Love Your Brain from the Roots to the Branches

One current issue with heated discussion in the field of psychiatry and psychology is about best practices and gold standard for treatment. As neuroscience informs better practices, we still see many holding tightly to longstanding traditional practices of talk therapy and prescription pharmaceuticals for treatment. While there is a time and place where both those are helpful, this is an exciting age for psychotherapy where we can learn more about how the brain actually works and use that to help our clients from the roots up and not just symptomatically by helping the branches learn how to cope.
Knowing about the brain in general and it’s functions and processes and how to maintain it’s overall health along with nutritional, supplement and psychotherapy practices to enhance it create an holistic version of healing that clients benefit from and that many have been really seeking for quite some time.
For example, a client might come into therapy and present with symptoms of depression, an inability to trust and build successful relationships, poor memory and decision making and feeling stuck and anxious, not able to move forward in their lives. We could start with addressing the symptoms and giving homework on ways to change their thoughts and behaviours to move towards the goals in their lives. For some this will be wildly successful. For others, a frustrating routine that feels inauthentic because how they feel inside is still the same and opposing the new habits they are creating. But when we look at brain functioning, we get some new insight. In this same client, we might take note of the following… Poor self control and decision making often correlate to low prefrontal cortex activity. Being stuck in old ways and thoughts, holding grudges – being unable to shift gears,  with high anterior cingulate gyrus activity, negative thought patterns and difficult regulating emotions with high deep limbic system activity, anxiety and low self esteem with high basal ganglia activity, poor or distorted memory and skewed perceptions with low temporal lobe activity. Genetics, trauma/abuse, brain injury, toxin exposure can all contribute to this and specific techniques, supplements and sometimes pharmaceuticals can to be used to address each area of the brain. 
This is something psychiatrists as well as psychotherapists need to be informed about to give the best care to your clients. It’s not about just talking to them and coping strategies, it’s about helping them to change and grow their brain to be more flexible and resilient. From helping them know their brain to loving their brain, we can help educate on a level that can enhance their overall psychological and physical health and wellbeing. When the brain is functioning optimally the symptoms we often try to treat in therapy are reduced on their own and more easily worked through. We have to stop treating the leaves and start understanding the roots – work from the bottom up, not the top down. It’s way more effective and should be part of current best practice. When we know so much about the brain, why are specialists that actually work with this organ not informed about how it actually works and how to optimize it? We all need to be. 

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