In honor of Social Work Month

I know, I know, it's been a while. Well, I'm just going to accept it and move on. Sorry folks!

I was reading a first-hand account of a woman's bout with Acute Stress Disorder - just a hop, skip, and a jump away from full-blown Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She stressed the connection between the mind and body throughout the article and ends with a couple of statements. They bring to mind for me the essence of Social Work, as held distinct from some of the other behavioral science fields. Social work puts a whole heck of a lot of emphasis on the concept that every person's experience has to be viewed from a Bio-Psycho-Social perspective. Meaning, when a client comes into my office complaining of depression, my training tells me to question the client and assess his or her physical, psychological, and environmental conditions all together to create a holistic picture of the client's issues.

Siri Hustvedt writes, "As a culture we are still caught in the mental/physical divide, prone to thinking of psychiatric illness as either "all in your head" or, conversely, as "chemical imbalances" or "organic brain diseases." None of these is a helpful or accurate description of any psychiatric condition. We cannot isolate the brain from life experience and the environment. They are inextricably entwined. What happens to us becomes part of us, body and mind."

Sometimes I ask clients where they feel a particular emotion in their body. For example, where might they feel anger or sadness in their body. Sometimes I get a quizzical look and sometimes I get an immediate answer. Generally speaking, you should feel it somewhere, but most times we're not in touch enough with the connection between our mind/body to notice what we may be feeling physically. Perhaps if we had the self-awareness to identify where we hold emotion in our bodies we could seek to purposefully and intentionally relax those particular parts of the body which might send a feedback loop back up to the brain to take a bit of chill in the emotions department. Not to mention what that might do to ease chronic back pain or chest tightness or GI issues in the long run.

Take a moment to check in with your mind and your body every once in a while and while you're at it celebrate any social workers you know among your friends, family, and colleagues! (I know, a total non-sequitur but I can't help it, I'm proud to be a social worker myself!)