Exploring the Mind-Body Connection in Mental Health
By: Ambur Gregorio, LCSW
Mind-Body Connection Approaches to Treating Mental Health
The brain and the body have an intimate connection, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Have you ever had the experience of your body feeling like it needs to poop, due to the mind experiencing a perceived worry or anxiety? Have you ever felt your heart jump and felt tingles all over your body if your mind experiences fear or startle? The mind body connection is undeniable. Sometimes clients will enter into therapy with the desire of “intellectualizing” or being very clinical and guarded in their plan to heal their anxiety or depression.
This, unfortunately, does not work. The brain and the body must connect to achieve healing. Here at Integrate Therapy and Wellness, we ask our clients to dig a little deeper. The reason we ask for such vulnerability is because we see the deeper level of healing that clients can obtain by allowing the body to experience therapy as well.
“Your body hears everything your mind says.” – Naomi Judd
The Mind Body Connection and EDMR Therapy
You may have heard of new therapy tools such as EMDR or IFS. These modalities are becoming increasingly popular in the media, taking the place of the ever aging previously preferred tools such as CBT.
What is the difference, and why are clients experiencing a different level of healing with these newer modalities?
The answer: because EMDR and IFS both consider the unavoidable importance of the mind and body connection in the therapy room.
“Trauma is not what happened to you; it is the stress of experiences left over in your body that leave a profound effect on both the mind and the body” (Levine, 2023).
What Happens When the Mind and Body Disconnect?
It is not uncommon for the brain and the body to go offline from one another during a traumatic event. This is a coping strategy meant for survival, and it happens quite frequently. This process serves a purpose in the moment of the trauma, but it is not ideal for a person to stay in this disconnected, offline status for an extended period of time. If this disconnected state continues, mental health therapy may be very helpful.
You may have heard this separation of the mind and the body referred to as dissociation. The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) describes the experience of dissociation as, “a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness and memory.” (NAMI, 2024) Trauma is hard, and the body system tries to protect and preserve when difficult experiences come along. It is a beautiful and functional design. And sometimes we need professional support to get the brain and the body integrated after a difficult experience.
If the trauma happens and the brain and the body disconnect from one another, it naturally makes the most sense to bring both the brain and the body into the conversation of healing.
Here at Integrate Therapy and Wellness Collective, we believe it is required. One of our first goals in trauma therapy is to get clients connected and grounded in their body. We as humans often run through our day to day without taking a moment to breathe deeply, take inventory, and check in with our needs.
This mindfulness practice and curious awareness is step one in the healing process. During EMDR therapy, our mental health therapists ask the clients to identify where in their body they feel the activation when they think about the distressing target memory.
Clients will usually say that they feel it somewhere in their chest, gut, or throat.
Do you know where you hold your stress in your body?
Asking yourself this valuable question can give you powerful insight into your body’s experience of your emotions. Connecting with your five senses is another great tool to get reconnected with your body. At Integrate, we utilize “walk and talk therapy” and hold outdoor sessions in the flower garden to help clients tune into their senses during trauma processing. This provides the ideal environment for a natural integration of mind and body experience.
How Can EMDR Therapy Help My Mental Health
There are times in therapy when the body will give us crucial clues that the mind is not privy to. This is incredibly helpful in trauma reprocessing when a client feels stuck.
EMDR refers to this as an “interweave”. Interweaves are used when a client begins to loop on a trauma event rather than continuing to move forward in an adaptive way.
It is incredible to witness the client connecting to their body, move right around the roadblock or blocking belief, and continue on in the healing process. If we ignored this, the process would likely take much longer and be less thorough. Attuning to the mind body connection in mental health therapy allows for a deeper and more holistic healing experience.
If you’re interested in exploring the mind-body connection in mental health, please reach out to Integrate Therapy & Wellness today!
References
Dissociative disorders. NAMI. (2024, May 1). https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Mental-Health-Conditions/Dissociative-Disorders/
Levine, M. (2023, October 12). Somatic trauma therapy: Unlocking healing through the mind-body connection. IFS EMDR Therapy. https://ifsemdrtherapy.com/blog/somatic-trauma-therapy-healing-through-the-body-mind-connection
