The Academy for Guided Imagery
and its co-sponsoring organizations present:
IMAGERY, SUGGESTION, AND
MIND/BODY MEDICINE: 2008
AGI’s 20th Annual Conference Webcast

20th Annual AGI Conference Webcast

detailedwebcastbanner

Webcast Detailed Program

All presentations will be archived and available through 7/19/2008.



(1) Pre-Conference Professional Training Workshop:An Overview of Interactive Guided Imagerysm [3.0 hrs CE Credit]

Presenters: David Bresler, PhD, LAc, and Martin Rossman, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:xxx

  1. Explain why IGIsm is more powerful, effective, and efficient than other suggestive techniques.
  2. Utilize the most effective techniques for initiating Imagery Dialogue.
  3. Utilize Imagery Dialogue to explore the meaning of a symptom and to empower and enhance the body’s intrinsic healing systems.


Description: Interactive Guided Imagerysm (IGIsm) is
an interactive, permissive, client-centered approach to clinical guided
imagery aimed at evoking inner healing resources and enabling the client
patient to develop greater self-awareness, increased autonomy and an
enhanced sense of personal empowerment.

IGIsm is eclectic, holistic, humanistic and non-dogmatic,
incorporating skills and approaches from hypnosis, Jungian psychology,
psychosynthesis, Gestalt therapy, self-actualization and ego-state
psychology. IGIsm is much more than simply having a patient
listen to a predetermined script. It is a powerful modality for connecting
with the deeper wellsprings of what is true for them at cognitive, affective,
and somatic levels.

The guide’s role in this process is not to provide “better” images for the
client, but to facilitate an enhanced awareness of the unconscious imagery
the client/patient already has, and to help the client learn to meaningfully
and effectively interact with this process. For example, a patient can be
asked to close his eyes and allow an image to form that represents the
experience of his problem. The patient may then have an imaginary
dialogue with the image to explore its meaning and relevance to the
problem or issue.

These images can provide information not only about the problem or
illness, but also about the patient’s beliefs, attitudes, hopes, expectations,
and fears, their ability to cope with the problem or heal from the illness,
and the potential effectiveness of the recommended treatment plan.

This pre-conference workshop, An Overview of Interactive Guided
Imagerysm, contains original lectures by Drs. David Bresler and
Marty Rossman, the creators and developers of IGIsm,
excerpted from the Academy’s Professional Certification Training Program.
It includes an overview of IGIsm, how it works, how it differs
from other suggestive techniques, the most effective strategies for
establishing imagery dialogue, how to maximize success, and how
IGIsm can be applied in medicine, nursing, allied health care
fields, health psychology, psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching.


(2) The Power of Personal Lifestyle Changes

Presenter: Dean Ornish, MD, PhD [1.00 hr CE Credit]

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Describe how personal lifestyle changes can move you in positive directions on the spectrum to health.
  2. Understand how exercise and other lifestyle changes can affect gene expression.
  3. Employ incremental changes in lifestyle that can progressively enhance health.


Description: Dr. Ornish will review a number of research studies illustrating his premise that making incremental lifestyle changes is one of the best ways to enhance mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.


(3) Nutrients for the Brain: A Critical Update for Mental Health Providers [0.75 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Hyla Cass, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Describe how disorders in mood and cognition reflect an imbalance in internal biochemistry, especially in neurotransmitter function, and how psychoactive supplements can utilized to help restore balance.
  2. Utilize appropriate laboratory testing to diagnose imbalances in neurotransmitter activity.
  3. Utilize appropriate dietary changes and nutritional supplements to help enhance mood, performance, and tolerance to stress.


Description: Dr. Cass will review the neurobiochemistry of depression,
stress, and anxiety, how to determine deficiencies by history-taking and
lab testing, and how to restore balance with certain nutrients. These
include vitamins and minerals, amino acids (5-JT, tyrosine, DLPA, SAMe),
herbs (St. John's wort), and essential fats, especially the omega 3 fatty
acids, EPA and DHA. She will then discuss "adaptogens," including herbs
such as ginseng, ashwaganda, and rhodiola, that help regulate the
autonomic nervous system, enhance resistance to stress and trauma, and
boost mood, energy, immunity, and performance.

Dr. Cass will also share the imagery-related suggestions she utilizes when
employing relaxation and sleep-inducing nutrients such as taurine, GABA,
glycine, theanine, kava, valerian, hops, and passion flower. Much of this
information can be used personally by health practitioners for their own
health and well being, too.


(4) Great Expectations: Enhancing Confidence, Improving Health [1.00 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: David S. Sobel, MD, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Describe the role of psychosocial distress in driving the need and demand for medical care.

