MindBody Medicine

I attended this morning a lecture on "MindBody Medicine" by Dr. David Spiegel of the Stanford University. Three things I learned, aside from an exercise of self-hypnosis which made me aware of an issue that is not within my awareness at present. First, he said that "chronic" illness is different from terminal illness. That patients must be active participants in their healing process. For instance, a cancer patient does not necessarily die from the cancer cells but from other illness such as depression and other complications. Second, one should be more watchful of a "recovering" depressed person because she or he has more energy to go back to that former state of depression. Third, that when you talk with them let them see the different perspectives of the problem (life perspective approach). Fourth, that one way to manage bipolars is to let them manage their thinking. That can be done by teaching them how to do self-hypnosis.

Dr. Spiegel noted that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis because it pertains to highly focused attention. What surprised me even more was the result when he gave us a simple self-hypnosis exercise called "screening technique". He asked us to look up the ceiling and while looking up slowly close one's eyes and then he asked us to imagine that we are floating either in space or in a favorite place we want to be. Then, at the right side of the screen, we will imagine the person or the event or the thing that makes us stress. Suddenly, I saw our present coordinator. I was also shocked that she was causing a stress in my life. Then, we were instructed that at the right scree we can imagine how to address the left side of the screen. The image even surprised me more, I was also a little bit anxious about it. I saw swirling clouds that means imminent "typhoon" so what I did was to place my hands on the white sand. Then, we were instructed to look up again the ceiling and go back to our present reality at the count of three. I do want to interpret on the images that I saw... I would rather conduct a ritual to bury it or bless it to make that negative energy into a positive one...hope I will succeed.