"You can't use an old map to explore a new world" - Albert Einstein
In traditional psychiatry, the treatment focus is on medications and talk therapy. These can both be helpful tools but don't fully encompass or address healing of our different layers of being. These concepts derive from quantum physics and expand into the realms of healing and medicine, as described in the book "The Quantum Psychiatrist", by Dr. Dona Biswas. A multi-dimensional approach is essential in order to target each of these layers and reach optimal mental wellbeing and peak wellness. At your highest level of being, all layers are integrated.
Our holistic and curated protocols address and integrate each of these layers, which is what makes our approach so effective. We are not one-dimensional and your healing cannot be either.
Let's dive into what each of those energy layers are and how they coincide with the integrative approaches that help our patients at Driftless Integrative Psychiatry.
The Biological Body
The biological body is the layer that much of Western medicine and psychiatry focuses on. The biological body includes physiology (how the body and its parts function) as well as the neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, hormones that influence our emotions and thoughts.
The most popular explanation about why people have mental illness and how medications work follow the theory of neurotransmitter deficiency, which is unfortunately too reductionistic - our brains are much more complex. Additionally, this theory doesn't take into account the other layers of being that can affect emotional wellbeing. Mental health healing modalities that target the biological body include medication, supplements, and exercise. Functional medicine also falls under the biological approaches and includes individualized metabolic testing, nutritional therapies, and dietary interventions.
Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, including ketamine assisted psychotherapy, is a unique healing approach since it positively impacts multiple layers of being, including the biological body. Psychedelic therapy increases neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to modify, change, and adapt both structure and function throughout life.
The Mental Body
Also known as the mind, the mental body comprises our ways of thinking and is separate from our emotional body. In Western medicine and psychology, healing modalities that impact the mental body include psychotherapy. There are many different schools, or approaches, of psychotherapy (literally over 200!), each with its own framework about how to help people change problematic thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most widely used therapy - and is often very effective for people struggling with anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is another powerful therapy approach offered by Driftless Integrative Psychiatry. This type of therapy combines mindfulness skills with the practice of self-acceptance and is helpful for people struggling with anxiety, depression, OCD, and trauma.
The Emotional Body
The feeling, or emotional, body is the truth of who you are at the feeling level. This layer includes not only your current emotional state but also emotions connected to past memories. At Driftless Integrative Psychiatry, we put a lot of focus on this layer - especially when we help people who have experienced trauma. Trauma is often stored in this layer and that is why the other healing modalities described above aren't always effective for trauma.
Treatment at the layer of the emotional body needs to get integrated into the other layers of being (and vice versa) in order for full healing to occur. Healing modalities at the level of the emotional body include accelerated resolution therapy (ART). Accelerated resolution therapy re-codes fear memories as safe, which resolves or softens feelings and sensations of distress in the body. This type of therapy is very helpful for people with anxiety, phobias, OCD, trauma, anger, and ruminative thinking associated with depression.
The Energy Body
The field of Western medicine has traditionally not been kind to healing approaches involving the energy body but energy medicine is gaining more acceptance in conventional medicine as the evidence emerges.
Reiki is a gentle healing modality that addresses the energy body involving the energy flow from the practitioner's hands to the person receiving the treatment. Acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, and massage therapy also help restore energy flow which in turn, can improve mental health. While Driftless Integrative Psychiatry doesn't currently offer these specific modalities, we frequently recommend these options and healers that we trust in these fields as beneficial adjuncts for healing.
Transformative healing occurs when these layers of being are addressed, tended to, and integrated with each other. This approach puts the "Integrative" in Driftless Integrative Psychiatry.
Learn more about requesting a consultation: https://www.driftlessintegrativepsychiatry.com/request-consultation
Learn more about ketamine assisted psychotherapy for trauma, anxiety, and depression: https://www.driftlessintegrativepsychiatry.com/ketamine-assisted-psychotherapy
Learn more about accelerated resolution therapy for trauma and anxiety: https://www.driftlessintegrativepsychiatry.com/what-is-art
Learn how to start your own integrative medicine practice: https://www.flourishpracticebuilding.com/