  2. Identify opportunities to use guided imagery to enhance confidence and positive expectancies in delivering care and improving health outcomes.

  3. Apply strategies for successfully implementing and sustaining mind/body interventions in complex health care organizations.

Description: All medical and surgical treatments can improve health by direct physical intervention and by influencing patient expectations, confidence and behavior. Words can be scalpels: they can heal or harm. Increasing evidence suggests a robust link between self-efficacy and health outcomes.

Guided imagery and related interventions can help shape positive expectancies and enhance a sense of confidence and control. Such techniques can also address the psychosocial distress that drives the need and demand for medical care.
Finally, we will explore some real world strategies for successfully implementing and sustaining mind/body interventions in complex health care systems.


(5) Transpersonal Imagery and the Effect on Brain Function, Using an fMRI Analysis [0.75 hrs CE Credit]

Presenter: Jeanne Achterberg, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Name 3 forms of distant intentionality.
  2. Formulate a hypothetical mechanism for transpersonal imagery.
  3. Describe empirical findings suggestive of transpersonal imagery.
Description: It’s an ancient belief that has survived through time: We affect one another with our intentions. And now it’s a demonstrated medical fact.

Distant Intentionality (DI), the ability to affect others in the absence of sensory contact mechanisms, is a widely debated subject. The use of therapeutic modalities such as prayer, Healing Touch, shamanism, qigong, and transpersonal imagery evolved from the premise that our spiritual connections and our oneness can be used to heal, and some form of DI can be found in almost all cultures throughout the world. But creating a measurable physiological change in another person without any physical contact defies the biomedical paradigm. How can there be an effect, scientists ask, if there is no known mechanism of action?

With high tech tools at their disposal, Jeanne Achterberg and team at North Hawaii Community Hospital set out to prove — or disprove — that measurable biological changes occur when a healer engages with a patient, even though there is no physical contact. To test the hypothesis, they recruited eleven healers who were recognized as being skilled by the communities they served. Their practices included, among others, Healing Touch, Hawaiian pule, Peruvian shamanism, Reiki, sound healing, and qigoing.

Each healer then chose a recipient for the DI experiment with whom he or she felt some connection. During the course of the study, each DI recipient spent 34 minutes in a functional magnetic resonance machine (fMRI) while the assigned healer, in an electromagnetically shield room, practiced his or her art in random 2-minute “send” or “no-send” intervals, as assigned by the researchers.

During this presentation, Dr. Achterberg will discuss the results of these studies.



(6) Integrative Medicine: An Evidence Based Fusion of Conventional and Alternative Medicine [1.00 hr CE Credit]
Presenter: Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD, MD(hc)

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Define integrative medicine.
  2. Identify two evidence based applications of MindBody Medicine.
  3. Cite one example of the cost effectiveness of integrative medicine.


Description: Integrative medicine is the "evidence based" integration of
conventional and alternative medicine. Such an approach, which includes
MindBody medicine, can result in improved clinical and cost (ROI)
outcomes for both individual and corporate health programs.

This presentation provides a definition of integrative medicine, results of
ongoing research projects with the Corporate Health Improvement
Program (CHIP), and a state of the art overview of the return on
investment (ROI) evidence for the effectiveness of such interventions.


(7) Imagery, Suggestion, and Improving Patient Satisfaction in the Emergency Department [0.50 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Susan Reynolds, MD, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Explain the difference between creative right brain thinking versus analytical left brain thinking.
  2. Demonstrate how to use the right brain to help solve difficult problems.
  3. Demonstrate the "Through the Eyes of the Patient" model to increase patient satisfaction in the Emergency Department.
Description: Improving patient satisfaction in the Emergency Department can be very challenging. The emergency patient is under a great deal of stress, not knowing what his or her acute symptoms indicate. The emergency physician is also under a significant amount of stress due to the volume of patients and the varied pathology that he or she needs to take care of during any given shift.

This presentation will provide creative ways to use both left brain logic and right brain imagery to make the emergency patient's experience in the Emergency Department as positive as possible given the stressful nature of the environment. Participants will learn what Press-Ganey surveys (a left brain approach) show is important to emergency department patients. They will also learn how to use imagery (a right brain approach) to experience the Emergency Department "Through the Eyes of the Patient."


(8) Trauma and Transformation: Using Mind-Body Medicine to Heal the Wounds of War and Other Disasters [1.00 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: James S. Gordon, MD


Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Understand the meaning of trauma and symptoms of PTSD.
  2. Experience the use of mind-body approaches to decrease stress.
  3. Appreciate the relevance of mind-body skills groups to the treatment of trauma


Description: Dr. Gordon will discuss the causes and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and describe the way that mind-body approaches can be used to repair disturbed psychological and physiological functioning.

