ABSTRACT
The problems of living that we call ‘mental distress’, ‘mental illness’ or ‘psychiatric disorder’ involve expressions of a human crisis. Even if we believe that distress involves some disturbance of the physical body (such as a hypothetical biochemical anomaly) it remains a highly complex, and potentially bewildering state of affairs-to the professional as well as to the person. What is commonly referred to as the mind (psyche or soul) must, of necessity, incorporate the body, especially the brain. In the respect that the brain is the location of all that is experienced through the body, the brain is the body. It is impossible to experience problems of living without involving the body in a major way. The philosophical split, between mind and body, holds no currency in the world of mental health where all our abstract (‘mentalistic’) experiences, which we call thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc., are experienced through or reside in the body.
