Educating Clients About Physical Wellness

As mental health professionals, we are predominantly concerned with the psychological wellbeing of our clients. Yet the reality of our wholeness as human beings is that unhelpful behaviours, attitudes, or beliefs regarding the physical level of our being may affect the psychological level, sometimes profoundly. In instances when clients may not fully understand how they undermine their mental health with unhelpful attitudes or practices toward the body, we may be better placed than many others in the client's life to provide the information that will help them re-establish that balance toward wholeness. In our extremely health-conscious culture, volumes have been written about wellness, especially physical health; it would be hard for you to have escaped hearing some of it. The purpose of this course is not to introduce you to concepts with which you probably already have at least broad familiarity, but to offer you a simple, overarching framework which you can use if should find that you need to educate clients about the main factors that contribute to high-level physical/material wellness. This course is a companion one to “Educating Clients About Mental Wellness.” Going through the contents of either of the courses with clients constitutes education - psychoeducation, in fact - not therapy, as both courses are about learning what is necessary in order to create and maintain exceptional wellness - on all levels of being. Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to: Explain to clients how a health-promoting diet might be configured; Anchor your understanding of exercise regimes by being able to name at least four major points that clients should remember in setting up/maintaining a program; Identify the major concepts to emphasise in teaching someone about good sleep hygiene; Outline at least seven major strategies clients should observe to maintain brain fitness; Identify aspects of financial and environmental wellness that may impact on a client's overall health.