The emphasis will be on integrating a variety of approaches - meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback, and self-expression (through words, drawings and movement) in the small and large group programs developed at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine.


(9) EMDR: 21st-Century Therapy and the Possibilities for Healing [0.75 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Francine Shapiro, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will:

  1. Learn about the Adaptive Information Processing Model that informs the use of EMDR.
  2. Learn how inappropriately stored memories are the basis of dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
  3. Learn about EMDR as a comprehensive psychotherapy approach that can treat a wide range of clinical issues and complaints.

Description: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) has
been so well researched that it is now recommended as a front line
treatment for trauma in the Practice Guidelines of American Psychiatric
Association, and those of the Department of Defense and of Veterans
Affairs. It is an integrative psychotherapy that offers a new and distinct
approach to personality development and the treatment of pathology.

The clinical applications of EMDR with an information processing focus can
be used as a general model of psychotherapy addressing a full range of
issues of everyday clinical practice, including family therapy impasses.
Increasingly, research evidence is showing that there’s a kind of
psychological change that can happen at the level of adaptive information
processing, opening up the possibility of powerful therapeutic effects that
can exceed expectations both in the speed and depth of their impact.

In this presentation, you’ll get an experience of the implicit and
associational memory networks that govern our feelings, thoughts, and
reactions outside the realm of rational thought. You’ll learn how EMDR and
the Adaptive Information Processing model apply not only to trauma, but
also to personality disorders, depression, chronic pain, sexual
compulsivity, and other dysfunctional behaviors and thoughts.

EMDR group protocols will be illustrated that have been used worldwide
after both natural and man-made disasters. It is believed that the
treatment of trauma through networks of clinicians can aid in breaking the
cycle of violence worldwide.



(10) An MD’s Path to Alternative Medicine and Guided Imagery [0.50 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Dieter Kallinke, MD, Dipl.Psych.

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Evaluate when and how to use Smucker's Imagery Rescripting

  1. techniques.
  2. Encourage "salutogenesis" to stimulate the body's maximum self-healing potential.
  3. Explain how survivors of successful medical interventions can find ways to really survive in terms of a meaningful life.

Description: While conventionally trained in both medicine and clinical psychology, Dr. Kallinke’s long involvement in rehabilitation and pain medicine (as well as concerns about his own illnesses) led him to “look over the fences” of mainstream therapies and to deeply study a variety of alternative approaches.
These include acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, several body therapies (including Feldenkrais, Selver work, martial arts, kinesiology, and posturology), Buddhist meditation approaches, and psychological trauma therapies, including EMDR and EFT.
His experiences with Smucker’s Imagery Rescripting introduced him to the importance of imagery when working through past traumatizing painful experiences. While still respecting medical knowledge about pathogenesis, Dr. Kallinke has also developed an increasing trust in “salutogenesis,” the body’s self-healing potential using inner helping agents (e.g., inner advisors, mentors) that can provide images or ideomotor answers to our greatest health concerns and questions.
During this presentation, he will share many of his personal experiences in exploring the world of alternative medicine, and the conclusions he has reached as a result.


(11) Rapid and Deep Transformation Using WHEE: Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR & EFT [1.00 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Define wholistic healing and list and explain its components.

  2. Conduct a basic WHEE self-healing treatment session on their own.

  3. Know the indications, precautions, and contraindications for using WHEE to treat fears and phobias.


Description: WHEE is a rapid, self-healing technique that relieves pains and stresses, transforms limiting beliefs, enhances confidence, and opens options to create positive attitudes even when under severe stress. WHEE is rapidly effective, and can also help to relieve the pain of migraines, arthritis, trauma, and cancer; anxieties, phobias, and PTSD; cravings, nausea, insomnia, and allergies. WHEE transforms your attitude towards stress from one of annoyance to one of gratitude that you have a further opportunity to dump the old "stuffed" junk that you carry with you, and to reprogram and update your internal hard drive (which you let a little child program for you). WHEE is powerful and faster than EFT and is safe for use outside a therapist’s office.



(12) Imagery and Mindfulness Skills with Children - Summary of Ten Years Experience in Israeli Schools [0.50 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Nimrod Sheinman, ND

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Understand how much mindfulness, mind-body and imagery skills can influence children's learning, behavior, self image and self talk.
  2. Appreciate the benefits of the mind-body and imagery intervention in Israeli schools.
  3. Evaluate our 10 years accumulated experience of teaching mindfulness and imagery to thousands of kids, their learning responses to the project, and their teachers observation of them.


