The Triad of Health and Healing™ brings all three elements together. For example, if there's something going on in your head, let’s say, a mental-emotional issue. Instead of going through 20 years of psychotherapy, it could be a nutritional imbalance. If you're lacking a couple of nutrients, it could cause you to have anxiety so it's not in your head, it's in your body. If you don't explore that you may get prescribed some antianxiety drugs instead. If you only work on the physical, you're missing the mental, emotional. If you just think it's a psychological thing, you're missing the possibility of it being physical. The triad philosophy brings all three together.
Let’s take a look at your diet. Are you consuming enough nutritional foods? What's your spiritual life like? What's your social life like? That’s the Triad of Health and Healing™. It’s a holistic health care approach.
There's a part of your physical body that needs attention, proper eating, proper exercise, proper stretching, proper breathing, et cetera. There's part of the triad that makes up your mental and emotional being. What are your thoughts? How are you talking to yourself? How are you letting others talk to you? How do you deal with situations? Do you consider stress a good thing or a bad thing? How do you deal with certain things? Your emotions are dictated not by just some arbitrary chemical reaction that happens in your body, but your emotions are dictated by your perception of life.
It great to see how people's attitudes have change over the years. It used to be that whatever the doctor said was good enough because the doctor knew better. That was an old philosophy. My philosophy today is more about people beginning the process of taking personal responsibility for their own life and their own health. Access to the internet has given people a better understanding about what's really going on within their body vs. just take a pill. People are more inclined to ask questions and listen when someone says you can fight off a virus in a holistic way. People want a deeper understanding of how they can take control of their bodies.
The concept of the triad is one I didn't invent but I believe, I'm packaging it properly. The body, the mind, the spirit. What's overlooked in our society is that so often healthcare is segmented. Either you go to the doctor and they just treat your physical body, or you go to the psychologist or psychiatrist and they work on your mental state of being. Or you go to your religious leader and they guide you through the spiritual religious aspect of your life.
An ND is a professional holistic medicine health care provider. ND’s are the GP’s (general practitioner) using an Integrative approach. By using such an approach as botanical medicine, nutrition and nutritional supplementation-when appropriate, homeopathic remedies, hydrotherapies, lifestyle modification as needed, and more. Incorporating all necessary elements that can contribute to a person’s health.
An ND spends the time to get to know their patients and quite often the dynamics of their lives that add to or take away from their health and wellbeing. ND’s take a holistic approach also by including, as appropriate, the mental emotional and even spiritual aspects of their patients, and when necessary including of whole family.
An MD approaches health care in a more reductionistic way i.e. headache – treat with NSAIDs, the ND approach inquires as to the whole person, what might the cause i.e. dehydration, muscle tension, low blood sugar, allergies etc…
I was raised in North Miami, Florida though relocated to South Miami, where I went to a junior college and my future as a Naturopathic doctor took shape. I was a massage therapist, personal coach, a personal trainer and I attended one of the very first accredited Vegetarian Nutrition courses at Miami Dade. I knew deep inside me that there must be something out there that tied all of these modalities together.
After reading an article about naturopathic medicine from a local supermarket magazine, I knew that was my calling. I knew there was healing in the touch.
In 1990 I packed up my things and moved to Portland Oregon to study Naturopathy. After five years I completed my schooling with a doctorate bachelor’s in naturopathic medicine science. I was intrigued in the philosophy of bridging the mind and body, emotions as well as the spirit and soul. I learned how emotions and thoughts can alter our pathways.
In Western medical schools, they don't talk about emotions. They don't talk about feelings. They just talk about topics like like the cholesterol pathway and kreb cycle. Here's how you produce ATP - the end result of your energy, productive pathways. What was discussed in naturopathic school was how this pathway will be affected if you're in a bad mood, if you're angry, or if you're nutrition is suffering. All of these are factors.
In the 90’s nobody really knew about Naturopathy when I had heard about it. My family was asking me, am I crazy? What am I doing? You could walk around the streets and ask a thousand people if they'd ever heard of naturopathic medicine and you would've gotten a thousand nos. My goal was to incorporate massage therapy and personal training with healthy eating and healthy cooking. I just knew there had to be something that brought it all together. I just knew that naturopathic doctors would be the general practitioners (GP) of the future.
In 1999 I moved to Northern New Mexico. In 2002 I became an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Mexico where I taught several courses in the nursing program. For the next 12 years, I learned a lot about the many different cultures and religions. I also had a better understanding of what the body's capable of. The physical body can go weeks without food, days without water and only minutes without oxygen. But what about the other elements? The mental and emotional habits we cling to. This is where our mind starts to play tricks on us. We think…"Oh my God, I can't skip a meal. Or Oh my God, I can't get off bread." We’ll say,” I’ll die without my pasta.” When in reality, the pasta may be what’s killing you.
I was a search and rescue member of the ground medical team for six and a half years. It was great to be a part of a team especially for someone like myself who was a solo practitioner. How did this help me? Well, if I'm going to ask somebody who's having trouble making some big life changes, like changing their diet, changing their habits, I’ve found that people that are the most successful typically have a support system around them, which means people that will help them or hold them accountable or be there to support them.
Once I completed 10 years in private practice and six and a half years of adjunct faculty at The University of New Mexico, I moved back to South Florida and while I was there is when I had decided to attend culinary school and completed with a diploma in culinary arts.
Over a period of five years I was involved with intensive personal and professional development work and graduated as an Introduction Leader with Landmark Education. As a member of Toast Masters International for 7 years, I attained a level as a Bronze Competent Communicator in public speaking. This skill has given me the ability to give talks and deliver information that's fun and engaging.
© [#this year :%Y] Dr. Mitchell Kershner.
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