About the Course

Clinical Training in Mind/Body Medicine provides instruction and experience in the practice of the foundational elements of mind/body medicine – relaxation response, cognitive behavioral strategies, movement, nutrition, and belief – both for integration into individual practice and as a basis for establishment of a mind/body clinical program.

Through a combination of didactic presentations and experiential learning, participants will learn how to incorporate mind/body interventions in a limited office visit and how to develop the most effective model of behavior: group-based learning.

Course components include:

SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE

• Scientific rationale for the mind/body connection
• Basic scientific and clinical research update
• Physiology of the stress response and its link to chronic illness
• Psychoneuroimmunology and the relaxation response

CLINICAL PRACTICE

• Instruction in methods of eliciting the relaxation response
• Skills training in the cognitive/behavioral approach
• Yoga, exercise, and movement as healing tools
• Teaching healthy lifestyle behaviors, including proper nutrition
• Nurturing belief systems through empathy and contemplation

CLINIC MODEL

Introduction to disease-specific self-care programs, selected from:

• Medical symptom reduction
• Cancer
• Cardiac wellness
• HIV/AIDS
• Insomnia
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Chronic pain
• Infertility
• Perimenopause/menopause
• Design and facilitation of a group-based model