Description: Ten years ago, an Israeli school principal asked us to design
a mind-body intervention for her violent school of 500 kids in South Tel
Aviv. More schools have joined since, to what has become the largest
intervention in Israel - integrating mind-body, mindfulness and imagery
with whole classes and whole schools.

"Sfat Hakeshev" (The Mindful Language) is a holistic, experiential and
mindful learning program based on a unique integration of guided
imagery, mindfulness meditation and mindful yoga, with emphasis on
building and developing mind-body awareness and skills.

The program was developed by the Israel Center for Mind-Body Medicine,
with support of the Israel Ministry of Education and the Israel Psycho
Educational Services.

Our accumulated findings show a significant influence of the intervention
on the kids' descriptions of what they have learned and gained, in the
areas of self image, self talk, self awareness, improved learning abilities,
sense of control, relaxation, concentration, reactivity reduction and dealing
with stress.

This presentation will outline the basic principles and ingredients of the
work, with emphasis on what the kids say about their experiences,
learning, transformation and self development.



(13) The Gift of Fear [1.75 hr CE Credit]
Presenter: Gavin de Becker

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Recognize the survival signals that warn us about risk from strangers.
  2. Better rely upon their intuition to separate real from imagined danger.
  3. Move beyond denial in order to let their intuition work for them.


Description: Gavin de Becker has spent decades studying violence and
human behavior in order to better protect his clients from a variety of real
or potentially dangerous situations. In this interview with Dr. David Bresler,
he will explode the myth that most violent acts are random and
unpredictable, and will show that they usually have discernible motives
and are preceded by clear warning signs.

These Pre-Incident Indicators (PINs) can help determine whether or not
someone poses a real danger to our health and well-being. He will also
explain why our powers of intuition are the best protection we have
against violence, and the best way for us to triumph over fear.



(14) Dialogue With An Illness: Approaches To Letting An Illness Tell Its Story [1.50 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Integrate the conventional European understanding of an illness with an aboriginal approach to illness.
  2. Plan an approach to allowing an illness to tell its story.
  3. Practice an approach to dialogue with an illness appropriate to their own culture.
Description: In the theoretical portion of this presentation, we will consider European views of illness and disease as invaders derived from a microbial model originated by Louis Pasteur. This model leads to an approach to healing that involves destroying the invader, whether by chemotherapy, antibiotics, or guided imagery that imagines white blood cells zapping foreign invaders as in Star Wars or Pac-Man.

Aboriginal approaches give illnesses higher ontological status with spirits, consciousness, meanings and purposes, and even values. Illnesses are viewed as having their own agendas, which can be helpful or harmful to the person. Within this frame of reference, other techniques arise, including interviewing the illness within an imaginal setting to allow it to present itself as it wishes to appear and to tell its own story.

Within this story lies its reasons for having come to the particular person who hosts it and the conditions under which it would choose to leave. From within the story of the illness from its point of view, new and innovative approaches to healing (including guided imagery) evolve.

The presentation will include demonstrations of how the presenter works and summarizes this information as well as instruction for participants to be able to consider and adopt this work to their own contexts.



(15) The Power of the Narrative [1.00 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Peter Guber

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:
xxxxxx

  1. Recognize the stories that are playing within and around you.
  2. Understand the power of the oral narrative and use it to more fully understand the experience it conveys
  3. Understand why and how the story you continue to tell yourself can significantly affect your physical, mental, and emotional health and well being.


Description: In this entertaining and informative conversation with Dr. David Bresler, Peter Guber reveals the power that exists within any narrative story. The story contains critical information not only about events that occurred, but also about beliefs, attitudes, emotions, drives, personalities, and a host of psychological dynamics that engage and move people. When health providers look at lab studies and scans without listening to the story that their patients bring, they can miss critical information about the etiology of the problem and how to treat it.

Likewise, when they prescribe treatment, they should use the power of the narrative as a tool in order to motivate their patients to have greater compliance with treatment recommendations.

Most significantly, when we play stories in our imagination, our body is listening. When we are anxious and worry, it's important to remember that its our organs who are in the audience and as they listen, they prepare themselves for disaster, whether they need to or not. No wonder they can get burned out over time. Peter Guber also discusses ways to re-write the negative stories that can play in our mind.


(16) Somatic Aspects of Imagery Work [0.75 hrs CE Credit]
Presenter: Helmut Milz, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Apply imagery in health care, therapy and education.
  2. Learn about recent research on imagery related topics.
  3. Better focus on somatic, felt domains of imagery.


