What is Mental Fitness?
To be mentally and emotionally fit means that we are able to deal successfully with the routine stressors of life as well as unexpected traumatic events without "losing it." This doesn't mean we always react with perfection, as trauma can and does take us off guard, destabilizing us for a period of time. If we have solid mental and emotional skills, though, we become resilient and can quickly bounce back.
If you feel like you are emotionally "all over the place," tending to either be too reactive and blow up when stressed or shut down due to overwhelm, there is no shame in this. It likely means you simply lack important skills...and skills can be learned! Whether you struggle with your sense of self, conflicted relationships, loss of hope and purpose, or overwhelm...it's time to gather some skills!
Fitness Focused
Today, it only takes a brief glance at the news to note the obvious mental and emotional crises emerging all around us (e.g., increased mass shootings, terror, hysteria over one's future or of our nation). It is more crucial now than ever before to stop focusing on "mental disease" and start focusing on teaching people mental and emotional fitness skills to cope with environments of ever-increasing stress.
As a result, my work has solidly shifted over the last decade to teaching mental and emotional fitness skills. I have long understood that over-pathologizing people is unhelpful, especially when so many were never afforded the opportunity to witness and learn what emotional and mental fitness even looks like. Just like physical fitness, we all desperately need to learn skills to handle the struggles of every day life and unexpected, overwhelming events.
Given all that I have seen as a psychologist, my biggest takeaway may actually surprise you: I am simply blown away at the ability of most humans to endure, survive, and recover. Our spirit is truly indefatigable. We sometimes simply need a helping hand to get back up on our feet and push through the mire to discover just who we are and who we were meant to be. In a concept, this is mental fitness.
About Dr. Hickman
Dr. Hickman is a native Chattanoogan, though her education and work took her to other locations such as in Nashville and Memphis, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Anchorage, AK; and Washington State. She completed undergraduate education at UT Chattanooga. She earned a Master's at Vanderbilt University before completing a Ph.D. in child development from the University of Minnesota and a Psy.D. in clinical psychology from MN School of Professional Psychology.
Dr. Hickman became licensed as a Clinical Psychologist in 2007 and founded the Mental Fitness Institute. Her work took her into various settings such as private practice, intensive outpatient clinics, inpatient psychiatric wards, inside the VA, and into correctional facilities. Patients have included Veterans, active-duty military personnel, families and children, those who are severely and persistently mentally ill, and general outpatient patients with a wide range of concerns such as depression, anxiety, survivors of sexual abuse, trauma of all types (including PTSD), eating disorders, dissociative disorders and more. There is little she hasn't dealt with from easing the minds of the worried well to conversations with serial killers.
Dr. Hickman currently lives in Chattanooga with her musician husband, Steve, their three cats, Batman, Booger, and Maribell, and the six feral cats who tend to grace their back deck. When not working, Dr. Hickman enjoys creative interests such as fused glass, pottery, and both creative and non-fiction writing.
