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Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Counseling, Meditation Classes and Coaching |
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[Go to www.umassmed.edu/cfm/srp for more information] |
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Stress has an underlying theme of "wanting things to be different from how they are right now..." |
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But, imagine, that just for this moment, there is no immediate pressure to change anything...Without any pressure to change things; it becomes possible to relax a little bit into what is. Thus, a kind of peace-of-mind is attained, at least for this moment.
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And from this place it is possible to experience more fully the richness of the moment we are having right now, as well as make space for seeing things more clearly, as they are right now. This is what mindfulness practice is about. Through the practice of body/mind awareness exercises we begin to see and experience ourselves from a different frame of reference than we are used to~~moving from an automatic-pilot mode of functioning to a moment-to-moment awareness with a non-judgmental observing quality.
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From this frame of reference~in the Now~we can actually be present in the experience of our life, as it is. And it is from this space of mindful awareness that possibilities for new choices arise...Thus, new degrees of freedom begin to emerge...
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These practical, purposeful classes teach ways to be more mindful of our bodies, thoughts, emotions, and life experiences in the present moment. These practices help us become more focused, insightful, and relaxed participants in our lives, allowing for greater clarity, wisdom, and well-being.
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Week 1: Experiencing The Breath: Being Present in the Now
Week 2: Experiencing The Body: The Body Scan
Week 3: Experiencing The Mind: Sitting Meditation
Week 4: Experiencing The Body/Mind Connection: Gentle Yoga
Week 5:
Experiencing Everything as Meditation: Walking Meditation
Week 6:
Establishing Your Own Meditation Practice: Sense-able Living |
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Research has found that other benefits include: |
- An increased ability to relax for greater physical health and well-being
- Reductions in pain levels and enhanced ability to cope with pain that may not go away
- An increased ability to handle stressful, challenging situations for greater control and peace of mind
- An increased ability to focus and concentrate for greater productivity and creativity
- Increased energy and enthusiasm for greater joy and connection with life
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The classes are modeled after the MBSR classes founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. It is the oldest and largest medical center-based stress reduction program in the United States.
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Training
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| The DBT skills training classes are designed mainly for clients who are dealing with self-harming behaviors and/or have difficulty with regulating emotions. While some clients with these behaviors meet criteria for borderline personality disorder, research has demonstrated that DBT skills training classes are also useful for clients with other mental health challenges as well—including anxiety, depression, anger management, impulse-control, addiction, bipolar, and eating disorders. |
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DBT Therapy is oriented around the validation of the clients’ perspective of their emotional pain and assisting the client to differentiate acceptance of their pain from approval of it. By accepting our emotional condition as it is in the moment, we can be better prepared to engage in change. This relationship between acceptance and change strategies is the fundamental “dialectic” that resulted in the treatment’s name. |
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| The classes will help you develop: |
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- Mindfulness Skills: to increase awareness of the present moment so you can learn how to experience yourself—your thoughts, body and emotions—in each moment
- Distress Tolerance Skills: to tolerate and survive crises by learning to accept life as it is in the moment
- Emotional Regulation Skills: to recognize and influence the emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express these emotions
- Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills: to work on the relationships in our lives; the relationships with one’s self and others
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The format for the DBT skills training classes includes two weeks practice on each skill ~ with mindfulness practice included in all of the weeks. This format allows clients who are unable to make a long-term commitment to DBT classes/therapy (for financial reasons or otherwise) to receive the basic DBT skills training practice for at least 8 weeks. Ongoing DBT therapy is also available.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
(EMDR) Therapy
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| Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful method of psychotherapy that works on the physiological and emotional bases of problems to facilitate change. Although EMDR started out as a treatment for trauma (and has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma), it is now being applied to a number of conditions including phobias, chronic pain, and grief. To date, EMDR has helped an estimated two million people of all ages relieve many types of psychological stress. |
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How does EMDR work? |
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Exactly how EMDR works is not really known. We do know from memory and brain research that painful or traumatic experiences are stored in a different part of the brain than pleasant or neutral ones. Normally, if we're troubled by something, we think about it, talk about it, perhaps dream about it and eventually we are able to come to some sort of adaptive resolution. We find a way to come to terms with it in a healthy way, enabling us to put it behind us. When we experience a trauma or very painful event, something happens that interrupts this process. Instead, the traumatic material gets 'stuck' in the brain and remains in its original form, with the same thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, smells and sounds. It's as though it is sealed off from the healthy, functioning brain. That's why it's not uncommon for a person who's had years of talk therapy to find that they still hurt and haven't changed as much as they had hoped. This is because the dysfunctionally stored material still has not been processed. |
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What researchers think is that EMDR in some way is able to 'nudge' that material so that it neurologically reconnects with the healthy brain and then is reprocessed and integrated at an accelerated speed. Once normal information processing is resumed, following a successful EMDR session, a person no longer relives the images, sounds, and feelings when the event is brought to mind. You still remember what happened, but it is less upsetting. The most popular theory as to how this happens is that EMDR creates brain activity that is similar to that which occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. And it's during this REM phase (when we dream) that we resolve conflicts, process information and consolidate learning and memory. By creating similar brain activity, while thinking about a painful event, it appears that EMDR is able to help the brain finally process the 'stuck' material, enabling the person to arrive at an adaptive solution. The painful event or trauma becomes an unfortunate incident but no longer produces the emotional pain that it did before. |
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What conditions are treated by EMDR?
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EMDR has been most powerful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major trauma such as that experienced by combat veterans, survivors of natural disasters, and victims of violent crime. However, its uses also include “small t” traumas: events that happen in everyone’s lives, but which leave us with the inability to reprocess negative beliefs about ourselves. These include being teased in school, ridiculed by a parent, or getting lost as a child in a public place. EMDR is widely used to treat the following problems: |
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- depression
- childhood trauma
- physical abuse
- sexual abuse
- obsessive-compulsive disorders
- complicated grief
- trauma from car accidents
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- episodic rage
- panic attacks
- low self-esteem
- relationship problems
- performance anxiety
- insomnia
- chronic pain
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What are some reported benefits of EMDR? |
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The main benefit of EMDR is the speed at which deep-seated problems can be resolved. One study showed that “EMDR was twice as effective in half the amount of time of standard traditional psychotherapeutic care.”
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Unlike many “talk” therapies, EMDR does not require the client to go into detail about the distressing events of the past. While communicating and establishing trust with the therapist is essential, what seems to be equally important to the process is the client registering the event and holding the recall within during the eye movement sessions and the reprocessing. There is no need to analyze the trauma for long periods of time.
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EMDR is a multi-faceted approach, not limited to cognitive, behavioral, or somatic methods, but a synthesis of all three and more. The fact that it simultaneously works on mind, body, and emotions may account for its success in taking mere intellectual understanding of the origins of a problem (e.g. “I know I have guilt over killing in the war”) to a holistic resolution involving a bodily release, where post-traumatic symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and anger outbursts clear up.
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Since all therapies in some way involve getting to the roots of psychological problems, it is a benefit of EMDR that the trauma that must be re-experienced during treatment is relatively short-lived. Cognitive reprocessing occurs simultaneously with memory recall.
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