Originally published October 13 2005
Psychiatrist addresses the mysterious interactions of body and mind
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Prof. Fiona McNicholas, a consultant child psychiatrist, reviews of the history of mental illness and clinical treatment, highlighting the effects of those treatments that fail to acknowledge the interconnectedness of body and mind.
Many people create a distinction between physical and mental symptoms, divided between the 'psyche' and the 'soma',or mind and body.
Although historically this has been the case, it has been increasingly recognised that the distinction is arbitrary, that each component affects the other and to prioritise any one risks prolonging unnecessary suffering and leads to suboptimal treatment outcomes.
Psychiatry was one of the first specialties to develop, perhaps as a result of the forced segregation of psychiatric patients from the voluntary hospitals, which began mainly in the USA.
This led to the development of the 'asylums' run by psychiatrists who were referred to as 'medical superintendents', whose primary role was managing the patients and administration of the hospitals.
They were increasingly being seen by neurologists who increasingly bemoaned the fact that psychiatrists were no longer an integral part of the general hospital.
As well as physically separating, psychiatrists appeared to abandon the search for biological causes of disorders and were heavily influenced by Freud and the psychoanalysis movement (interestingly, Freud himself was a neurologist).
With the advent of immunisation and improved treatments for infections this led to a shift from acute to chronic illness and an understanding of the social, developmental, economic and family influences on child health.
It may result from non-specific causes eg. a consequence of a series of negative life events or associated with the investigation or treatment of a condition eg. a child under investigation may have had many admissions to hospital, was separated from certain family members and friends, experienced unpleasant procedures and had negative reactions to medications prescribed.
Certain physical illnesses may also directly affect brain pathology eg, in the case of epilepsy or secondary lesions on the brain where the brain disruption leads to the presentation with psychiatric symptoms.
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