Page 15 - Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

Promoting Wellness in Mental Health: The CAM Approach in Psychiatry | 15

What is CAM?
But what does it mean to treat the whole person or overall
health? It means considering the full array of factors that can
impact mental health, including:
− Physical
− Mental
− Environmental
− Spiritual
− Energy influences
It also means therapeutically addressing the individual through
all channels that can affect mental health for the better,
including:
− Physical
− Mental
− Communication
− Perceptual
Each individual is unique. No human physiology is exactly like
another, and no life experience is the same for any two people.
So in our medical literature we almost never find a 100%
response to any treatment. What may be effective therapy for
one individual, such as the adjustment of neurotransmitters,
may be ineffective or deleterious for another.
Even within a single diagnosis such as schizophrenia, the
combinations of possible contributing factors—physically,
genetically, prenatally, and environmentally, just to name a
few—could be almost infinite.
Thus the advantage of the CAM toolbox—a variety of
approaches that account for human individuality and that may
be able to raise overall health sufficiently to tip the scales
toward recovery. If a woman with depression can get a 10%
improvement each with nutrients, diet change, exercise,
acupuncture, and yoga, we have a 50% gain without side effects
and with improved physical health.