Description: Imagery work runs the whole gamut of human sensations. Nevertheless the somatic, bodily aspects often receive less attention than the mental ones. A "Mind over Muscles" attitude reduces the effective collaboration of both. Somatically oriented imagery incorporates and embodies a wealth of anatomical and functional knowledge that allows one to be mindful of information from the present body. One can also use imagery work to find appropriate metaphors for active visualization and ideokinetic action.

Inner proprioception and outer sensory clues provide us continuously with information about the state of our being. Yet most of this information remains unconscious and contributes to our tacit, autonomous self-regulation. But by being quiet, attentive and aware we can refine our possibilities to perceive them. Improved somatic feedback allows us more conscious participation in our health and recovery. We all have natural abilities to mirror, imagine and anticipate movement.



(17) Interactive Guided Imagerysm and Inner Coaching for Performance Enhancement [0.50 hrs CE Credit]
Presenter: Paula King, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Define IGIsm and explain how it differs from visualization and guided imagery.
  2. Utilize IGIsm to create an opportunity for their clients to meet and work with an inner coach.
  3. Integrate IGIsm concepts into their performance enhancement work.


Description: Embraced by coaches and athletes alike, visualization is a popular performance enhancement strategy. IGIsm relies on the same innate mental capacity to imagine as does visualization. However, IGIsm greatly broadens and deepens the application of imagination to performance.

One fundamental construct of IGIsm is guiding a client in the creation of a trusting relationship with the wisdom residing within each person. This same wisdom which heals our cuts, grew us from a zygote to a baby, from a child to a adult, and many trust intuitively to guide their daily actions, still remains, for most, an illusive quality of which there is awareness, but little or no intentional relationship.

Yet, it is a relationship that, when entered into intentionally, offers enormous support, problem-solving guidance, direction, grounding of new concepts, and conflict resolution. In the sports world, this ability translates into an opportunity to meet and utilize this inner power as a personal coach who is always present, wise, and compassionate. This coach has known you always and in all ways, and can be a valuable ally before, during and after each performance.



(18) Autosuggestion/Guided Imagery at the Center of Future Medicine [1.00 hr CE Credit]

Presenter: Jean-Luc Mommaerts, MD, MSc

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Better imagine a future medicine with As/GI (Autosuggestion Guided Imagery) at its core.
  2. Use this to be drawn and let others be drawn towards this future, including policy makers worldwide.
  3. Have a clearer view on the relation between As/GI and regular medicine today.
Description: Imagine… a world in which conceptual mind and a conceptual soul have finally come together again… Imagine…a Garden of Eden in which eating apples of conceptual knowledge is permitted, nay, even encouraged, yet it remains a true Garden of Eden…

Imagine people being open-eyed and appreciative of what they see and fully live through: themselves, each other, and everything else that is immensely beautiful… Imagine… a world in which each person acts as a whole instead of a divided semblance of a mechanical construct… Then imagine the kind of medicine that would prevail in such a world.

The medicine of now is already the medicine of yesterday, a medicine of war against ‘the enemy’: disease. Its weapons are medications and surgery, and clearly something different is needed. Not a new kind of weaponry, but a complete change of paradigm. Autosuggestion and Guided Imagery (As/GI) will be central to this.

In the year 2108, a hundred years from now, ‘the enemy’ will have disappeared as such. Medicine will become a medicine of peace, of support, growth, wholeness, and communication with the deeper self. It will be part of a planetary surge towards being one: being un-divided as a person, being un-divided as a species. As/GI will shape the way we heal ourselves, as it will shape the way we look upon what it means to be human. Thereby, it will very much shape the future itself.


(19) Treating the Late-Term and Long-Term Effects of Cancer with Imagery [0.50 hrs CE Credit]
Presenter: Lyn Freeman, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Discuss the two challenges most often experienced by cancer survivors after completing their conventional medical care.
  2. Describe four or more patient themes that emerged from an evidence-based imagery program
  3. Identify two components of an Imagery program for breast cancer survivors.


Description: In 2006, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its eye-opening quality of life cancer survivor report. Several trends emerged from their review that will be of interest to the ten million survivors in the United States. (1) Post-treatment, cancer can become a chronic condition that must be managed for a lifetime. (2) Although life is preserved, many survivors suffer from late-term and long-term effects of their cancer treatments. (3) These late-term and long-term effects impact the quality of their life. (4) Patients are demanding interventions to address the hidden disabilities created by their treatments.

