Yasmine Buraik

Psychiatric CounselorPsychiatric & Community Counseling Services

Mind-Body Medicine:Applications in Mental

Health

Copy Right Reminder

The model of mind-body skills presented and discussed here is adapted from the original model developed and copyrighted by

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine”

The Dance of Soma and Psyche

The Mind steadfastly refuses to behave locally, as contemporary scientific evidence is beginning to show. We now know for example, that brain like tissue is found throughout the body…So, even from the conservative perspective of modern neurochemistry, it is difficult if not impossible to follow a strictly a local view of the brain

Larry Dossey, M.D

What is Mind-Body Medicine

• Mind-body medicine focuses on the interactions among the brain, mind, body, and behavior.

• Recognizes that emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors can directly affect health.

• It regards as fundamental an approach that respects and enhances each person's capacity for self-knowledge and self-care.

• It emphasizes techniques that are grounded in this approach.

• The Nervous System

• The Limbic System

• Autonomic Nervous System

• Endocrine System

• Immune System

Biological Underpinnings of Mind-Body Medicine

The Body of Evidence

• Extensive research in various fields, especially Neurobiology, Neurophysiology, Neuropsycholgy, Neurochemistry and Psychoneuroimmunology

• Some Mind-Body techniques are better researched than others, but support for all.

• As a result of evidence-based data, the relaxation response is becoming a part of mainstream medicine.  Approximately 60% of US medical schools now teach the therapeutic use of relaxation-response techniques (Friedman, Zuttermeister, Benson, 1993) 

Clinical Findings

• Infertile women have a 42% conception rate, a 38% take-home baby rate, and decreased levels of depression, anxiety and anger (Journal of American Medical Women’s Association. Volume 54, pp.196-198, 1999)

• Women with severe PMS have a 75% reduction in physical and psychological symptoms. (Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 75, pp.649-655,1990)

• High School students exposed to a relation response-based curriculum had significant increase in their self-esteem (Journal of research and development in Education, volume 27, pp. 226-231, 1994)

• Inner city middle school students improved grade score, work habits and cooperation and decreased absences, (Journal of research and developments in education, volume 33, pp 156-165, spring 2000)

Clinical Findings

• Research by Bessel van der Kolk of Boston University and Marsha Linehan of the university of Washington, turned attention from psyche to body of trauma victims and hypothesized that self-harmful behavior like cutting could be an attempt to soothe chronic neurobiological deregulation. Clients could not think, talk, confront, cathart or re-story their way to wholeness. Their nervous systems were continually telling them that the past was the present. Rather they needed new ways to learn to re-regulate their disturbed neurophysiologies.

The 7 Pillars of Mind-Body Medicine

• Uniqueness

• Holism

• Healing partnership

• Self care

• Other healing Systems

• Group Support

• Spirituality and transformation

The Fight and Flight Response

The Three Brains

Our Survival Mechanism

• Walter Bradford Cannon, MD, 1926

• Danger of stress

• Arousal and preparation

• Increased heart rate

• Faster breathing

• Muscular tension

• Coldness and sweating

• Decreased intestinal activity

• Dilated pupils

The Negative Mind

• Chronic stress affects the mind

• You can not afford the luxury of negative thinking

• The Negative Mind and psychiatric conditions

The Relaxation Response

Remembered Wellness

• Dr. Herbert Benson , MD, 1971.

• the “Relaxation Response“ is the opposite of the fight-or-flight response. 

• It results in decreased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate; as well as slower brain waves (Wallace, Benson, Wilson, 1971)  )

• Inducing the relaxation response through Mind-Body Skills

• The fight-or-flight response occurs automatically, without requiring the use of a technique. Steps are usually required to elicit the relaxation response

Brain Plasticity

FACT 1: Neuroplasticity includes several different processes that take place throughout a lifetime.

FACT 2: Neuroplasticity has a clear age-dependent determinant.

FACT 3: Neuroplasticity occurs in the brain under two primary conditions:

FACT 4: The environment plays a key role in influencing plasticity.

