We all know the benefits of taking care of our physical health – it helps us feel better, live longer, and engage more deeply with life. You may have also heard a lot about the importance of mental health and self-care but have you ever wondered why your physical and mental health are often not addressed at the same time? The truth is, though our physical and mental well-being is connected, many mental health centers are not equipped to deal with both mental and physical illnesses. At Genesis Behavioral Health, we believe that the mind, body, and spirit should be taken into account in order to address your overall health. We believe in treating you as a “whole person” through comprehensive mental health care.
Do you feel like managing your mental health is a juggling act?
You try to manage the physical symptoms of poor mental health while simultaneously trying to deal with the mental symptoms like anxiousness, loneliness, hopelessness, or loss of interest in the things you love with little success. If you’re someone with a faith or religious practice, you might feel that it is difficult to live out your spiritual values when you are struggling with your mental health.
Often society’s approach to mental health treats these aspects of our overall wellness separately. At Genesis, we believe in a holistic approach to treating your mental health – one that integrates the mind, body, and spirit. If managing your health feels like a juggling act, then we can help you coordinate your overall care so that you are not left managing your concerns by yourself.
What do comprehensive mental health care and “whole self” mean?
Comprehensive mental health care means we treat all components of your health as informed by and affected by each other. Our hope is that you are then able to lead a healthier more productive life because your health concerns are not being treated as isolated illnesses. At Genesis Behavioral Health, we call this our “whole self” approach. We take into account the mind, body, and spirit during your treatment with us. We work alongside nurse practitioners, your primary care provider, and trained counselors to provide a comprehensive treatment plan for you and your unique concerns.
How is treating the “whole self” useful?
As mental health care providers, it is our job to uncover the underlying problems that are causing your symptoms and disrupting your life. You may have physical symptoms that make it hard to relax or that add stress to your day. You may have a mental illness like depression which makes it difficult to tend to your physical health by exercising or attending doctor’s visits. You may even feel spiritually disconnected from your faith community due to physical or mental illnesses. Your mental, physical, and spiritual health are not isolated areas of your life – they all interconnected and impact your overall health and happiness.
A “whole self” approach is useful because it addresses your overall health and well-being. When you receive comprehensive mental health care, you may even see better results because your concerns are being treated at the core.
What does that mean for you as a patient?
Often in mental health care, you may be prescribed medication or referred for therapy, but due to the nature and structure of the mental healthcare system, the physical symptoms of your mental health (fatigue, headaches, panic attacks, etc.) are treated separately from your psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc.). Often, your spiritual health isn’t even considered during the treatment process. When we say we treat our patients as “whole people” we mean that we take each of these areas into account and are able to create an individualized treatment plan for you. We hope that you will see improvements in all areas of your life and wellness, not just your mental health.
Why Genesis Behavioral Health?
Comprehensive mental health care can be tricky. It can be difficult to coordinate care and share information between several doctors each at different locations. As a mental health center, we employ many different experts under one roof so that coordinating your care is made easier. This alleviates the stress of communicating with and traveling to many different offices and allows us to gain a more in depth understanding of our patient’s health. Since we are experienced in coordinating care, we are able to work with your primary care provider and other specialists outside of Genesis in order to give you the best care possible. Our team will work to coordinate your treatment which helps streamline your care.
To learn more about how Genesis Behavioral Health can help you improve your overall health, please give us a call (210-404-9696) or reach out to our intake department via our contact form.
