Exploring the Integration of Physical and Mental Health: A Conversation with Lana Seiler

Why isn't integrating physical and mental health more common in our healthcare system? Could communication be the missing link? Join me as I sit down with Lana Seiler, Clinical Manager at All Points North, to ponder these questions and more. Lana passionately challenges the status quo, advocating for a unified approach that sees a human being as a compilation of systems rather than separate entities. In this enlightening conversation, we explore the overlooked connections between mind and body, the role of fitness in holistic care, and alternative treatments that warrant more attention.

We also venture into behavioral health, discussing the importance of understanding and addressing the underlying causes of behaviors, particularly those linked to trauma. Lana shares her belief that there's no magic pill in the healthcare industry and calls for more communication and centralized information among healthcare providers. We wrap things up by diving into the need to break down old silos in healthcare and create a more unified, comprehensive approach to patient care. So, tune in, open your mind, and prepare to see healthcare in a whole new light.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real-life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Thanks for tuning in toHatching Creativity.
In today's episode, I speakwith Lana Seiler.
She's a clinical manager at AllPoints North in Colorado, as

(00:23):
well as the host of the TherapyUnboxed podcast.
Today we talk about theconnection between mind and body
and the importance of holisticcare in behavioral health.
Don't forget if you like whatyou hear, please like, subscribe
and tell all your friends aboutthe Hatching Creativity podcast
.
Can you tell a little bit aboutwhat you do relating to

(00:44):
holistic treatment?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Absolutely.
It's a topic that I'm actuallyreally passionate about.
I think medicine as a whole insome ways is siloed.
We're looking at systems in thebody and systems in the mind
and systems in our soul andwe're sort of piecing it out
right Like cardiology, and Ithink it's important to have
specialists.
Of course, that's why we'reinnovative and we're wonderful

(01:07):
at doing what we do, and I thinkit's important to not lose
sight of a human being as acompilation of systems that work
together.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I think it's so funny .
You say that my wife and I wetalk about this all the time and
Renee, you're listening.
It's never just one thing.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yes, it's never.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Just one thing, and that's life in general anyway,
right, and everybody's lookingfor just like.
If I could just do this,everything would be great.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So, yeah, I think that's a very important approach
, as well as the integration ofphysical and mental health.
Right Like why is it not athing and why is it not more
common?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Right.
So the questions I'm alsoasking myself and asking in our
industry.
I think it's headed in a gooddirection.
I really do.
I believe that I'm optimistic.
I'm doing a presentation latertoday and one of the slides says
there's no magic pill in aquote.
And then it says all of us, allof us in this industry, know
that there's no one magic pillfor anything, and we all say

(02:15):
that frequently to our patients,to their families, and so one
of the ways that it all pointsnorth, that we're sort of like
bringing in holistic care, isnot only is it like primary
mental health, primary substanceuse, so we're looking at all
these different elements thatwork together for patients.
We also have 9x, which isfitness right.
So bringing in like a verytailored specific fitness

(02:38):
programs to our patients to getthem moving, get the blood
flowing.
You know we've got yoga.
I'm going to talk also in mytalk about alternative
treatments and alternativemedicines that we aren't paying
enough attention to that workreally well, that we see,
anecdotally, there isn't enoughresearch being done to kind of
bring it into more of the mainstrain.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
If you were given a magic wand right, how would you
change it?
How would it look to you?
More communication.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
How?
So, if I had a magic wand, wewould have centralized
information about patients thatall the care providers have
access to, that's HIPAAcompliant, obviously, so that if
my patient goes to the ER right, there's enough communication
that they would know not to givethat person, maybe narcotics if

(03:28):
they don't absolutely need to,because they came from us, right
, or that we're in their historyright, and so it's tricky
because we don't wanna make surepatients have control over
their healthcare information.
It's very important, and if Ihad a magic wand, there would be
much more communication acrossall different spectrums of
health and care, includingmedicine, including emergency

(03:49):
medicine, absolutely, and itwould go both ways.
I mean, nothing would make mehappier than to have one of my
patients primary care physicianscall me and say what are you
doing with this person?
Where are they in their therapy?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Right, it's so important and you know the
communication, especially whensomebody's going into treatment
during admissions.
Right, they're in crisis.
They're not thinking about whatam I allergic to, what
contraindications are gonnahappen from any other medicine
that I'm on, right, what happenswe don't know and we're

(04:22):
treating people with like partof the story and we're expected
for them to get better.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Not to mention.
So this is a great example.
The ACE study adverse childhoodexperiences study originated
out of an obesity clinic right,and so that right there puts
together these pieces.
People are coming to work ontheir weight issues and what
they found was that there's somuch of what was feeding into

(04:52):
this weight problem was actuallychildhood trauma, and it
doesn't help to just do likebariatric surgery or to get them
on like a fitness plan and adiet plan, because long term,
they need to work on theunderlying causes for these
behaviors and again, I thinkwe're moving in the right
direction.
I think other people aretalking about this.

(05:12):
We just need to talk about itmore and we need to really like
kind of break down these oldsilos that have been built up
over years, right, when there'sthis separation.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
It's.
I just had somebody on just thelast one.
We were talking about what camefirst the trauma or the coping
mechanism, right?
Removing the coping mechanismis it going to solve any?
It will solve you from mayberelying on that coping mechanism
, right, but what ends uphappening is they'll find

(05:43):
another coping mechanism, right.
So it's?
Yeah, I agree, and I think thecommunication can be really
important.
Physicians are not alwaystrained in drug seeking behavior
or they are going to be able torecognize when somebody really
maybe they're not seeing thewhole picture.

(06:04):
And physicians are not trainedin behavioral health either.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Right, and I know they're busy and I know that's
not their scope, and so the morewe can help each other.
So I work on a treatment teamright now.
I'm fortunate, you know I workin residential level of care and
you know I have the luxury andthe freedom of just reaching out
to the doctors andpsychiatrists that we work with
and so we see it work well inthese types of settings and
there has to be a way to scalethat to help it work well on a

(06:29):
bigger scale.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, it comes also to standardization.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And I get on that soapbox.
I'm not going to right now, butthere needs to be
standardization aroundexpectations, absolutely, and
you know, these are all thingsthat I think there needs to be
and this is something they, tap,should be doing, and maybe they
are, and I'm not aware of it,but you know they really have a

(06:55):
lot of ears.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
And a lot of people that they can get in front of
and talk about standardizationof anything from.
We look at, you can take acommission who has different
requirements, chartingrequirements.
You're in Colorado, colorado,utah.
Yeah, different chartingrequirements in different states

(07:17):
.
So they're, the demands areneeding to be addressed, you
know, as part of it, yeah, so,look, we can go down this rabbit
hole and I think that we shoulddefinitely reconnect on this.
Yeah, because there's just somuch to talk about here.
Yeah, thanks for tuning in toHatchin' Creativity.
We appreciate your support.
Please don't forget to like andsubscribe until all your

(07:40):
friends about the show andremember it's never just about
one thing.