Body
The body is the physical presence of yourself from your limbs to your heart to your brain. Naturally, we focus much of our energies on the brain, its chemistry and electrical activities.
However, we also pay close attention to the rest of your body. We evaluate toxins, allergens, physical activities and how your body interfaces with the environment.
Mind
The mind is the intermediary between the body and the spirit. By mind, we mean your thoughts and feelings. You can also think of it as your self-awareness or perception of reality. With the mind we choose how to behave.
We strive for our patients to realize they don’t have two minds: a conscious and unconscious one. Self-perception and the mind’s influence reaches much deeper than most realize. We’re all quite capable of affecting changes in our bodies and spirits with our minds.
Spirit
The Spirit can be equated with the soul. Depending on religious beliefs the spirit has many interpretations. For our purposes we’re referring to the essence that makes up the hopes and desires, fears and convictions, or values and motivations.
The most common way we affect the spirit at 17th Avenue is through mindfulness based training. In time, our strategic and caring therapy sessions help patients develop a stronger understanding of themselves as well as how to behave and feel better.
Interface & Environment
We know that having knowledge (in your mind) of your body and spirit helps you affect both just as they too affect the mind. Changing any one of the three affects the other two. At 17th Avenue we treat all three. This concept is the basis of the Interface. Interfacing is how we all connect and interact with our environment. Physical activities, the food we eat, the people around us, where we choose to live are all examples of interfacing with our environment.
We can seldom have much control over our environment, so we focus on changing how we interface to positively affect the body, the mind, and the spirit.
How You Function
Functioning better is always our end goal at 17th Avenue Psychiatry. And, this is more than simply feeling better; it’s being better. It means knowing you have influence over your body, perceptions, and behavior.
For example, by changing the way someone who is allergic to dairy interfaces with food will change how they function. And, we don’t simply mean no more stomachaches. A dairy allergy is a common cause of hyperactivity and anxiety in some children. Just removing dairy will change their body chemistry, change their mood and perceptions, and change their spirit.
Our integrative approach to changing how our patients interface with their environments is the basis of how we help our patients change their lives for the better.