In this presentation, Dr. Freeman will review the most prevalent and troublesome long-term and late-term side effects of cancer treatments. She will list the interventions that have some evidence of potential improvement of those conditions. She will describe her qualitative research of cancer survivors and the themes they identified as requirements for an efficacious imagery program. Finally, she will discuss the "Envison the Rhythms of Life" imagery program she developed and the outcomes from her National Cancer Institute-funded clinical trial of the program. The importance of creating evidence-based and quality-controlled mind-body programs, delivered by certified trainers, will be explored.



(20) Fighting Cancer from Within: How to Mobilize Healing Resources [1.45 hrs CE Credit]

Presenter: Martin L. Rossman, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Identify three specific techniques that can help reduce anxiety in cancer patients.
  2. Recommend guided imagery self-care approaches specific to reducing adverse effects of common cancer treatments.
  3. Distinguish the difference between engendering false hope and encouraging patients to set and aim to reach their healing goals.
Description: Whether someone has been diagnosed with cancer or not, the way we use our minds can make a huge difference in what happens to us. The research on guided imagery relevant to cancer points to many positive effects that range from improving a patient’s emotional well-being to reducing adverse effects of treatments, to helping them survive, and even thrive, through the experience.

When a patient is diagnosed with cancer, they can find themselves overwhelmed with emotions at a time when they most need to keep their wits about them. Imagery can help people reconnect with their inner strengths and resources during such difficult times.

In cancer care there are two complementary goals of treatment. One, the usual medical goal, is to kill or remove cancer cells. The other, best called the healing goal, is to support the well-being and resistance of the patient. The goal of healing support, with nutrition, complementary medicine, or mind/body approaches, is the same -- supporting and stimulating the vitality and function of the innate healing systems of the body, mind, and spirit.

Guided imagery has become quickly and widely accepted as a useful adjunct in the treatment of people with cancer due largely to its ease of use, low cost, and rapid psychological benefits. Imagery is a psychological and medical intervention proven to improve quality of life in cancer patients, and likely as well to increase a cancer patient’s odds of recovery.


Dr. Rossman will share practical knowledge from his 35 years of using these approaches with people at every stage of the cancer journey.


(21) Chow Qigong for Individual and Planetary Health: An Essential Balance [1.00 hr CE Credit]
Presenter: Effie Poy Yew Chow, PhD, RN, LAc

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. To have a beginning understanding the essential relationship of Chow Integrated Healing System and Qigong for individual and planetary health.
  2. To be cognizant of the bio-energetic relationship of human beings to nature and the influence of one upon the other.
  3. To make changes to improve life behavior patterns which will contribute to a healthier self and planet.


Description: Qigong is an ancient science and art of health exemplifying a multi-faceted traditional system of Chinese energy, exercise and healing for the body, mind and spirit. Over 80 million people of all ages with varied conditions practice Qigong daily in China. Qigong and TCM Law of the Five Element Theories is related to guided imagery, meditation, distant healing, exercise and other forms of mind/body medicine. According to the Ancient Classics in TCM and the Law of the Five Element Theories of microcosm/macrocosm and yin/yang, you are the Universe and Universe is you.

The Qi Energy Theories demonstrations will show how we are all one- integrated, we are one another and how we are ultimately inter-connected with nature. Thus our negative stressful mind attitudes are devastating the state of our planet today. This Qi force of nature is affected by our pollution of the environment and we are the creators of Global Warming, i.e., excess hurricanes, floods, earthquakes...the Tsunamies, Katrina, etc.. It is imperative we change our behavior patterns now to save the planet for our next generation.

Dr. Chow founded and uses a versatile concept called the Chow Integrated Healing System and Qigong, a blend of modern Western practices, ancient Eastern healing arts as in TCM/Qigong, and Chow's own health principles linking the energetic body, mind, spirit and imagery with nature. Through the use of the Chow System individuals will learn to change their behavior patterns and become renewed, revitalized and replenished.



(22) The Energetics of Depression: Integrating Chinese Medicine in Guided Imagery [0.50 hrs CE Credit]


Presenter: Kathryn P. White, PhD, DHM, LAc

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Define the relationships among the body, the mind, and the life force, according to Chinese medicine.
  2. Identify emotional phenomena related to depression occurring at the levels of sensations, emotions, and temperament of their clients, along with the associated energetic vectors.
  3. Use imagery generated from Chinese medicine to help their clients overcome emotional blockages in depression.


Description: Chinese medicine classifies emotional phenomena as occurring on three levels, and depressive disorders can stem from any of these three levels as well:

(1) reflexive and instinctual responses and sensations (Gan), which reflect our relationship with the outer world (Wei Qi). Seasonal affective disorders, for example, involve our instinctual and reflective responses to weather changes.

