Natural Healing and Emotional Disorders By Bret Mosher on March 15, 2013

Functional Medicine

The goal of functional medicine is to find and treat the underlying cause of a disorder, rather than focusing solely on its symptoms. This approach differs greatly from western medicine, which typically focuses on treating the symptoms of a condition or disease rather than its root cause. San Diego functional medicine specialist Bret Mosher views the symptoms of a disorder as an indicator of a biochemical dysfunction within the body. A biochemical dysfunction within the body cannot be corrected by treating only the symptoms it projects. In order to restore balance and harmony within the body, the root cause of the biochemical dysfunction must be identified and treated.

Personalizing Care to Each Individual Patient

To identify the underlying cause of a disorder, Dr. Mosher works closely with each individual patient to address his or her unique needs. In functional medicine, each patient is treated as an individual being that does not function identically to any other patient. While patients may share common symptoms, conditions, disorders, or diseases, the way in which these dysfunctions manifest is as unique as the individual.

Identifying a Patient’s Unique Biochemical Expression

To understand why the body is not functioning properly, we must first identify a patient’s unique biochemical expression. By determining the unique biochemical expression of a patient, we can better understand how his or her individual body works. Through this understanding, we can begin to restore proper function to the body. By analyzing a patient’s lifestyle, diet, medical history, genetic make-up, and hormonal and emotional state, we can begin to map out a course of treatment to help restore function, health, and vitality to the body. To help identify a patient’s unique biochemical expression as well as imbalance within the body, Dr. Mosher utilizes the AcuGraph® system and bioimpedance analysis.

What Causes Emotional Disorders?

Every disorder that the human body experiences, including the common cold, disease, conditions, and emotional disorders, stem from a blockage of qi within the body. To maintain optimal health, qi, the substance in the body that controls and creates all functional activity, must be able to flow properly through meridians within the body. Meridians are the pathways in which our vital energy, qi, flows. Emotional disorders are caused by qi not flowing through the meridians properly. In order to get the qi flowing properly, Dr. Mosher has to identify what the problem is and locate where in the body it is stemming from. This is done by evaluating your qi.

Natural Healing and Emotional Disorders

Once your qi has been evaluated and the location of blockage has been determined, we can work to restore the flow of qi within the body and promote improvement of the emotional disorder. For our patients in San Diego, emotional disorders treatment will likely include acupuncture.

In order to treat emotional disorders, there must be an open and honest communication about the circumstances causing the emotional abnormalities. Acupuncture will help to unblock the meridians to restore the flow of qi within the body, thereby promoting improvement of the emotional disorder. A psychological component in addition to acupuncture will have to be dealt with as well. Patients must understand what is causing their emotional distress and be willing to change their lifestyles to promote healing. For our patients in San Diego, acupuncture treatment, dietary changes, nutrition counseling, and herbal supplements may be utilized to target whole body health and to ensure that all of the root causes are treated.