Synaptic Pruning

The Brain and the Limbic System

Altered States

Mind-Body Medicine in Psychotherapy

• Staying in the moment

• Self awareness

• Self Care

• Self responsibility

• Internal locus of control

• Corrective emotional experience

Why Mind-Body Medicine Works

• Shifts locust of control to patient

• Assigns responsibility to patient

• In an altered state, we are capable of more rapid and intense healing, growth, learning and change

• The secret of health for both body and mind is not to mourn the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Mind-Body Skills Groups

Mind-Body Skills Groups

• A psycho educational group that combines a didactic and experiential approach

• The goal of the groups is to train clients in the following areas

1. Basic stress management and coping skills

2. Increased self-awareness

3. Promote healing and self-growth

Mind-Body Groups psychological experience• Engage people in helping themselves

• Restore sense of control

• Give a new perspective on, and some distance from, traumatic and stressful events

• Quite physiological arousal

• Decrease the intensity of re-experiencing trauma and stress

• Allow, not force, self expression and sharing

• Help people shift their focus from past trauma or stress to present experience

• Provide a context for understanding trauma and stressful events

• Provide an opportunity to use lesson’s from one’s own healing to help others.

Mind-Body Groups Guiding principles

• Safe place

• Respect

• Educational

• Staying in the moment

• Meditation is the ground in which the group grows

• Compassion for self and others in the group

• Leader as teacher and real person

• Power of each person

• Mutual

• Group as a growth organism

• Flexibility

Mind-Body Skills

• Breathing

• Autogenic Training

• Biofeedback

• Movement

• Meditation

• Imagery

• Drawing and Journaling

• Genograms

• Rituals

Benefits of Mind-Body Skills

• Physiological relaxation

• Stress reduction

• Pain reduction and relief

• Modulation of mood

• Stimulating immune responses

• Improved physical and emotional well-being

• Decreased medication

• Improved tolerance

• Encouraging active participation in own care

• Empowering patient

• Discovering meaning/insight in illness or difficult situations

• Enhancing self-awareness

Breathing

• Anatomy and physiology of

breathing: O2 in, CO2 out

• Nourishing and cleansing

• Breath Analysis

• How breathing affects stress

and anxiety

Breathing

The Power of the Breath

• Breath and spirit

• Always with us

• When you hold the breath you hold the soul.

• Breathing as central to all mind-body practices.

• Different types of breathing

Movement

To be Human is to Move

• All Sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.

• Becoming active on your own behalf – What else can I do?

• Experiencing the body.

• Knowing our limitations.

• Immeasurable blessing: moving beyond obsessive and self-limiting thoughts and concepts, diagnoses and prognoses.

Meditation

Overview of Meditation

• Meditation and Research

• Definition: Being in the present moment

• Many kinds of Meditation

• The basic kind:

Concentrative

Awareness

Expressive

Imagery and Visualization

What is Imagery

• Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

• Guided imagery is a mind-body intervention aimed at easing stress, and promoting a sense of peace and tranquility at a stressful or difficult time in someone's life.

• Imagery is the communication mechanism between perception, emotion, and bodily changes.

• Guided imagery is a kind of directed daydreaming, a way of using the imagination very specifically to help the mind and body heal, stay strong, and perform as needed.

Why imagery works

• Our bodies do not discriminate between sensory images in the mind and what we call reality.

• In an altered state we are capable of more rapid and intense healing, growth , learning and change.

• When we have a sense of being in control, that, in and of itself, can help us to feel better and do better.

• Putting it all together: Imagery is a technique that generates an altered state, in which the mind is directed toward multi-sensory images that the body perceives as real. This is done exactly when, where and how the user wishes. And that's why it's so effective.

Journaling and Drawing

Genograms

.

Does history repeat itself?

• A Genogram is a pictorial representation of family relationships across several generations.

• Genograms are a convenient organizing device to help you identify patterns or develop hypotheses about family functioning.

• Genograms can vary significantly and are only limited by your imagination.

• Most Genograms include basic information about number of marriages, number of children of each marriage, birth order, and deaths. Some Genograms also include information on disorders running in the family (e.g., alcoholism, depression), alliances, and living situations.

Rituals

Categories of Rituals

• Daily Rituals

• Family Rituals

• Holiday Rituals

• Life-cycle Rituals

• Special, planned rituals

Rituals as a Mind-Body Skill

• Ritual is one of the ways in which humans put their lives in perspective

• Rituals are processes that are repeated patterns of meaningful acts, or that are performed on special occasions that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary

• Ritual is the linking of the individual to a larger morphological structure than that of one’s own physical body

Mind-Body Skills Groups Information

• Offered through Community Counseling Clinic on regular basis

• Meets twice a week for five weeks for a total of 10 sessions

• Limited participants in each group

• Arabic women only groups

• Mixed English groups

• Children’s groups

• To sign up call 877-8400 or 877-7015

Thank you