Body

“I believe in technology, when one pill will be available to cure all diseases. But I personally prefer my family doctor check my pulse, look into my eyes and listen to me... and my problems are gone.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Body-mind interventions have been known in traditional Chinese and Aurvedic medicine for centuries and nowadays has become a part of somatic (body) psychotherapy. By body-mind connections we understand interactions between body physiology, signals of brain, mind work and behavioral manifestations. In western biomedical model we treating the disease or symptoms, while, in reality, there is human being who is sick and needs help. Biopsychosocial model developed by psychiatrist Dr. George Engel considers psychological, social and biological interconnections in developing a disease and patient’s perception of illness. It is reasonable to believe that in order to expedite recovery patient’s personal involvement desired in his treatment.

Numerous scientific research in interlinked medical fields, such as neurodevelopment, psychoneuroimmunology and neuroimaging, provide the prove of constant body-mind dialogue. Now it is well known that up to 25-30% of heart attacks survivors suffer from depression. Moreover, if depression is not addressed, the likelihood of lethality due heart attack is 3 times more. About 50% of patients after stroke may develop clinical depression requiring separate treatment to improve outcome of rehabilitation.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the key in stress responses. Cytokines, the chemical messengers that participate in immune response, can stimulate the HPA axis when the body is under stress or contracts infection.

There are a lot of integrative interventions accepted by conventional and alternative medicine, including group support for cancer patients, yoga, tai-chi, qi-gong, hypnosis, spirituality, and etc. Many of these techniques have become very popular lately and are accepted by more and more physicians working in private practice, hospitals and clinics.

There is enough accumulated evidence that body-mind approach in medicine has positive effect on quality of life, psychological functioning, and help patients to cope with some hard to treat illnesses.