Welcome to Integral Health Resources (IHR). My name is Bob, and IHR is a creative outlet fueled by an ongoing, decades-long inquiry into what it means to live the most fulfilling, best life possible. Health, well-being, personal growth, human flourishing, living the good life… We’re all trying to make the most of our lives and to make sense of all the new studies and snake oil pitches that bombard our attention daily via every media outlet. If there’s a middle ground between the mainstream (often too narrow-minded and corrupted by special interest groups) and the far-out (often too fuzzy-minded to pass the litmus tests of reasonableness and evidence-based critical thinking), then that’s the territory I’m trying to stake out. What I offer here is my own modest and ever-evolving attempt to make sense of all this.
I have a particular interest in critical, dissident, and anti-authoritarian perspectives that challenge the (in my opinion) corrupt, irrational, and ineffectual elements of the prevailing mental health system in the United States.
The term “integral,” as I use it, refers to any approach that explicitly brings together multiple perspectives in an effort to address the multiple dimensions of human life. Coming from an undergraduate psychology program that emphasized the traditional “stats and rats” experimental approach, my time at the California Institute of Integral Studies broadened my understanding significantly by introducing me to humanistic, transpersonal, somatic, and integral approaches to psychology. For the time being at least, I think the term “integral” best captures my perspective, although the more familiar terms integrative, holistic, mind/body, and wellness all pretty much convey the same thing, namely the importance of taking a “whole person” approach to health, as opposed to the disease-focused system often associated with conventional medicine. Admittedly, I struggle to find an adequate language for all this, and one day I hope to discover a way of addressing these issues using only jargon-free, common-sense terms. For more on why I am, for the time being, settling on the umbrella term “integral,” see this discussion.
Integral Health Resources is perpetually being revised as my perspective and interests change. Please contact me at “bob at integralhealthresources dot com” with any feedback, suggestions, criticism, words of encouragement, sage advice, etc. Keep in mind, though, that I have no interest whatsoever in advertisements, “sponsored content,” or anything other than expressing myself and engaging in constructive dialogue. I don’t expect to make money here, but since it does cost some money to keep the site going (currently about $150.00 per year), I will gratefully accept donations to assist in covering those expenses.
Thanks!