(2) learned phenomena or emotions (Qing), which reveal the inner world of our thoughts and affects (Ying Qi). Depressions spawned from our reactions to losses of relationships or failures to meet certain goals in our lives often involve learned responses and relate to the inner world of our thoughts and emotions.

(3) inherited temperament or nature (Xing), which corresponds to our deepest sense of self, our identity, and our genetics. Some depressions involving feelings that we have lost parts of ourselves, reflecting issues with our identity.

All three types of depression require different imagery strategies for benefit, from a Chinese medical perspective. Chinese medicine also assigns energetic vectors to our emotions and our ways of handling them. Anger, for example, ascends our life energy or Qi, if expressed, potentially giving rise to headaches, red eyes, red faces, and high blood pressure, if chronic; and constrains our Qi, leading to long-term frustration, depression, and even various blockages or tumors, if suppressed or repressed.

This presentation shows how imagery generated from Chinese medicine can be used to help patients overcome emotional blockages involved in depression.



(23) Mind Body Therapies For Smoking Cessation [0.50 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Hilary Tindle, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Integrate the evidence for mind body treatments that have been studied for nicotine dependence.
  2. Identify promising mind body therapies now being studied.
  3. Prescribe recommendations for patients.


Description: About 1 in 5 adults, or 44.5 million people in the US smoke, making nicotine dependence by far our most prevalent substance use disorder. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality, accounting for more deaths than those attributable to alcohol, other drugs, homicide, suicide, motor vehicle accidents, and sexual behavior combined.

While the health benefits of quitting smoking are substantial, smoking quit rates remain low, and less than 14% of quitting smokers are able to maintain abstinence for even a single month. Quititing smoking is a major life stressor resulting mood disturbance, cognitive and psychomotor deficits, and sleep disturbance that can persist for months.

The identification of novel mind body treatments that can reduce the distress (psychological ills) and discomfort (physical ills) of quitting smoking could encourage quit attempts and increase cessation rates. Our aim is to introduce, describe, and provide theoretical rationale for a guided imagery intervention and a mindfulness-based addiction therapy intervention for nicotine dependence.



(24) Imagery, Addictions, and Pain Medicine [1.25 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: David E. Bresler, PhD, LAc


Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Use imagery dialogue to help resolve the intrapersonal conflict that resists overcoming addictions.
  2. Utilize guided imagery techniques to relieve acute and chronic pain.
  3. Carefully choose words that enhance the power of the mind/body connection.


Description: Dr. Bresler will first review the characteristics of addiction, the various factors leading to addiction, and how the brain’s pain and pleasure systems are affected by certain pain medicines, temperature changes, foods, exercise, relaxation, suggestion, and imagery.

Addiction commonly represents an intrapersonal conflict between the part of the psyche that wants to overcome the addictive dependence, and a separate part that resists this change because it will be painful and/or stressful. Dr. Bresler will present an imagery based treatment model based upon first reconciling this conflict, using nicotine and opiate addictions as examples.

He will then discuss several imagery and imagery-related suggestive techniques used to diagnose and treat acute and chronic pain. By using imagery dialogue with a patient’s pain, one can often identify etiologic factors and therapeutic possibilities undiscoverable by other means. Imagery techniques also lend themselves well to self-management, enabling patients to listen to imagery CDs as an alternative or adjunct to pain relieving medications.

The power of words to evoke images affects nearly every aspect of contemporary pain management, from interpretation of tests, giving informed consent for interventional procedures, to patients’ compliance with treatment recommendations. These images can powerfully affect the brain’s pain and pleasure systems, and Dr. Bresler will offer a variety of suggestions designed to optimize to power of the mind/body connection.




(25) A Vision of Sobriety [0.50 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: James Ellroy


Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Understand why total sobriety is required of addicts.
  2. Help clients form a positive vision of a future sober life.
  3. Explain why positive expectant faith can help to maintain long-term sobriety.


Description: James Ellroy, the award-winning novelist (author of LA Confidential and The Black Dahlia), will discuss his life-long experiences in achieving and maintaining sobriety in this interview with Dr. David Bresler

Born in Los Angeles in 1948, Mr. Ellroy’s mother was a nurse and father an accountant when he worked. His parents divorced in 1954, and he moved to El Monte with his mother, who was murdered there in 1958. His attempt to solve this still unsolved murder was the subject of his 1996 nonfiction work My Dark Places.

In his teens, he became severely addicted to alcohol and drugs which ruined his health and drove him to near schizophrenia. Fearing for his life and sanity, he joined AA and got sober. With the exception of a single stress-induced relapse, he has maintained total sobriety for over twenty years by employing the power of faith and a positive vision of sobriety, which he will share during this interview.



