INTEGRATED MIND-BODY APPROACHES

These approaches are based on the central tenet that the mind and the body operate together.

Our thoughts and emotions are powerful forces that influence every aspect of our lives and are a major causative factor in either health or disease of our body and mind. Whether we realize it or not our conscious and unconscious beliefs and feelings powerfully affect our physical bodies, as well as the conditions we experience in the world around us.

For instance, cancer is seen as a result of a compromised immune system that fails to do its job. While the immune system is often under attack from environmental factors, it is also compromised by psychological and emotional factors. The goals of these approaches are to increase the functioning of the patient’s immune system and to help create a mind-body totality that does not foster or support the growth of cancerous cells.

Patients are invited to take more “response-ability” for understanding how their thoughts, emotions and life styles affects their health and well being. With that “response-ability” comes the capacity to make changes in thinking, emotion, belief and behavior that can increase quality of life and increase the probability of overcoming or better managing the disease.

These include:

1. Thoughts and beliefs of self-attack and low self worth.
2. Failing to identify and protect one’s own boundaries and identity. In other words, not being able to say “no” to what you do not want, and saying “yes” to what you do want.
3. Holding in and/or turning against the self negative emotions such as guilt, anger, fear and grief.
4. Failing to identify and engage in activities that make life enjoyable.
5. Unconscious Negative Beliefs (e.g. I do not deserve to be healthy or overcome my illness/pain, It is not safe to be happy).

Using a combination of psychotherapy, imagery, hypnosis, kinesology and meridian based energy work, patients are assisted to:

1. Identify and resolve unconscious negative beliefs that can block healing.
2. Resolve old issues that continue to impair the immune system's ability to function properly.
3. Make better choices with current life issues.
4. Teach life-energy enhancing practices such as meditation, imagery or self-administered meridian therapy.

PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL APPROACHES

A life threatening or chronic illness usually creates some type of spiritual crisis. Common themes include feeling punished or abandoned by God. Needless to say these beliefs are highly stressful to the patient, whether they are conscious or unconscious.

Psycho-spiritually focused therapy can be done on several dimensions. First, patients simply need a place where they can feel safe to talk about these concerns. Second, patients often need to feel connected to a loving and supportive higher power. Third, even though the diagnosis may be the precipitant of a spiritual crisis, in many cases the patient has long standing issues of disconnection from spirit where she feels worthless, undeserving, abandoned or punished. As with the issues described above, patients wanting to maximize their ability to recover can not afford to have these negative beliefs. Patients are helped to overcome their negative beliefs and to replace them with positive connections to spiritual energy.

RESPECTING THE PATIENT’S LEVEL OF NEED AND OPENESS

Different people are open to different approaches. Not everyone will be open to all of these avenues of treatment. This is understandable and is always respected. Patients are invited to work at the level in which they are comfortable for that given moment in time.