Mind and Body

I recently helped my friend study for her philosophy presentation. The topic was dualism as presented by Descarte, in which he argues that the mind and body are two seperate substances. I won't argue my thesis as my friend had to. I will simply state: that's wrong. The mind and body are inseperable, especially in terms of quality of life.

In both the programs I've worked in, I've provided the exercise, which I've seen has provided great benefit to every man and woman I helped. But I've seen that for some of them, the mental side of our program, whether it was recreation therapy or group counseling, was even more helpful than the exercise.

One man put the interaction between these two modes of the program best (and I paraphrase): The exercise without the counseling would have been meaningless. The counseling without the exercise would have been fruitless. The combined attention to mind and body is the only way to truly regain my quality of life.

I am now a strong advocate of professional counseling. I've seen it work in my patients, my friends, and myself. A lot of my patients describe a stigma around counseling, that it was seen as an indicator that those who took advantage of it were weak. I argue that those who take advantage of counseling are stronger, because they have gained more resources by collaborating with a mental health professional. No one would question a person's motives or resolve if they hired me as a personal trainer. In fact, it would probably earn the person a pat on the back. So why should counseling be seen as any different?

To close this post, let me make this disclaimer/definition: there are so many mental health interventions, each with their own term. I'm going to be somewhat lazy though, and call them all counseling, even though counseling itself has many derivations. So, from now on in this blog, if you see a post with the "counseling" label on it, I might mean: group counseling; client centered therapy; psychoanalysis; cognitive awareness training; recreation therapy; and any other model of mental health promotion that's not coming to the top of my head right now.