Do
you recall the wonderful Beatle song, A
Day in the Life? It is a whimsical
ode to the surrealistic nature of every day fare. The things we do by rote - waking up, getting
out of bed, readying for the day, catching the bus to work, having a smoke,
reading a newspaper – are humdrum in the daily round - that is, until subsumed
in mental flights of fancy and imagination, drug fueled or otherwise, or until
we can no longer do them easily. Then,
the humdrum becomes a desperate focus – a way back from the precipice, the
scary unknown.
Our conscious mind appears to have limits, subject to genetic,
cultural and environmental determinants.
We connect our mental constructs with others of like backgrounds – a
cognitive ‘language’ or code that enables us to share emotions, perceptions and
experiences with people on a sliding scale of familiarity – family, friends,
local community, and so on down the scale until we get to people from
completely different milieu, who have very little in common with us and whose
cognitive code differs markedly.
We are all on our own inside our personal
construct and when the familiar code is corrupted, those once easily shared
‘understandings’ become difficult to achieve - this can be terrifying.
Knowledge
and understanding of the plasticity of mind boundaries is growing; manifest in
programs to expand capacities through cognitive training and exercise. However,
the workings of our unconscious mind remain largely unplumbed. The disciplines of psychology and psychiatry
have doubtless evolved in modern times, but to my mind they have barely
skimmed the surface of understanding the brain’s profound and subtle
workings.
The intuitive or ‘higher’ mind
remains a largely unmapped mystery; our grasp of the workings of the
unconscious appears rudimentary, which explains the ongoing role of religion in
the lives of so many. How do we explain
all the unfathomable elements of our interior existence, our fears about life
and death, without reference to higher orders of being? It is difficult.
In
the event of needing to heal and mend, what role can the mind have in
re-enlivening the humdrum of the daily round so that mind and body are back in
healthy synchronicity? Ideally, a
healing place would bring various stimuli – physiological, psychological,
emotional, and yes, spiritual – to bear on a trauma victim in the form of
integrated therapies.
Just as we are
complex beings, made up of intersecting physical, psychological and emotional intelligences, so you would expect an effective treatment regime to be
predicated on the right mix of non-compartmentalized resources to meet these
intersecting needs. Right, now that I
have that off my chest, I can tell you about our rehabilitation experience at
Canberra hospital.
To be continued....
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