Our Current Healthcare Landscape: Setting the Scene

No discussion on the body would be complete without first addressing the culture in which we live. This involves acknowledging and understanding the role both the Patriarchy and Capitalism have played in their corruption of health and wellness in the United States, as well as the shortcomings of the Western medical system. I will start with my own conclusions and end with a few statistics to underline them.

Let’s talk about Capitalism first. In Western culture, and especially in major cities such as New York City, everything has become about efficiency. We are likely to see ads, products, and messaging around how we can make better use of our time by completing more tasks at once. This message is followed up with a product or service we can purchase to help us do just that. Capitalism corrupts health by warping scientific concepts to shift and repackage them in order to sell to vulnerable populations for profit. Adding systemic racism and classism into the mix, we see that healthy whole foods are inaccessible to many communities, making health a privilege rather than our birthright. 

Moving on to discuss Capitalism’s close ally: the Patriarchy. This system is violent in its quest to bring both women and men further away from their bodies’ wisdom. It aims to silence and shrink women with messaging centered around weight loss and anti-aging and by centering male validation as the ultimate prize to be won. Patriarchy commands the same violence when it applauds men for their stoicism and shames them for their emotions and sensitivity, thereby drawing them out of their emotional bodies and into their encouraged role of physical dominators. 

These systems have taken us so far away from our biology and the healing that is found through and provided us by nature, as well as our own understanding and reading of our bodies’ signals. The science is now there to support “alternative” approaches to healing, we have just been conditioned to be skeptical of the medicinal properties of the natural elements that helped create our very existence. Until we regain connection to holistic - in the true sense of the word, not what ‘holistic’ has come to mean in a corrupt wellness industry - methods of healing and restoring alignment in the body, no medication, supplement, or protocol will create lasting and sustainable healing for the general population.

In addition to Capitalism and Patriarchy, we are also up against a heralded healthcare system that is not designed to deliver solutions in preventative healthcare. I want to be clear that I am not against Western medicine. It is an advanced and miraculous system that has extended and saved the lives of many. It demonstrates impressive outcomes when the goal is to treat acute injury, extend the life of the terminally ill, and offer management of chronic conditions. However, my belief is that our top priority should be to prevent chronic conditions in the first place. It seems counterintuitive to begin addressing our health only once a condition is already wreaking havoc on the body. 

This is why my personal interest lies in mind-body medicine; a concept that offers not only solutions to healing chronic conditions, but methodology for preventing it in the first place. Fascinating studies are now emerging that draw a clear link between the mind and body and the resulting health outcomes including the physiological effect of stress on the body. Research studies are even finding links between personality traits and specific chronic conditions. One such study is highlighted by Gabor Maté, physician and best-selling author, in his book “When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress.” Maté notes a 1970 research article written by psychiatrists at the Yale University School of Medicine which concluded that “people with ALS seemed to have two lifelong patterns distinguishing them: rigidly competent behaviour– that is, the inability to ask for or receive help, and the chronic exclusion of so-called negative feelings” (Maté 42). As a guest on The Mel Robbins Podcast, Maté also states that 80% of autoimmune diseases happen to women. When asked why, he shares that the patients he knew as a physician who suffered from autoimmune all shared specific characteristics centered around putting the needs of others first and repressing their anger. He also states, “Why is it women? Because who in this culture is programmed to always be looking after everybody else’s emotional needs?” (Robbins 0:37). To discuss and treat chronic conditions without taking into account the community, culture, and systems under and in which they developed is the equivalent in my mind to performing surgery with one eye closed; you miss critical context and necessary information.

Imagine this: understanding your life through many different lenses - medically, socially, culturally, emotionally - and acknowledging and working through childhood and adult trauma and adverse experiences can hold the key to physical healing. Future blog posts will delve into more specific mind-body topics that I have discovered through reading as well as what I have observed in my own practice with clients.

Sources

Maté, Gabor. When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. Vintage Canada, 2021. 

Robbins, Mel; Maté Gabor “80% of all autoimmune conditions happen to women.” YouTube, 22 November, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X2Bgpl4wYvs