Botanical Interventions in the Treatment of Psychoemotional Disorders
Botanical Interventions in the Treatment of Psychoemotional Disorders
by Deborah Frances, RN, ND
Introduction
Standard medical treatments for mental health disorders frequently aim to eradicate so-called "deviant" mental processes and bring the affected patient back to "normal" reality. For example, various psychotropic drugs are administered to eliminate hallucinatory and delusional dysfunctions, pharmaceutical agents most commonly used in the treatment of schizophrenia work by blocking dopamine receptors, bipolar disease is generally treated with lithium carbonate, while anxiety disorders and depression call for different classes of medications and severe psychotic depression may still be treated with electroconvulsive therapy.
What these approaches all have in common, besides a wide array of undesirable side effects, is that they interfere with and block the process that is happening within the individual patient's psyche. In this way, the conventional treatment of mental and emotional symptomatology is no different than the treatment of physical symptomatology. The process of the body, or the psyche, either one, is seen as potentially destructive and certainly disruptive, and is accordingly suppressed.
Botanical Interventions in the Treatment of Psychoemotional Disorders
by Deborah Frances, RN, ND
Introduction
Standard medical treatments for mental health disorders frequently aim to eradicate so-called "deviant" mental processes and bring the affected patient back to "normal" reality. For example, various psychotropic drugs are administered to eliminate hallucinatory and delusional dysfunctions, pharmaceutical agents most commonly used in the treatment of schizophrenia work by blocking dopamine receptors, bipolar disease is generally treated with lithium carbonate, while anxiety disorders and depression call for different classes of medications and severe psychotic depression may still be treated with electroconvulsive therapy.
What these approaches all have in common, besides a wide array of undesirable side effects, is that they interfere with and block the process that is happening within the individual patient's psyche. In this way, the conventional treatment of mental and emotional symptomatology is no different than the treatment of physical symptomatology. The process of the body, or the psyche, either one, is seen as potentially destructive and certainly disruptive, and is accordingly suppressed.
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