I am convinced that so many mental health challenges are the persistence of nervous system dysregulation. This dysautonomia presents in just a few different ways: hyperarousal, hypoarousal, or a mix.

 

Our nervous system's main job is to keep us safe. When danger starts to present, we first look to others for help (social engagement system). If there is no help to be found, then we try to run (flight). If fleeing is not possible, we fight, and if fighting is not an option, then we feign death (flop).

 

Our current behavioral health model operates on the 5th edition (text revised) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This DSM-5-TR has over 70 diagnoses and, I would argue that most of them can be classified into either a hyperaroused presentation of the nervous system, when we are in flight/fight or in a hypoaroused state, flop, with some disorders having a mixed presentation.

 

So I have listed the following diagnoses into these categories to begin to orient you to how I see your nervous system manifesting (in its efforts to keep you safe), and what our priorities might be from a neurobiological perspective for treatment options.

 

Because I am also a nurse and have seen how physical dis-ease can and does have a bi-directional relationship with our mood, I have listed some common allopathic medical diagnoses related to the body, as I see it. This is not to minimize the very real impacts of the conditions, but rather to emphasize how these physical conditions can be ameliorated as a result of regulating the nervous system. 

 

The whole field of psychoneuroimmunology concerns itself with how emotional load impacts the immune system for better or worse.

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[Please note that there are several diagnoses in the DSM-5-TR that are specific to children that can also be classified below, and because I do not work with children or anyone under the age of 18, I have excluded them from the lists]