Do You Believe The Brain Is An Organ And Needs To Be Medically Fixed? Or The Mind Is Complex And Needs To Be Understood?
Some people exercise, while others engage in intense workouts. For the past 38 years, I have been deeply committed to fitness and intensely workout. I owned a personal training business, triumphed in bodybuilding competitions, and teach yoga. I maintain a healthy diet and never take my health for granted. However, my physical well-being did not compensate for my mental and emotional challenges. My robust health could not offset the trauma and turmoil I experienced. Serena Jade On Loving Your Body — With that said —
A few years ago, I watched Andrew Solomon, a writer who focuses on politics, culture, and psychology, deliver a TED talk on depression.
In the comment box, I wrote: “Great talk… Is medication the answer? In my experience, no! My dysfunctional upbringing was the cause, and depression was the effect. I have spent years reversing the impact of my unhealthy childhood.”
I appreciated the part in the speech where Andrew mentions, “you relapse and relapse.”
Depression is an important part of healing, because it is telling you issues that were once repressed are coming to the surface and must be brought into one’s conscious mind. Medication will rob you of this precious gift!
In response to the medication issue I expressed, many become defensive when medication is perceived as a weakness. However, that’s not my point. My argument is that transformation requires us to connect with our pain, to comprehend its message. Medication, on the other hand, deprives us of this pain.
We have a tendency to say everything is okay, when the pain is not there. Medication is a mask covering the pain.
Just Like, if your back hurts, your body is telling you something is wrong and needs attention.
Our mind is the same, the pain is telling us something is wrong and needs your attention. However, the answer is not right in front of us. That is where therapy and doing one’s homework can and will, transform the unhealthy mindset, and after years will bring you a serene mind!
I received another response: The person says, I agree in part, but what if it is a chemical problem?
I answer: I feel if doctors viewed my brain years ago, they would have viewed a very different brain than what my brain looks like today. A different state of mind changes the molecules in your brain.
If one goes into the psychotic phase, one needs medication. However, how many of us are going into the psychotic phase?
I came across an article I saved from 15-years ago it says, “Our society’s medical insurance and how pharmaceutical companies attack Freud and Jung, and say we don’t need therapy anymore, and that therapy doesn’t do any good.
Just take these pills.
The whole advance in psychology, all that is thrown away and you simply give people pills for their depression.”
No one could have told me that taking pills years ago would transform me. The pain and my determination to understand myself bestowed upon me the greatest gift: I sculpted myself into a complete individual with a tranquil mind.
“The inner light, the mind, never conflicts with the brain, and is not the brain. The mind and the brain are to be observed as the inner and outer, the metaphysical and physical aspects of the brain.” -Rabbi Berg
Over the past 150 years, our society has witnessed significant advancements in understanding the mind and brain. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis have both evolved considerably. Yet, there remains a stark dichotomy between them.
Psychiatry And The Brain
While psychiatry is derived from the concept of healing the soul, contemporary perspectives often exclude the soul — and even the ego — from consideration. Today’s focus lies predominantly on neuroscience, psychology, biology, and brain chemistry, rather than on the concept of the mind itself.
Contemporary psychiatry suggests that if the brain’s wiring is flawed, resulting in chemical imbalances, these must be corrected medically. This perspective implies that self-awareness is unattainable, emphasizing the need for medical intervention to ‘fix’ the brain.
Psychoanalysis And The Mind
Psychoanalysis involves conscious thoughts, unconscious thoughts, emotions, defense mechanisms, and the soul. Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis, aimed to increase self-awareness and reduce societal repression.
Do you stand for the Brain is an organ and needs to be medically fixed? Or the mind is complex and needs to be understood?
