When good physical therapies don’t resolve body pain, it’s often a sign that there’s an emotional component that needs healing

It’s easy to attribute our pain to physical causes, that’s how most people think. If your lower back is hurts, you are probably more likely to think about what you lifted, how long you sat at your desk or when you last saw your chiropractor than what emotional burdens you are carrying for your partner, how much fear you have about paying your debt or how anxious you are about a struggle with one of your kids.

We live in a physically oriented medical model. Most people would sooner believe that a rotated disk is causing their back pain than an emotional issue.

Is stigma causing reluctance to look at the role emotions play in pain, injuries and healing? Perhaps partially but it seems to be driven more by the lack of understanding of the mind body connection. Increasingly people know that the mind and body are connected but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into practical life awareness.

In order to heal the vast amounts of everyday pain that people endure, we need to look at our entire lives not just at our bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia. Everything that you think and feel affects your body. There is no separation between the mind and body, the two are intrinsically and inherently connected and are continually influencing each other.

It’s hard to find practitioners that integrate physical and emotional healing. Practitioners tend to be good at one or the other, which creates a break in the healing process. Finding both in one practitioner is the next frontier for healing. When the body releases and the patient can cry or rage all on the same table, healing is radically accelerated.

Have you found any practitioners that integrate the physical and emotional in their practices? I’d love to hear about your experiences.