center parts of the brain just light up.

And if somebody gives us a hug,

Wow,

It just it's like fireworks go off in our brain,

Like all of those happy chemicals are released.

And it's really amazing.

And so imagine if somebody is going through so much severe emotional pain or trauma,

That they don't allow that physical touch in what they're missing out on that healing that they're missing out on.

And so that part is very,

Very important to also our emotional healing.

So even with CBT,

Cognitive behavioral therapy,

You know,

We we learn to manage our behavior,

In response to our thoughts,

Right,

The the concept is that our,

Our thoughts lead to behavior.

And so this requires that mind body connection,

And have,

We need to know that we can have physical control,

Even when our even when mentally and emotionally,

We may feel very out of control.

You know,

Our our body is like the trajectory.

And so our body dictates and can have a big influence of our mind.

There is a little exercise that we sometimes do where you'll have somebody pull up a,

You know,

In their mind visually and feel emotionally some sort of painful experience that you've had.

And then we have people just kind of lie back and close their eyes,

And try to maintain the the pain that they were experiencing.

When you're relaxed,

When your body is physically relaxed,

Our mind automatically physically relax also,

And it's hard to maintain sometimes any of it.

But even if we are able to maintain some of that pain in our mind,

It's much on a much lower intensity level.

So it's really important,

Right.

So this is why our you know,

Treating our body and really taking care of our body and knowing having that connection is very important to also our emotional healing.

Another way to help heal the body is through bodywork.

Yoga is probably like the number one thing.

And it's even been shown in many research studies that yoga is more effective in treating trauma than therapy.

So and that's because it helps us stay present,

Right?

A lot of our symptoms are caused by us either being stuck in the past or worrying about the future.

And so body work helps us stay present and be in the body.

Take for instance,

If you've ever done yoga,

You know,

Some of these balancing poses,

It can be difficult.

And but,

And the only way to hold that pose is if we're really focused and staying present.

If you do a little test with it,

Try to pull up something in your mind of a painful experience,

And or something that you're stressed or worried about or try to keep your daily to do list in your mind.

And then try to go into one of those yoga poses and hold it for,

You know,

Maybe 30 seconds,

One minute,

If possible,

And see and you just can't,

You know,

After just the first couple seconds,

In order to actually hold that pose and stay balanced,

You have to clear your mind of everything and have complete focus over your breath and your body.

And like I was saying earlier,

Symptoms are held within the body,

Especially with trauma,

We have anxiety and anger and fear.

And our body does not know the difference between what is in our thought and what is actually happening.

So when we are in our minds about a particular situation,

Our body is experiencing as it as if it really happened.

That's why with trauma,

We can get stuck.

And it feels like we're just still in the trauma,

Like we just keep re experiencing it.

And a great example of this is our dreams.

When we dream,

Right,

This is all in our mind,

Nothing's actually happening in real life.

But yet our body is responding to it,

We have physiological responses,

We can even be crying or yelling out or,

You know,

Even maybe like punching or moving or if we're running,

You know,

You we kind of have a little bit of that twitching movement in us,

Because we're actually acting it out in,

In,

In our in our dreams,

But it's our body,

Again,

Is like physically responding to it.

So when we are feeling those stressful emotions,

What happens in our body,

Right?

Think about that.

Think about the last time that you were maybe really angry or really anxious or stressed.

And the things that happen in our body usually is our heart begins to race,

Our muscles contract,

And our breathing becomes shallow.

So physically,

We must counteract these things.

That's where yoga comes in,

And breath work,

And energy work and massage and things like that.

Because with the breath work too,

Right,

We're counteracting that shallow breathing,

We're opening up our lungs,

And we are breathing deeply.

And then with yoga,

We are stretching,

Right?

We're so we're counteracting those contracted muscles,

And we're slowing down the heart rate and the blood pressure.

And so our body is having a direct effect on our emotional state.

And when clients come in,

And they're distressed,

And they're having difficulty even talking about what's happened to them.

That's where body work is the most important part,

Because we have to work on those things before we can even get to the emotional parts of it.

Yoga also teaches us to sit through the physical discomfort and pain,

Right?

Because when we're in those difficult positions in yoga,

Especially like a difficult stretch,

You know,

To sit there's a there could be physical pain.

And we realize that once we once we actually relax and breathe through it,

It actually opens up our body and we're able to find comfort within that.

But as long as we're fighting it and resisting,

It just it doesn't get any better.

It just the pain stays exactly where it is.

And this can teach us to do that emotionally as well.

Because a lot of times we are avoiding we're running from our emotions,

Right?

That's why we have these wonderful defense mechanisms like denial and repression and avoidance.

But that's not the way,

Right?

All we do then is trap that painful emotion inside of us.

And so with yoga,

It teaches us how to physically do that.

But we can emulate that emotionally as well.

So when we feel emotional discomfort,

Instead of,

You know,

Locking up resisting and trapping it in,

We have to open ourselves up to it and almost lean into the pain and allow ourselves to feel what we feel in the moment,

Process through it,

And then release it.

And so yoga becomes our teacher in this in terms of also syncing our breath with movement.

You know,

When you're in,

Say,

One of those yoga positions where you're standing,

But maybe you know,

Your upper body is down somehow,

And you have to kind of like get back up like into maybe a warrior to position if you're familiar with yoga,

And our breathing when we try to just get back up,

It's a lot harder.

