Authenticity and the Immune System

AUTHENTICITY AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM.

I’ve been reading a lot of material by Gabor Mate recently, he’s is one of those writers/educators that really has a gift to explain complex ideas in a way that makes it easy to grasp. As you read his work you get the intuitive sense that what he says is common sense and clearly rings true. His books address health from a Biopsychosocial (BPS) perspective.

I’ve found his writing about how we come to develop autoimmune conditions particularly interesting. As we now know, there is no functional distinction between the nervous system, the immune system, the endocrine system and psychology, they all function as one interrelated reciprocal super-system.

We all have our own distinct personalised expressions of the neurobiological patterns that were established through our relationships to others and the environment early in life. We come to know these layers of patterns as our character or personality through which we identify as ourselves.

Later, as we mature, these beliefs become a kind of default operating system through which we conduct our relationships. But if when establishing those patterns, we had to persistently suppress our authentic emotions, feelings and actions in order to maintain our most important relationships to our caregivers, then those defensive strategies become our templates for all future relationship interactions.

The strategy of suppressing what we truly feel may have helped us survive the vulnerable years of childhood but as adults we no longer need to protect ourselves in the same way, but, the patterns of reactive behaviour established in our early years persist, and transform into adult versions of the same. These strategies become so much a part of us that we assume that this is the only way to experience the world.

Unwittingly then, we habitually conduct our relationships, not authentically or autonomously, but through the invisible filter we constructed years before to protect ourselves. Which means in effect, we are compelled to live our lives from a defensive stance and one that is not our authentic self.

The effect of chronically denying ourselves authenticity can be confusing for the immune system. Remember the psychology, immune system, nervous system and endocrine system act as one. Gabor Mate states:

‘Within the individual organism, physical mutiny results from an immunologic confusion that perfectly mirrors the unconscious psychological confusion of self and non-self. In this disarray of boundaries, the immune system attacks the body as if the latter were a foreign substance, just as the psychic self is attacked by inward directed reproaches and anger.’

So what we are experiencing in this is a disconnect between who we think we are and who we really are. In order to discourage the bodies immune system from waging war on itself, we need to begin to do the work that will allow the authentic self to come through, be seen and bring clarity to the system.

These are big questions for most of us and require a practice that guides and holds us whilst we undertake the mission to investigate.

Get in touch to find find out how craniosacral therapy can help you do that.