All Day Workhop: Bodymind Healing in Psychotherapy:Towards an Integral, Comprehensive Energy Psychotherapy
Thursday, May 28, 2009, 9 AM- 5 PM with Dr Michael Mayer
This workshop will help you bring the healing abilities of a comprehensive energy psychology to your work as a health professional, to the public and into your life. In addition to the well-known energy psychology methods such as EFT, you’ll learn how to broaden your view so that energy psychology will also be known to include Qigong, depth psychology, symbolic process traditions, Kaballistic methods, etc. You’ll learn how all psychotherapy is energy psychotherapy, and by therapists better understanding that, psychotherapy can be enhanced and people in need will be able to use a broad range of energy psychology methods to add vitality, healing, and psycho-spiritual depth to their lives.
Participants will be introduced to an integration of behavioral healthcare, Qigong, and psychotherapy stemming from Dr. Mayer’s thirty years of private practice, and testing this combined approach in an integrated medical clinic that he co-founded. Qigong (of which Tai Chi is the best known system) is a many thousand-year-old method of self-healing practices which can be done with movements or in stillness. In pursuit of creating an integral (Walsh,2006), comprehensive energy psychotherapy, here you’ll learn how to integrate the essence of Qigong into psychotherapy without using Qigong movements, and without mentioning Qigong. By using Eastern and Western relaxation and visualization methods, state-specific breathing inductions, acu-point self-touch, the transcending and transmuting dimensions of the imagery/somatic dialectic, and anchoring a patient’s somatic changes at the moment of “felt shift,” an integral paradigm for bodymind healing is accessible for clinicians and their patients to integrate into brief or depth psychotherapy. Combining theory, case illustrations, and research, this integral energy psychology approach can help alleviate anxiety, hypertension, chronic pain, insomnia, etc.
Course Outline:
I. Morning A
A. General Introduction-. Towards an Integral, Comprehensive Energy Psychology
B. Presenter’s background integrating Qigong, psychotherapy and behavioral medicine and his co-founding and being a psychologist at an integrative medical clinic.
C. Brief case example of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
D. Psychotherapy and Qigong – Theoretical framework and case example of anxiety treatment.
II. Morning B
A. Introduction to Qigong movements as a complementary treatment for: relaxation, energizing, limbering joints, hypertension, balance and prevention of falls in the elderly (Province, 1995), somatic complaints, chronic diseases, etc. (Johnson, 2000). (Research including peer-reviewed research is summarized in Pelletier, 2000; Mayer, 2004, 2007).
B. Broadening and deepening the scope of bodymind healing interventions in brief and depth psychotherapy using static Qigong practices- relaxation and breathing methods, self-touch using acu-points to aid self-soothing, the imaginal/somatic dialectic.
C. What psychotherapy and Qigong give each other
Lunch
III. Afternoon A
A. Powerpoint presentation regarding the cross-cultural pre-modern roots (Eliade M., 1964; Tomio N., 1994; Mayer M., 2004) and modern (Jung CG., 1936; Shore A. 2003; Wolf E. 1988; Reich 1942) psychological roots of self- healing methods for mind-body health problems.
B. Integrating psychotherapy, behavioral healthcare with Qigong: Applications for other Psychological and Psycho-physiological disorders Case examples: Chronic pain (Hilgard 1983, Mayer 1996. Wu 1999), hypertension (Johnson 2000, Pellitier 2000, Mayer 1999, 2003, peer reviewed), insomnia; trauma (van der Kolk 1995), {Practices from Dr. Mayer’s Bodymind Healing Qigong DVD are used in trauma trainings by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Medical Director, the Trauma Center, Boston University School of Medicine.}
IV. Afternoon B
A. What Creates Change in Psychotherapy?
B. Psychotherapy as Changing your Life Stance, Transmuting internalizations (Stolorow, 1987) with body-based psychotherapy, Case Examples: Social phobia, sexual trauma.
C. Knowledge of Qigong/ Tai Chi stances enhances awareness of somatic changes at moments of “felt shift” (Gendlin,1978) in psychotherapy, and enhances anchoring (Bandler & Grinder, 1975, 1979) of these new life stances.
D. Research and Ethics. (Andrade & Feinstein 2003; Nerem, R. 1980; Becker, 1985; Kuang 1991;Wu 1999, Mayer M. 2004; Pellitier 2004): APA Ethics Code; Zur O., 2005).
E. Questions remaining.
Two Hour Workshop: Psychotherapy and Qigong: Partners in Healing
May 29, 10:30-12:15
Qigong is one of the oldest forms of energy psychology and is under-represented in the workshops on “energy psychology.” This breakout session will give the participants transformational tools for integrating Qigong into psychotherapy. Steps will be taken towards showing how an integral comprehensive energy psychology functions in clinical practice, as seen in the book Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy: Ancient Pathways to Modern Health (Mayer, 2007) and Energy Psychology: Self-healing Practices for Bodymind Health (North Atlantic/Random House,2009).
Morning Wakeup: Revitalize your Self with Bodymind Healing Qigong
Saturday, May 30, 7-7:45 AM
Add chi to your day with Bodymind Healing Qigong. You’ll be introduced to lifelong practices for revitalizing your energy that can be done between your patient sessions to “heal the healer.” Enhance your stance with Standing Meditation Qigong, reactivate your primordial self with animal Qigong, and add something vital to your walking with Walking Meditation Qigong.