Somewhat belated acknowledgement of the duality of mind and body

Recently the media have been paying a lot of attention to mental health and its problems.  It is as though people are only just now waking up to the fact that Western medicine concentrates upon the need to treat physical symptoms, whilst ignoring the fact that the solution to ill-health may well lie elsewhere.  It was therefore heartening to read the following in an article  in the Guardian entitled “Mental health?  It’s in the mind and the body, too”:

“Once we accept the union of mental and physical health, a few things become clear.  First, we should ditch the term “mental health”.  From now on, we should talk about someone’s health – all in. We should lose much of the stigma that still surrounds saying we are “mentally” unwell.  We’re not.  We’re just unwell. 

Second, treatment. What promotes good cardiovascular, endocrine and musculoskeletal health also promotes good mental health and vice versa.”

All this may seem so obvious to practitioners of a holistic form of medicine such as acupuncture that it hardly needs stating, but is clearly so far from obvious to the journalist writing this article that she shows her surprise at coming to the conclusions she does.  However odd we may find her surprise, it is nonetheless good that the holistic nature of healing is being recognized (at last, we might add) in this way.