We are over-prescribing therapy and under-prescribing physiological regulation. Over the last decade, mental health has become one of the most frequently invoked explanations for human distress. What concerns me is not the attention mental health is receiving. What concerns me is the framework we are using to understand it.
There Is No Such Thing as Mental Health in Isolation
The mind does not exist independently of the body. Every psychological state has a physiological basis. Every emotion alters heart rate, breath, muscle tone, hormones, digestion, and immune response. Every sustained mental state is a whole-body event. When people say “I need to fix my mental health,” what they are often trying to do is repair one visible expression of a system while ignoring the system itself.
When Therapy Becomes the Default Response
A former student in her early thirties recently reached out to me after experiencing a panic attack. She was advised, almost automatically, to seek therapy. She did — for several months. Instead of improving, her anxiety worsened. Eventually, she underwent a full physiological evaluation. She was severely deficient in key vitals, chronically sleep-deprived, and living with sustained lifestyle stress. What had been labelled as depression and anxiety was, to a significant extent, a dysregulated body under prolonged strain. Therapy had not helped her because therapy was addressing the wrong problem.
A Necessary Shift
When distress originates primarily from physiological depletion or nervous system dysregulation, therapy can increase rumination, heighten self-surveillance, and delay appropriate physiological intervention. Perhaps it is time to move away from treating mental health as a standalone entity and toward more accurate framings: nervous system regulation, whole-system health, and mind-body coherence.
This article discusses mental health from a research and design perspective. If you are struggling with your own wellbeing, please reach out to a qualified professional or someone you trust.