Nutrition and Mind-Body Integration for Effective Treatment of Depression
by Catherine Carrigan,
Honorary Board Chairman, Holistic Depression Network
Author, Healing Depression: A Holistic Guide (New York: Marlowe and Co., 1999)
President, Total Fitness

Introduction

Today, I have my own business as a holistic health educator. I have about seven major certifications, and I am always learning. I love to learn because the more I learn, the more I have to share with other people. My mission is to empower myself and my clients to achieve total fitness of mind, body, and spirit through individualized exercise and nutrition programs, ongoing education and positive partnership. 

When it comes to supporting people in depression, the same could be said. 
From my understanding of the scientific literature, it is in the exact nature of joyful, caring play that people actually get better. 

People get better when we see them as whole the way they are, when we become more their students than their mechanics, their surgeons or their exorcists, when we take the time to hone in on their specific needs, and about the separate priorities that exist for each one.

I learned a lot in my years as a gardener - about biochemical individuality, and about the heart connection. Showering our clients with true love and true care engages us in an alpha brain wave state, brings our heart rhythms into a state of true heart-brain coherence, and helps us to engage our literal deepest intelligence, the central nervous system in the heart, to embark on this dual work of detective, student, and honoring partner. When we are able to access this deep level of intelligence, not only do we heal them, but also ourselves in the process.

For 18 years I was on lithium and antidepressants.

My father and brother are both medical doctors. If there is a type of doctor you could name that is related to mental health, then I have probably experienced their services over the years - psychiatrists, psychologists, public assistance mental health workers, Rolfers, Brain Gym practitioners, homeopaths, nutritionists, allergists, environmental health specialists, group therapy leaders. 

My personal mission as a caring human being is to create a successful revolution in the treatment of mental illness, specifically depression. 

Nothing in my book is new. The research has been around most of the past half century. Up to this point, the so-called traditional medical arts practitioners have been in economic disagreement with those who have taken an orthomolecular or holistic approach. 

What's happening now, as I see it, is that the revolution is coming from ground up. People everywhere are getting tired of taking drugs that don't work. People everywhere are tired of taking drugs that give them terrible side effects. And people everywhere are no longer believing that when they are told they have a diagnosis of mental illness, that what that means is that they will have to spend the rest of their lives taking drugs and going to a therapist to talk about their childhoods.

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