Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/77400
BODYWORK, MOVEMENT, AND MENTAL HEALTH Perry's work is widely known, and the Child Trauma Academy is now involved in numerous public- private partnerships in traditional mental health and medical settings, as well as in child protective services and juvenile justice systems. The academy has created assessment protocols and processes for various organizations and helps with evaluation and intervention strategies. Examples of its programs include Community Building, Violence Prevention, Safe from the Start, Keep the Cool in School, Early Childhood Development, and KidZonePhiladelphia. THE MIND-BODY APPROACH Psychiatrist James Gordon, a clinical professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at Georgetown Medical School, promotes another integrative mental health model. His work with clients, as well as with his own physical ailments and depression, led to him founding The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, DC, in 1991. He considers the mind-body connection crucial to health and healing, and the center teaches that skills evoking this connection can be applied in a myriad of settings to address illness, as well as depression, anxiety, or trauma. Author of Manifesto for a New Medicine and Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey out of Depression, Gordon discovered the importance of movement, meditation, nutrition, bodywork, and self-expression in his own life and emphasizes it in his work with his patients and in the programming of the center. Gordon's center trains practitioners to incorporate mind-body approaches in their work. Practitioners, including "People are searching for ways to feel better. It empowers them to become a partner in their health." Kathy Farah, a family practitioner with Mayo Health Systems Medicine Clinic in Minneapolis, attended The Center for Mind-Body Medicine professional training in 1998 to learn a new approach for her work. "People kept coming back to me with a lot of the same issues, and medications weren't always fixing things," she says. "I felt that there had to be more; I thought we could get to the root cause. I value a holistic approach—I ask what is going on with this person. It isn't just what is happening in the body; it is what is happening in the mind, around them, in their families, jobs or school, in their community. I found that stress—the environment and our internal stress— impacts our physical and mental well- being, and I began to explore this issue for myself, as well as [for] patients. I began to explore ways to promote health, rather than just cure disease." Farah learned craniosacral physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, bodyworkers, and others, study a model for treatment that puts self-help first, movement and bodywork next, and surgery and medication last. They learn a new concept of care that focuses on self-care, mind-body awareness, structural and energetic adjustment, and nutrition, with medication and surgery as last resorts. They become educators of mind-body skills, such as basic meditation, movement exercises, and nutrition principles. Kathy Farah, a family practitioner with Mayo Health Systems, Red Cedar Medical Center in Glenwood City, Wisconsin, and Children's Integrative therapy, which gave her a sense of being "a hands-on doctor," she says. In addition, training she received at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine taught her many other approaches, such as imagery, meditation, simple biofeedback, relaxation breathing, movement, yoga, and biofeedback. "I practice these techniques myself, which helps me to teach others." Then she began to practice an approach embracing all these modalities. Farah now uses craniosacral therapy for pain syndrome, headaches, or in instances when a child is not settled enough to do other techniques. She says the hands-on practice calms their nervous systems so they get to a balanced place. She uses shaking and dancing in groups for kids and adults and holds "stress- buster" workshops for patients. She recommends massage often, stressing the need for stress reduction and the importance of massage for reducing anxiety, improving sleep, helping with cancer-related symptoms, and alleviating headache and back pain. 52 massage & bodywork march/april 2011