The division between Mind and Body: what is its origin?

The established division that differentiates the body from the mind is a way of thinking of our current age. One of the most important starting points that this break establishes comes from one of the most recognized thinkers in the history of humanity: René Descartes. This philosopher established the famous phrase "I think, therefore I am", and to understand what he meant at the time, let's see what he was trying to achieve.

It was the task of philosophy to try to establish ultimate truths that would account for the reality in itself in which the human being is immersed, why we perceive in such and such a way, what thoughts are, what things in the external world consist of, why they have a certain shape or color, etc

Within this line of research and at a time strongly marked by religious doctrine (17th century), it was practically a negligence even for one's own personal safety to think about reality without considering God as the author and architect of all things in the world Universe. Therefore, Descartes, when wondering about things that are only true without a doubt, considers the following premises.

• We recommend you read: "The valuable contributions of René Descartes to Psychology"

I think, therefore I am: a mind and a body

First, that the senses deceive (Platonic thought), so that in the face of the same event, each of us can have different reactions. In addition, when we are dreaming, we are convinced of the reality we are living and it is only when we wake up that we are able to understand that this was not true.

The second postulate is that God exists and that, as such, he is not capable of deceiving the human being, since it is not in his essence to deceive. This would be contrary to their nature. Therefore, sitting in front of his fireplace, watching a log burn, reflecting on these issues, he realizes that the only thing he cannot doubt is that he himself is thinking.

Thus, what guarantees that we are not someone else's dream, or the illusion of another unknown being, is the fact that we think, then, the "I think, therefore I am", arises from proposing a guarantee to sustain our existence as true. So, he proposes a division between res cogitans (soul, thought, cogito) and res extensa (body, extension in space). From these developments, studies and research on mind and body begin their own separate path.. At least in the west.

Science and the mind-body divide

The scientific method, led by Auguste Comte, will gradually establish the criteria of truth through starting from what is only observable and capable of being measured under conditions of laboratory. That is, only what can be observed (body) is scientific and true. That is why today we find the different disciplines so separated, segmented and specified in each branch of knowledge. For the body, Biology and Medicine. For the mind, Psychology.

However, in recent years theories, research and practices have been developed that demonstrate that such a division, although it has generated a lot of knowledge, proves to be part of reality total. An example would be the division of the human body into its component systems: endocrine, central and peripheral nervous, respiratory, muscular, etc. It is for the purposes of specialization that it is extremely useful.

Altering the mind through body modification through drugs that change synaptic production in the brain is only one direction of the whole situation. The mind, when perceiving, reacts in a certain way and generates certain hormonal processes that also affect the body. It is enough to observe each one of us in a situation of nerves, anger, happiness or sadness, to verify that the body is altered by the mind itself.

The point is not the dispute between whether the chicken or the egg came first. The point is that the body not only reacts, but the body is sick, in part, because of the mind. So, by proposing therapy as a healing space, it is invited to take care of not only the emotions, but also the reactions that come from them and the effects that these have on the body that we inhabit. The body that we are At every moment we are in a reality that we ourselves create, and by inhabiting it permanently it is difficult to make a cut to see why it is as such. The same thing happens to the fish that swims in the water, which knows no other reality than the one it has always inhabited.

It happens that, without knowing it and without realizing it, we have installed certain patterns of affective reactions that, when repeated over time, leave a physical mark. in our body and this mark deepens giving orientation and propensity to the body to get sick in this or that way, of course this depends on the person and the situation.

Psychological therapy as a growth tool

Fortunately, there is a chance to break those patterns. It is necessary to accept that in us there is something more than just reactions, that things do not just happen. It is complex to be able to recognize that what happens to us can have its causes in the way we react. And this is due to certain unconscious processes that were structured according to certain ways that we find ourselves to respond to the people and the environment that surrounded us from the first moments of our lives.

Therapy is not proposed only as a method to treat a particular problem, but also to give us a general well-being, either to see things in a different way, or to make decisions that are oriented and directed towards the health that we deserve and want to have.