Qigong Practice: Healing and Self-Management for Mental Health and Mental Illness

Abstract

Mental health is a major public health concern. Nearly two-thirds of people with mental disorder never seek help from a health professional due to stigma. Furthermore, conventional therapies are not always effective. The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is common in persons with mental disorders. On the other hand, healthcare systems also face the challenges of a lack of capacity due to limited resources. Self-management using CAM will be a crucial approach and instill individual responsibility and offer tools to patients and train them to utilize relevant skills, which may be one means of bridging the gap between patients’ needs and the capacity of health and social service. Social workers have an important role to play in health education and promotion of the self-management of mental health and mental disorders. Inspired by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Eastern philosophies, an Eastern body-mind-spirit (BMS) model was developed to ignite innate healing power, which aims at fostering a harmonious dynamic equilibrium within clients and between clients and their social and natural environment. It is a multidimensional and holistic approach that can be used to guide social work intervention. Qigong, an ancient simplified BMS practice, can be adopted as a healthy lifestyle and behavior in the daily self-management of mental health and mental illness. In the future, there is also a need to train more health professionals to ensure the patients to truly master the self-management skills (e.g., BMS and Qigong practice), and new health behaviors are sustainable over time.