Alliant International University’s Online Continuing Education program. Qigong: Bodymind Healing in Psychotherapy, and receive 7 CEUs. This 7 hour workshop is now available anytime. 7 CEUs.
Descritpion: 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. You’ll learn how to integrate Qigong into psychotherapy without using Qigong movements, and without mentioning Qigong. Combining theory, case illustrations, and research, this integral bodymind healing approach can help alleviate anxiety, hypertension, chronic pain, insomnia, etc.
Course Goals and Objectives
1. Participants will broaden their perspective of the cross-cultural, pre-modern roots of psychotherapy and mind-body healing methods and how this expanded perspective can enhance treatment.
2. Participants will learn how to apply various static Qigong methods in their psychotherapy practice without ever using a Qigong Movement or mentioning a word about Qigong. Methods of breathing, relaxing and energizing methods, self touch. Awareness of somatic movements that a patient makes at a moment of “felt shift” can help to anchor new life stances.
3. Participants will learn about ethical issues about which to be aware in integrating Qigong into psychotherapy
Topics-
- General Introduction-.
- Presenter’s background integrating Qigong, psychotherapy and behavioral medicine and his co-founding and being a psychologist at an integrative medical clinic.
- Brief case example.
- Psychotherapy and Behavioral Healthcare: Eastern and Western tools
- Psychotherapy and Qigong – Theoretical framework and case example of anxiety treatment.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.}
- Psychotherapy as Changing your Life Stance
- Transmuting internalizations (Stolorow, 1987) with body-based psychotherapy.
Case Examples: Social phobia, sexual trauma.
- 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
- Research and Ethics . 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).
Recommended Reading: Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy: Ancient Pathways to Modern Health (Bodymind Healing Publications, 2007.)