No Guts, No Glory

So I'm back here at my desk after a major transition and a very long summer.  It's a beautiful fall here and I will soon be our admiring the leaves on what could be the last warm day of the year here in New England.  But before that I want to return to commenting on some of the things that thrill or bother me, especially about my profession --"Mental Health Professional," and how and why it's such a struggle.

Last Sunday, 10/12/14, The Boston Globe's Magazine Section was called "Decoding the Brain." They had four articles about recent brain research.  The one that intrigued me most was called " Gut Instincts."  It was a curious yet striking example of what has happened to my thinking, but has not yet spread very quickly through the profession.

Very briefly, the piece describes a case in which someone who had some very disabling obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and was pulling out his hair, was able to free himself from these behaviors by changing his diet and adding strong probiotics.  The article quotes Dr. James Greenblatt, of Walden Behavioral Care, as saying that research is quite clear that the GI tract affects brain health."

The article, which was written by Elizabeth Gehrman, also stated that "All the interest marked a fundamental change in the way scientists and medical professionals view the connection between the brain and the gut."  I believe that we all have to continue to change how we view the entire brain/body relationship.  And I don't mean in the now very prevalent way of people just learning to relax, meditate and stay "mindful." I mean in the other direction. Lots of things in our bodies affect the brain, such as diet, toxins, injuries, fatigue, lack of stimulation, over-stimulation, heat, cold, and so much of the stimulation that is constantly coming in through all of our senses.

All of this is being processed all the time by the brain.  And the brain creates your mind as a part of all this process.

The more we mental health people see this as a constant process of the world, the body, and the brain all interacting, and spend less time and effort trying to fix people's "minds," the more effective mental health care can become.