Bodymind Healing in Psychotherapy
Location: Alliant University, One Beach St, SF 94113
Price: $75
In this workshop therapists will learn how to expand their healing repertoires by being introduced to self-healing methods that can aid patients’ physical and mental health. Participants will be introduced to an integration of Qigong and psychotherapy that Dr. Mayer developed from thirty years of training with some of the most respected TaiChi/Qigong masters, and which he applied in an multidisciplinary medical clinic which he co-founded.
Qigong (of which Tai Chi is the best known system) is a many thousand-year-old method of cultivating the energy of life through synchronizing movement, breath and imagery. Qigong (of which Tai Chi is the best known system) is coming to the forefront of mind-body healing practices. Recent research has demonstrated that Qigon, one of the five branches of Chinese Medicineg, has the ability to lower blood pressure (Wang 1995; Mayer, 1999 peer reviewed), increase balance (Province 1995), chronic pain (Wu, 1999), alleviate insomnia (Irwin,2008), and help with a wide variety of chronic diseases (Sancier, 1996; Pelletier, 2000). This root system of Chinese medicine has the unique ability to simultaneously relax and energize. The Wall Street Journal says it’s “the hottest trend in stress relief.” Dr. Mehmet Oz—Director of the Cardiovascular Institute of Columbia University Medical Center of New York said on Oprah, “If you want to be healthy and live to 100, do Qigong … Qigong reverses the aging process.” Many people think Qigong is about graceful, healing movements; but Qigong also has static practices that can be done in stillness.
Dr Mayer shows how to integrate the essence of Qigong into psychotherapy without using a Qigong movement, and without mentioning a word about Qigong. For example, with no reference to Qigong, in a psychotherapy session a practitioner can introduce breathing methods (such as Qigong’s microcosmic orbit breathing) which simultaneously relax and energize, teach acu-point self touch, and increase somatic awareness of the movements/postures that a person expresses at the moment of “felt shift” (Gendlin, 1978) which then serve as post-hypnotic anchors (Bandler & Grinder 1979) – these movements and postures are oftentimes the same as practiced by Tai Chi/Qigong practitioners. Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy presents an integral (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006) paradigm for bodymind healing which is accessible for clinicians to integrate into brief or depth psychotherapy. Theory, case illustrations, and practices will be combined to show how this bodymind healing approach can help alleviate anxiety, hypertension, chronic pain, insomnia, etc.