Psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy is a critical aspect of psychiatric treatment, often a part of first-line treatment for most psychiatric conditions. Sometimes, this is recommended before even considering medication. Other times, medications are often paired with psychotherapy to achieve some of the best results. To understand this, let’s first look at what medications do and then see where psychotherapy comes in.
First, Let’s Think About Medications.
It is helpful to think of psychiatric medications in 4 ways:
They Help with Symptoms. Psychiatric medication helps to manage symptoms. If you have an infection, you will likely have a fever. Psychiatric medication may relieve symptoms like Tylenol or Ibuprofen may relieve the fever.
They Buy Time. With the psychiatric symptoms under a little more control, we have time to investigate the underlying cause. Just like Tylenol does not cure the infection, psychiatric medication does not cure the underlying cause of symptoms. Rather, it buys us some time.
They Give Us Space. With psychiatric symptoms under a little more control, we achieve more space. This is a space between our symptoms and our experiences. It’s difficult to function optimally when you have a fever. Likewise, it’s difficult to function when psychiatric symptoms smother you.
They Fertilize the Brain. Psychiatric medications all impact neurotransmitter activity. Neurotransmitters are communication molecules. They are the messengers! What’s the message? To communicate more with other regions of the brain. At a subcellular level, what happens is an upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This is aptly referred to as “brain fertilizer.” So, ultimately the purpose of all this is to increase brain fertilizer that works to sprout new neuronal (brain cell) connections. The big picture goal is to achieve neural integration, which is healthy communication between brain regions. When this occurs, you can more effectively navigate through situations without the burden of psychiatric symptoms.
Now, What About Psychotherapy?
When you pair psychotherapy with medications, you take advantage of what medications do! With symptoms under a little better control (so you can function more optimally), you create space and buy time. In this space, you have the time to develop therapy techniques and strategies to work on symptoms AND explore underlying causes. This reminds me of a famous quote:
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In this space, you’ll find growth and freedom.” - Viktor Frankl
Moreover, combining all of this does some impressive things in the brain. If a psychiatric medication is like “brain fertilizer,” how do neurons (brain cells) know how to communicate? We need neurons to communicate with the appropriate brain regions along a network effectively. This is where psychotherapy comes in! Like caring for a garden, you may benefit from fertilizer (i.e., medications), but you also need other ingredients! Psychotherapy is the water and sunlight. Psychotherapy shines a light on areas where you can use techniques and strategies while nourishing the roots and directing growth. Now all you need is time.
In Integrative Psychiatry, we also use this time to take a deeper look at underlying causes that may be rooted in the body. If your plant (i.e., your brain) is deficient in several vitamins and micronutrients, there are other parts of the system carrying disease, or if weeds are crowding out the growth and development of your plant (again, the brain) … then these things all need to be taken care of. This investigation goes down to the roots (i.e., looking for the root causes) to tailor appropriate treatment. Your Integrative Psychiatry specialist knows that treating the whole person is crucial to mental health and wellness and will incorporate medications, nutraceuticals, therapy, and lifestyle adjustments personalized to your unique situation.
While I mentioned psychiatric medications in this post, please note that you do not always need them to help with this process. The cool thing is that therapy and lifestyle adjustments have also been shown to increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF, “brain fertilizer”)!
Make an appointment now to see how the Integrative (holistic) approach that includes therapy can make a difference in your daily life!
In the next blog, I’ll share my favorite therapy modality, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART).
