‘Practice’ in therapy
I use the term ‘Therapy and Practice’ to describe Heartstrong in order to illustrate a holistic approach that focuses on mind and body. But what does holistic mean and what does practice refer to?
Our modern medical model makes an erroneous distinction between physical and mental health. It splits up our bodies into different parts that apparently behave independently of each other. But this doesn’t make sense. Our minds and bodies are in a constant state of synergy, and we cannot distinguish them as separate entities for the sake of convenience. When we are suffering with our mental health, our bodies suffer too. And when we are suffering with ill physical health, our mental health is often affected.
Describing an approach as ‘holistic’ refers to an acknowledgement that our difficulties reside in our whole being, not just in our minds. To ignore our bodies in talking therapy is to discount a significant and valid element of our experience, and to minimise the ways in which we can draw on our whole being to influence and enhance our overall state of wellbeing in positive ways, both in and outside of the therapy space.
Practices using the mind and body are often used in a therapeutic process as a part of treatment. A helpful way to think of practices is that they can follow two pathways – ‘top-down’ practices (a way to use the mind to influence the body) and ‘bottom up’ practices (a way to use the body to influence the mind). For example, a typical top-down practice might be a visualisation exercise such as ‘safe place’ imagery, where we use the mind to imagine a place that elicits a multi-sensory experience of being calm, and in response our body feels more grounded and soothed. And a typical bottom-up approach might be a rhythmic breathing exercise where we use the breath to help calm and soothe an anxious mind.
When we ‘practice’ something, it generally means we learn something new and then apply it, often in a repetitive way. What we know from modern neuro-science is that our brains are ‘plastic’, that is they are able to adapt and change according to how we live. So practising something different, whether that be mental or physical exercises or behavioural change, can genuinely create new neural networks in our brains and help to create a greater sense of well-being.