How holistic approaches are transforming mental health care

In a city bursting with stress and anxiety, with depression and bipolar disorder, therapists have found a new way of delivering on mental healthcare.

It comes as a relief for people like Patience Auma, who has suffered and endured the pain of anxiety disorder, struggling with trouble concentrating, making decisions and constantly feeling irritable, tense or restless.

The doors to the new psychologists' dens harbour a practice unlike traditional practices that often focused solely on medication and talk therapy.

They have now embraced a comprehensive approach to mental health.

If you meet Auma, she will tell you like she did the Star, that in the past, despite seeking help from doctors, psychiatrists and various therapists, she found little relief from her symptoms.

"There is nothing worse than struggling with intangible pain or knowing what is wrong without really knowing how to make it right," she said.

Since 2015, Auma has been to four therapists, who would tell her that with enough practice, she would learn how to rest in the moment.

That she would learn to swallow back her nausea and keep her relationships going.

At 24, Auma is yet to get a positive picture of a stable relationship as any she has had has been shattered by her anxiety.

She says she almost gave up on it all — the medication, the therapies and her life.

Then in 2024, she decided to speak up and tell her friend about her condition. 

"I thought to myself, 'What is there to lose? If I tell him and he tells other people that most days I'm weak and restless and cannot summon any peace to keep still, then so be it," she says with a far-off look.

Telling her friend about her anxiety disorder, she says, was the beginning of her healing journey.

Auma was introduced to a psychologist who deals with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a holistic approach to mental health recovery.

THE 'MAGIC OF LIFE'

One of the holistic approaches is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which aims to assess and understand negative thoughts people may be experiencing about themselves or the world.

These are to be exchanged with a more constructive belief system, and thus adjusting their thoughts and behaviours.

With CBT, you not only focus on the mental but also on the spiritual and physical person.

This is since it recognises the complex interplay between thoughts, emotions and behaviours.

It helps individuals develop a greater understanding of their thoughts and behaviours, and how they can affect their emotional well-being.

"CBT has unravelled me and shown me that I'm more than my mental health condition," Auma said.

Psychologist Alice Mwangi said CBT assists the client to change their perspective so as to change their behaviour and solve their issue.

"It is important because most of the time, it touches on your thoughts and feelings, and those are the important things in someone's life. How you think, feel and behave," she says.

Mwangi says CBT touches on the core of wholesome therapy, which takes at least 10 hour-long sessions.

"There is a lot that you are learning. Your thought patterns, how to express your feelings and how to behave," she says.

CBT is usually done for clients from adolescence to old age.

If CBT is recommended, you’ll typically have a session with a therapist once a week or every two weeks.

The course of treatment usually involves at least 10 sessions, with each session lasting about 60 minutes.

During these sessions, you will get to work with your therapist to break down your problems into their components, such as thoughts, physical feelings and actions.

You and your therapist will analyse these areas to determine if they are unrealistic or unhelpful and examine how they interact with each other and with you.

Your therapist will then help you develop strategies to change these unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.

After identifying what you can change, your therapist will encourage you to practice these changes in your daily life.

You will discuss your progress in subsequent sessions.

The goal of therapy is to equip you with skills to apply in everyday situations, helping you manage your problems and minimise their negative impact even after the treatment ends.

During this holistic approach treatment, Mwangi says your diet matters as much as your mental health.

GESTALT THERAPY

Besides Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, there is the Gestalt therapy, where self-awareness and self-acceptance are considered keys to personal growth.

Psychology Today states that Gestalt emphasises creativity and collaboration in the interaction between you and your therapist and uses active techniques, such as role-playing.

The therapy concept rests on the idea that every individual is a blend of mind, emotions, body and soul, with unique experiences and realities.

During sessions, therapy usually engages in intellectual and physical experiences that can include role-playing, re-enactment or artistic exercises, like drawing and painting.

This helps clients learn to become more aware of their thoughts and actions, of how negative thought patterns and behaviours may be blocking their self-awareness and making them unhappy, and how they can change.

Gestalt therapy is based on the principle that one needs to alleviate unresolved negative feelings, such as anger, pain, anxiety and resentment.

In this concept, those emotions cannot just be discussed but must be actively expressed in the present.

Without that, psychological and physical symptoms can arise.

PERSON-CENTRED THERAPY

This form of psychotherapy circles on the idea that people are inherently motivated toward achieving positive psychological functioning.

The therapy focuses of making the client believe that they are the expert in their life and that they lead the general direction of therapy, while the therapist takes a non-directive role.

This activity reviews person-centred therapy and highlights the role of the interprofessional team in improving care for patients who undergo person-centred therapy.

During person-centred therapy, a therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without shifting the conversation in another direction.

The therapist is there to encourage and support the client without interrupting or interfering with their process of self-discovery as they uncover what hurts and what is needed to repair it.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY

According to Psychology Today, psychoanalytic therapy is a form of in-depth talk therapy that aims to bring unconscious or deeply buried thoughts and feelings to the conscious mind.

This is so that repressed experiences and emotions, often from childhood, can be brought to the surface and examined.

Working together, the therapist and client look at how these early hidden memories have affected the latter's thinking, behaviour and relationships in adulthood. 

Mwangi says these holistic approaches can be used on clients with anxiety, depression and mood disorders. 

USE OF ECLECTICISM  

In Kenya, psychologists use eclecticism in therapy to achieve holistic treatment.

The Oxford dictionary defines eclecticism as the practice of deriving ideas, style or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

"In Kenya specifically, we do not have a therapist who uses specific theories. We tend to pick elements from each theory to make therapy. This is called eclecticism," she said.

This means that the therapists base their sessions more on CBT but they use the others, too.