Alternatives for Mental Health Workers and their Clients 8 comments

20 Jun 2007 @ 13:17, by Gerald Vest Meditation Proves to Relieve Stress- "Mindfulness requires keen observation, but it must be free from interpretation and passing judgment. Practicing mindfulness develops our usual awarenss to its most subtle level; with this awareness, we can protect ourselves against being pulled off balance by our thoughts and emotions." (Tarthang Tulku, Openness Mind, p. 118) While discussing the mental health movement in several of my previous logs, I also introduced meditation, exercise, Martial Arts, Psychocalisthenics, massage & skillful touch, theatre, photography, art, music and dance. As we become more interested and involved in developing ourselves--our knowledge and experience of the arts and of various meditations, we can learn first hand how we can balance our body, mind and emotions while experiencing very positive feelings and healthy relationships both internally and externally. Thus, it is no surprise to learn that depression, stress and anxiety can be improved with meditation and the arts because we are 'playing a part' in the healing processes. We develop will power or determination by maintaining a daily practice of being mindful and by being engaged in many integrative health practices. For many years, while teaching full time for New Mexico State University, School of Social Work, I taught courses in Holistic Health Practice and Integrative Health Practices every semester for many disciplines that included all of these methods. Currently, I introduce these practices with the US Army, Ft. Bliss, TX as part of the "Stress Management-Health Promotion Classes," Army Community Services and annually with our course in "Social Work Practice with Elders." With meditation, the healing takes place with the patient or client participating in this experience. With drugs, the participant is not often considered important to the healing process, especially with the psychotropic drugs. I have abstracted a couple of paragraphs from this Buddhist Meditation website that demonstrates through research how effective meditation practices can be for improving our whole being and for relieving our pain and suffering. Buddhist Meditation and Health "Duangjai Gasandigun (1986) has carried out research on how our moods affect our mental health: 'the effects of meditation on mental health, measured by comparing depression in individuals between 15 and 25 years of age at the Buddhist Center for the practice of Religious Precepts (Phrathamgai Temple) in Phatumthani province. A control group of 156 people who had been instructed in meditation, had to take a test that measured their level of depression both before and after meditation. The average score showed that depression was lower after meditation. This suggests that meditation relieves stress, bringing with it the ability to analyze, understand problems and alleviate the cause of depression. It should be pointed out that all kinds of diseases are treated with medicine or with many procedures of medical science. Some treatments use our own intentions and will power, for example, psychotherapy or the practice of meditation. In such treatments, the patient must play a part in helping himself, not simply depending on medicine. These treatments demonstrate that the mind can look after itself and have an effect on the treatment of physical disease. In this way, if a patient receiving treatment is able to understand that his sickness is physical and doesn't allow it to affect his mental health, staying calm and cheerful, then that his sickness will inevitably improved and be cured more quickly. But if a patient reverts to being low-spirited, depressed or self-piteous then the sickness will be more difficult and take longer to treat. Therefore, staying calm, clear-headed and cheerful at all times is something that can protect us from disease. Phra Dhebhavedhi (Prayut Payuddho 1993 pp. 15-16) has listed all the benefits meditation can bring both to mental and to the development of the personality: will-power, determination, stability, politeness, gentleness, dexterity, liveliness, nimbleness, cheerfulness, dignity, altruism and the ability to know oneself and others truthfully. These are the attributes of a person who has achieved perfection in both in body and mind." [link] Another program in Toronto, Canada, "Meditation for Health," introduces meditation and mindfulness to treat a host of symptoms that are normally treated through drug therapies. These alternatives to medical interventions have proven to be very successful for thousands of years by many cultures--our western psychologies are only now beginning to do their research that clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of these practices. Lucynda Sykes,' MD, program as described here, introduces a health practice that is not unlike many integrative health practices throughout the US, many modeled after Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's, stress reduction clinic, the University of Massachusetts Medical center and introduced in his classic book - Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Meditation for Health is: a community-based medical program in Toronto, Canada, that teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as a self-care treatment for chronic, stress-sensitive symptoms. -a complement and support to regular medical treatment. It helps people to mobilize their own inner resources for coping and healing -- especially for symptoms no longer responding to more standard medical treatments, or for symptoms exacerbating the course of chronic disease. -an instruction in self-regulating techniques that have been shown to change the experience of symptoms, and to promote healing by reducing the stress response in mind and body. Has been useful for such conditions as: o chronic pain o anxiety and panic o sleep disturbance & insomnia o gastrointestinal distress o fatigue o headaches o job or family stress o skin disorders o high blood pressure o stress factors in heart disease" Furthermore, Dr. Sykes introduces mindfulness that is taught throughout her workshops and sessions: What is "mindfulness"? "Mindfulness" is nonjudgmental, moment to moment awareness --- our experience of being here, now. "Mindfulness can be cultivated by deciding to pay attention to things that we normally never give a moment's thought to: .... Like the sounds you are hearing right now .... .... or the feeling of your eyes as they scan this text .... .... Can you feel your next breath beginning ? ............. This is mindfulness."(Lucynda Sykes, MD)[link] These are two excellent models of health practices that can be used to replace the primary use of drugs while supporting and improving the whole health of clients, patients and participants. No diagnostic label is necessary and the participants are fully engaged in their complete process of knowing, changing and improving themselves. I suggest and recommend that mental health workers and social workers learn these various modalities so that they can be more skillful and effective. Also, they should learn to administer evaluation instruments so that what they teach can be evaluated and demonstrated in their practice. Note: The picture was taken during one of my experiential stress management classes with soldiers at Ft. Bliss, TX.

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