(26) Discoveries During Sleep: Creative Imagery in Dreams

[0.50 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Stanley Krippner, PhD
Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Apply the knowledge about creativity from this session to their own dream reports as well as those of their clients or students.
  2. Detect creative imagery in dreams and determine its usefulness in assisting their projects and endeavors in waking life.
  3. Evaluate dream imagery and its possible utility for creative problem-solving and discovering overlooked connections and insights.

Description: A survey of the literature on dream reports, both ancient and modern, reveals a surprising number of instances in which dreamers made associations between their dreams and their creative problem-solving processes in waking life.

Examples range from the military campaigns of Alexander the Great, to Biblical accounts of "divine" messages, to literary (Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"), musical (Tartini's "Devil's Trill" sonata), scientific (Loewi's discovery of neurotransmitters), mathematical (Poincare's development of Fuchsian functions), political (Tubman's "Underground Railway" route for escaping slaves), chemistry (Mendeleev's image of the periodic table of elements), and sports (Nickalus' perfection of a golf stroke).

The dreaming brain allows for unusual combinations of images to emerge, especially when wakefulness has left an incomplete gestalt that is worked over during sleep. Many writers have charted the progress of a creative project or product, starting with preparation, proceding to incubation, hence to insight, and finally to evaluation. Dreams build upon preparation and incubation, often producing an insight that can be evaluated upon awakening.

Some individuals have developed the ability to "program" their dreams for creative problem-solving, with various degrees of success. Many dream researchers have noted that dreams are inherently creative, making sense of images that to a great degree are randomly generated during the sleep-dream cycle.


(27) Vision, Creativity and Intuitiion [1.00 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Choose appropriate tools for creativity.
  2. Define vision, creativity and intuition.
  3. Design imagery appropriate for pain control.



Description: During the past 38 years, in working with over 30,000 patients, our approach has focused on retraining individuals to understand the need for a comprehensive approach to self-regulation. The integrated system includes:(1) Being in present time; (2) Positive Attitude; (3) Relaxation; (4) Sensory Awareness--9 techniques for physical balance; (5) Emotional Balance' and (6) Spiritual Attunement


(28) The Psychology of Wealth: Helping Families Talk About Money[0.50 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Dennis T. Jaffe, PhD
Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Understand how to set up a conversation about family wealth with an individual.
  2. Be able to recommend a family conversation about wealth.
  3. Understand how wealth affects relationships and identity.


Description: Money and wealth are key issues affecting one's life, personal identity, and family relationships. Families who acquire wealth often find that the conflicts that arise as a result of their fortune, or the differing expectations of different family members, can lead to conflict that can damage relationships.

The counselor comes upon wealth issues in relation to many others dimenisons of health and well-being, and needs to feel comfortable in initiating and helping them come to the surface. A new group of wealth psychologists can help individuals, and families, to define and understand their own issues in relation to their family money, and to hold conversations about the values and expetations across generations concerning family money.


(29) Awakening The Leader Within [1.00 hr CE Credit]
Presenter: Emmett Miller, MD

Objectives: Participants completing this presentation will be able to:

  1. Learn to apply the inner leader process.
  2. How to design imagery to transcend apparent limits.
  3. How to integrate the concepts of individual growth and sociocultural transformation.


Description: We are aware that the mental and emotional images we hold are primary determinants of the course of our lives and determine what we will experience – health, success, joy – or the opposite. Less apparent is that this is true for our families, communities, nation and the world as a whole. This image is dependent upon those images held by its individual members.

We have been misled, personally, and as a culture, and are beginning to awaken to how critical the global situation has become - socially, climatically, and politically. Indeed it parallels the illnesses we treat. The most popular game in town is “Victim,” for it allows us to blame, give up, or attack.

This is an illusion fostered by the powers that rule us. It is crucial that we each take the responsibility to change this by recognizing a new paradigm and the important part that every single one of us has to play. We must also access our inner values, mission, vision and power and harness the power of technology to form critical mass.

There is a direct and intimate relationship between what we think and feel as individuals, and what we think and feel at the collective level, and either you are part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.

Our goal is to create congruity between what we most deeply believe and the actions we take on a daily basis, and a new kind of leadership that is informed by our deeper values, motivated by a personal mission and guided towards a compelling vision. Can you hear me now?



(30) Reflections on Mind-Body Medicine [0.25 hr CE Credit]


Presenter: Andrew Weil, MD

Description: Although Dr. Weil has been in retreat writing his new book, he was kind enough to send this brief video clip sharing his ideas about mindbody and integrative medicine


<< PREVIOUS PAGE • NEXT PAGE >>