there’s been a hard swing in the world of mental health treatment from the idea that insight or cognitive work is what heals to the idea that somatic or body-based work is what heals. the somatic element and integration of the body was badly needed, but as with the cognitive approach, its effects are exaggerated in order to sell books, trainings, programs, ideology. we benefit from insight. we benefit from somatic practices.
and, as long as we’ve got our gaze turned toward individualized approaches to healing, we’re always gonna miss an essential aspect of healing. neoliberal figures in this field will thrive with the next modality and all its products. it is hard to sit with someone in the naming of harm from systems of oppression that no individual intervention can fix–we feel our vulnerability.
individual healing matters. collective action is essential. the mind matters, and the body does. external systems of power and the ways we internalize them. none of these things is separate.
i hate the type of healthy person who says eating fruit is um actually bad for you because it’s “too much sugar” shut the fuck up these bananas are lucky they’re being consumed and not rotting on my counter like their ancestors
