THE HOLISTIC PSYCHOLOGIST

 I love writing little summaries of the books I read in this blog. It allows me to review the book and reflect on the messages I learned from it. I used to enjoy various classic fiction and murder mystery books but these days I prefer non-fiction. Psychology and human behaviour are something I have been curious about for a long time. wondering why we behave the way we do. Psychology or teaching are some of the favourite alternatives I would have done if I didn’t step into clinical medicine. Being an OBGYN today, I see many women who require a holistic psychology approach. The way I open the consultation towards mental health is to ask about their sleep. Women with anxiety or depression often complain about poor quality of sleep or waking up in the middle of the night.

I found the book “How to Do the Work” by Dr Nicole Lepera pretty useful in terms of understanding the underlying causes of human behaviour for example childhood trauma etc, and the ways to heal and make progress. She often emphasizes in her chapters how troubled humans keep repeating the same troublesome behavioural patterns and drifting towards destructive behaviours such as binge alcohol drinking, and sex addiction to feel better.

It is important to know that the mind and body are one unit and she would often point out how her own stressors lead to episodes of collapse or mental breakdown. One of the key aspects to help the troubled mind is emphasis on good sleep. Improving sleep quality by shutting down electronics, taking a bath, and reading a book. She pointed out in her book that she would even put an alarm clock to remind her at 6 pm to start winding down.

The author mentions moving the body and a healthy diet as part of the holistic approach to a healthy body and mind. Just taking a walk in nature can do magic for our body and reset a lot of brain fog. She also pointed out how changing her living environment to California and a more relaxed time helped her to recover faster.

Childhood trauma and the different toxic parenting styles were quite enlightening for me. Bringing out the various treatments we received from our parents up can be pretty uncomfortable. We know our parents were no perfect child psychologists. They were just hustling adults trying to make it through their days with their jobs and other day-to-day problems.

The most important chapter of the book talks about boundaries. It is one pf the most difficult to achieve especially with friends and family. It is very important to maintain healthy physical and mental health. I really enjoyed the book. The journaling tips at the end of each chapter was helpful in sustain most of the reflections and behavioural changes.