Psychosomatic Integrative Medicine Psychosomatic Integrative Medicine holds in reverence the innate intelligence of our intricate physiology and persistent blueprint to heal. It is considerate that the mind and body connection are inseparable and interrelated and to support one and not the other concurrently, perpetuates imbalance and a conflicting state of incongruence. This internal disharmony creates dissonance that presents in cognitively perceptible messages as symptoms.Conventional modern medicine seeks to address these symptoms clustering them into categories that we then characterize into syndromes of disease or dysfunction which is then given a diagnosis and further associated with a pharmaceutical treatment protocol. Conventional medicine misses that these perceptible symptoms are the messages of our cells that are struggling and instead of seeking to understand why these messages are occurring to a perceptible level, it seeks to quell the messages so they are less intrusive of our day-to-day experiences.A psychosomatic approach to fostering healing is to give the human body the physiological support that it has evolved to require and also to mitigate the insults that drive it to make accommodations for survival that create aberrant states that lead to disease. This approach recognizes that perception and context are drivers in health, disease and adaptations and accommodations and seeks to address these to resolve the messages that are perceived as distress (symptoms).Psychosomatic Integrative Medicine is considerate that your cells perceive just as your psyche perceives and that they reciprocally influence one another. If your cells perceive danger, toxicity, hostility we will experience those messages through somatic symptoms. Likewise, when our psyche perceives danger, toxicity and hostility it will share that message somatically throughout the body. When the perception of the cells are not in congruence with the perception of the mind, there will always be dissonance and though treating one or other independently will often lead to some level of temporary relief, it will not be durable until they are supported concurrently.My belief is that the body is always trying to heal, always doing its best for us and accommodating for an overwhelming cognitively imperceptible amount of environmental and psychological insults and injuries. Our resilient psyche and cells make adjustments and accommodations to maintain survival despite the insults and in these accommodations they begin to make sacrifices and forge alternative pathways that in time, take their toll through inefficient work arounds, trade offs and neglected maintenance. This eventually leads to a build up of toxins, errors made in cell programming, aberrant behavior, isolation and inaccurate messaging. These insults accumulate and create a cascade throughout the body, propagating messages that our psyche interprets as somatic symptoms which prompts people to seek care for what they perceive to be more macro level symptoms. When a person seeks care, more often than not, the symptoms will be treated as the primary complaint and issue, treatment will be rendered that masks the perception of the symptoms and modern medicine will declare success.In the case of mental health treatment, whatever cellular discord that created the symptoms will effectively be overruled/masked and the underlying insults will continue, very often leading to a perceived decompensation down the line wherein these signals/symptoms may amplify to to the perception of the psyche again.It maintains the perspective that the whole is greater than the sum of its partsThe approach in modern conventional medicine is to gather symptoms, characterize them into syndromes, label them with a diagnosis and then associate a pharmaceutical treatment protocol. This approach serves high level purposes such as creating structured approaches to managing the business aspects of medicine, building business cases for studies and defining strategies for pharmaceutical therapies.The conventional medicine approach to mental health treatment is clustering symptoms to define a diagnosis and assign a treatment protocol. The treatment protocol is typically in the antidepressant/antianxiety class of medications that act on 1-2 neurotransmitters that are believed to affect mood. There are no objective tests that are leveraged for make the diagnosis such as labs or brain imaging, and medication is initiated empirically.On average, this works for approximately 30-35% of people (versus around 24% placebo) and typically the responders will experience at least partial relief of symptoms in 6-8 weeks. Oftentimes those who respond to this empiric medication protocol, experience relief for a period of time, but it is often common that the treatment over time may seem less durable leading to increasing doses and the addition of additional medications. Often, these medications present untoward side effects as well.This conventional approach is often accompanied with an explanation that the person's brain needs additional neurotransmitter support, which is suggestive that somehow the body is at fault, or inadequate to support itself. This can contribute to a sense that the body is failing the person and requires intervention, rescuing by modern medicine. This approach misses the underlying root cause for dysfunction, suppresses a sense of agency for the person and denies the sovereignty of our physiology.Likewise, when our psyche suffers insults, these messages of danger, toxicity and hostility are shared with our cells which then activate defenses to respond to the threat. For some, this can begin to foster an environment that the cells perceive as persistently dangerous and hostile and they respond in our defense by propagating Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns (DAMPS). This is essentially a widespread alarm signal that compels and recruits other cells to respond defensively as well and the distress signal is amplified.When our psyche’s perceive chronic insults or we experience significant traumatic events, our psych messages our cells to respond in our defense. Our psyche and in turn our cells begin to perpetuate a cycle of feedback that keeps the body and mind in a persistent heightened state of defense. This perpetuated feedback loop is why unilateral therapies aimed at the psyche’s perceived somatic symptoms (danger messages) without recognition and support of the cells perception of danger, are not durable or curative therapies.When we address the psyche and the cell’s perceptions concurrently, we can finally interrupt the discordant cycle and achieve durable relief and allow the body to do what it knows best- to heal.