But when we're able to sync our breath with the movement,

And kind of we we breathe,

We inhale,

And then as we exhale,

We use that exhale as momentum to push us back up.

It's a whole lot easier.

And we can also do that with our emotions.

Think of it this way,

If breathwork can help women through the physical pain of childbirth,

It can certainly help us through our emotional pain,

Right?

Okay,

So let's move on to spirituality and our spirit and what it looks like to heal the spirit.

So with our spirit,

You do not have to be religious,

Or even spiritual per se.

At the most basic level,

When we talk about healing the spirit,

We're talking about energy.

And there is no debate,

Even within science communities,

That we have energy in and around us and that we need energy to survive.

We just may call it something different,

Right?

In spirituality,

We may call it like an aura or talk about like Reiki healing and like moving like energy or,

Or with chakra energy and things like that.

In the science community,

It can be it's been recently referred to as an energy field or a bio field,

Call it what you want.

It's just it's still energy.

So you don't have to be spiritual or,

Or religious or anything like that to heal the energy.

And we're going to be referring to that as our spirit.

So we need that proper flow of energy,

Because energy can get blocked,

Just like our emotions can get blocked.

And in our emotions create that energy,

Right?

Think of like a drainage pipe.

And if something is blocked within it,

You know,

And let's say that that,

You know,

Instead of like a hairball blocked in our,

In our sink,

It's,

You know,

Our energy,

It can be sadness,

It could be pain,

Anger,

Trauma,

Any sort of distress can cause that energy blockage.

And then what happens is one part of our body may be getting more backed up energy where the other part is not getting anything at all.

And so that energy has to flow and move in and out of us and through us.

And so this is what we talk about with,

You know,

Making sure that we don't have these energy blockages.

And it can also not only affect our emotional state,

It can also affect our physical state,

Right?

We all know that our emotional state has an effect on even let's say physical pain,

Right?

Our when we are feeling emotional pain,

It can manifest itself physically,

We can have stomach problems,

We can have,

You know,

Pain in our in our neck and our shoulders,

Our back,

You know,

Just,

It comes out physically.

And we also know anybody who suffers with chronic pain knows,

It goes back and forth,

Our emotions can cause us the physical pain.

But our physical pain can also cause us emotional pain,

Right?

So this all goes,

This all goes hand in hand.

And so working on healing,

Our spirit can help move that energy,

Whether it's physical or emotional.

So one of the ways we do that is through Reiki healing.

And what we do here is crystal Reiki healing,

Which adds like extra,

Special,

Powerful touch to it.

And Reiki is moving,

Working with the energy in and around us.

And I don't know if you've ever been in a Reiki session,

But I can tell you,

It's kind of one of those weird things that when you when you're done,

You go,

Well,

I'm not quite sure what happened,

But something definitely happened.

And it's,

I'll just,

If anybody's ever,

You know,

If you're not familiar with it,

I'll just describe what a session is like,

You can be laying on say,

Like a massage table,

And the Reiki master,

The provider will be working on you.

And they just kind of hover their hands over different parts of your body.

And they're feeling that energy,

And moving it around.

You know,

To,

Again,

Unblock any block blockages,

Clogs,

Anything,

Or maybe where things are maybe too open,

They might have to,

You know,

Close certain areas to just make everything flow pretty evenly.

They sometimes can put their,

Like lay their hands physically on you.

But it's,

It's not that often we do the crystal Reiki healing.

So our provider does lay the crystals in certain places,

You know,

With your permission,

Of course.

And,

But it is mostly working with the energy,

And not necessarily that the physical body.

And there is scientific evidence coming out right now,

Showing that Reiki does work.

A lot of the scientific research is kind of like,

Well,

We don't know why it works or how it works.

But they do at least admit now that it does work.

This is also the concept of sound healing,

The vibrational energy of sound can force and move our energy around.

And probably the most common example that pretty much everybody could relate to in terms of like,

Think about how sound affects us,

Different songs,

Right,

It connects it to different emotions.

And it,

You know,

It calls upon different mental states,

And which also then changes our physical state.

Think about when you hear your favorite song,

Or when a baby cries,

Right?

So sound affects our emotion,

Which affects our physical state,

Our reaction.

So with sound healing,

There are different instruments that emit different frequencies,

Which relate to particular parts of the body.

For instance,

We when we do sound baths in our mini on our retreats,

We,

I have the chakra crystal bowls,

And each bowl is emits a frequency that is associated with one of the main chakras.

And so,

And that's going to help,

You know,

Unblock or any blockages that could be happening within the body just through that sound.

And there is a lot of scientific research studies that show how sound can actually affect the physical body.

So this is why it is just so important to,

You know,

Treat the mind,

Body and the spirit,

Even if you're just acknowledging,

Right,

Have the awareness of having problems,

And maybe your emotional state or your physical state.

Try just put yourself out there,

Open yourself up to new things,

It's not going to hurt anything.

And just try these things and see what works for you.

For more information on what we do here and on the treatment of mind body spirit,

You can find us at free spirit coaching.

Org.

You can also text me at 480-220-0020.

Thank you.

Reviews

I like the broad approach that you have in a field that often operates in a narrow band. You have an air of calmness and confidence that is beneficial.