Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/77400
Like Castor, Farah values the empowerment patients experience when they learn mind-body skills, such as breathing and movement. "I find that if I teach a person one thing—such as deep breathing, they can do it on their own and begin to feel the change it can make for them. People are searching for ways to feel better. It empowers them to become a partner in their health." Finally, Farah asks her patients what they are doing to move their body and tells them about the physiological benefits and about the stress response. "To me, movement is health—if we are ill, we don't move. If we are depressed, it takes all our effort to walk outside our home. If we find an exercise or movement we enjoy, we feel better. I ask people what they like to do physically, and together we try to determine the best way to bring it into their lives. So, for example, I had a woman tell me she liked to dance. She reported back that she had started dancing with her granddaughter, which was good for both of them." The approaches of these centers represent part of a much bigger trend: greater recognition of the process of brain development and the need for neural stimulation are fueling a vast array of approaches nationally and internationally. These approaches reach into medicine, mental health, and education, spurred by the need for more effective ways to help abused children, traumatized veterans, kids with ADHD who struggle to learn, and even to address psychosis. Other examples of centers promoting integrative approaches and mind-body skills range from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center founded by Daniel Siegel to the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health-care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts (home of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn) to veterans' administrations applying yoga and mindfulness in treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). THE WORD IS SPREADING Whether bodywork, movement, and arts are integrated into a center's treatment approach, or are encouraged by particular practitioners working with clients, their importance is recognized, and it is spreading. This development has the potential to change the perspective of physicians and psychologists on bodywork and movement and how it can change their patients' lives. writer and yoga teacher living in Loveland, Colorado. She previously served on the staffs of Common Boundary magazine and the American Psychiatric Association, as well as two wellness centers featuring massage. Passionate about bodywork and movement arts, she enjoys teaching and writing about them whenever the opportunity arises. She can be reached at mccullo3@msn.com. Lynda McCullough is a freelance health earn CE hours at your convenience: abmp's online education center, www.abmp.com 53