Unit 5

1.      During contemplative practice we progressively experience the three levels of what Dacher calls the subtle mind: witnessing, calm-abiding, and unity consciousness (Dacher, 2006). The first step is toward gaining control or calming down the mind to a witnessing consciousness. With mental control you will obtain a still mind of calm abiding, which will over time evolve into unity consciousness.

 

Learning to practice witnessing the mind on a regular basis will bring calm within your spirit. Taking time to let the mind wonder without paying or giving it much attention allows for the mind to relax and just watch. Through the practice your mind will become still and stable, leaving you able to have a sense of knowing rather than confusion. Intention replace reactivity, wisdom replaces confusion (Dacher, 2006).

 

With time and practice, we learn that it is a natural transition from witnessing consciousness to calm abiding to unity consciousness. When we finally stop clinging to the movements of our mind, we discover that what we feared to be emptiness is actually our essence-a still mind and open heart that is free, at ease, and one with all existence (Dacher, 2006).

 

An example of an exercise/activity to help create greater wellness is the physical activity of walking. Being active with our body is important to keeping it functional. Maintaining a good weight, getting exercise, proper sleep are all areas of the physical body that need daily attention. The idea of a holistic wellness approach means taking care of the body by treating how it should be treated, with kindness and care.

 

An example of what one can do for their psychological wellness would be meditation or prayer. Using guided imagery or other forms of meditation will help clear away stress, anxiety, while fostering calm, peace, and clarity. The holistic approach to wellness includes the mind, body, and spirit, meaning our psychological health is just as important as our physical health.

 

Using meditation and prayer to assist in maintaining spiritual wellness has always been helpful to me. Having a belief in a higher power or an understanding of how the universe has an effect on our being is important. The holistic wellness benefit to having a healthy spiritual life will be evident in how we cope with life

 

 

 

2.      How well your spirituality helps you understand and deal with all aspects of life may have important implications for health. Spirituality and religions provide methods of coping, and struggles can help foster a transformation or personal growth. Research shows, however, that spiritual struggle is a strong predictor of declining physical and mental health. Perhaps, then, a struggle is like a “fork in the road,” the pathway one takes, either toward growth or decline.

 

When faced with life struggles, spirituality can be the pathway one takes toward growth. Having a strong spiritual foundation can provide the strength needed during time of struggle and when other more simplistic coping skills do not seem to provide enough support. Having a spiritual practice can be the answer.

 

3.      Being able to forgive, grateful, and love unconditionally are all key to being spiritually and physically healthy. Carrying around negative feelings has been shown to suppress the immune system and cause depression, both of which can lead to illness and even death.

 

Unit 4

1.    What are the four reasons for exploring psychospiritual flourishing?       (Dacher p. 59) Describe each reason. Why are they important considerations for health and wellness professionals?

1. Most underdeveloped aspect of human life – We spend so much time and energy developing our physical lives, whether it be our intellect, our relationships, careers, etc., we often forget that it is important to develop our inner lives.
2. It is the main source of mental anguish – Often we are so detached from our emotional wellness that we are unable to see warning signs, leading to illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and anger-management issues.
3. It is the area that will most likely help develop other aspects of our lives more fully – A person with a fully developed inner life will be much more at peace, and the bright light will shine from within, enriching every other aspect of their lives, and often the lives of those they choose to surround themselves with.
4. The inner-self needs to be considered a gift and an opportunity for us to share – In this life, we are more than what we can do or give materially to others; often our greatest gift to others is simply being a good, caring, loving person. This can only come from first giving yourself the gift of a full, rich, developed inner self.

As a health and wellness professional this is important in understanding, because this can be the foundation of understanding an individual and gaining insight. Building and developing from the inside at the inner core of a person will shine through to the outside. For an individual to portray strong and healthy outside behavior, working from the inside first is necessary (Dacher M.D., 2006, p.59).

2.    What are Dacher’s four levels of psychospiritual development? Describe each. How have you seen these manifested in your life?

The four levels of psychospiritual development affect each other in order starting with primal unity, psychological life, spiritual life, and conscious unity. Primal unity is in comparison to how an infant would view the world around them. This is a very basic and instinctual sense of viewing one’s surroundings. Psychological life is also called “witnessing consciousness”. This is learning from what we see and our reactions to new experiences. I would look at this development as simply growing up. This is when an individual learns from their mistakes and makes the best choices out of their experiences. Spiritual life is a development deeper and more mature than psychological life. Spiritual life takes the experiences and knowledge gained within the psychological life development and refines them. This development allows for reflection and growth within the mind, body, and spirit. This is when an individual is most confident and at peace with who them are. This is the phase in life that I feel that I am within. I have much more to learn and many more experiences to go through. Although with that said I have gone through many experiences that I have reflected on and grow from as well. The last developmental phase is conscious unity. This phase is awareness of oneself and of all others. Having developed a mature outlook on life, this can allow for continued improvement on oneself and on others surrounding (Dacher M.D., 2006, p.61-2).

 

3.    Describe the Randolph Byrd prayer study (p.317). Why is it considered a landmark study in the correlation between spiritual practices and healing?

In 1988, a prayer study was conducted by a physician named Randolph Byrd. Byrd, a cardiologist at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, carried out a double blind study in which random patients from the coronary unit participated. The control group was asked to pray as a part of the study. They were not directed to pray continuously, but they were informed that intercessory prayer was offered to them outside of the hospital. The results had shown that there were fewer deaths from the control group or the prayer group. This can be considered a landmark study in regards to spiritual insight and healing, due to the fact that a correlation has been discovered. Becoming spiritual can develop positive feelings within an individual, which from other studies has proven to positively affect physical aspects as a result (Schlitz & Amorok & Micozzi, 2005, p.317).

4.    What is meant by the statement;” stress is not what you do, it is how you react to what you do.” (Ornish, p. 307) How it can be applied in your life?

“Stress is not just what you do, it’s how you react to what you do” (Schlitz et al., 2005, p.307). This is such a great phrase to keep in mind when you begin to feel stressed. There are particular situations that I am involved in and become stressed out, especially being a single parent of three young boys and with my fiancé being deployed. What does stressing help? It does not help anything. By learning tools to aide in stress management, this can set people apart in similar situations that. Counting to ten, breathing exercises, disconnecting from a stressful situation are all ways in which stress can be handled.

5.    Describe the studies conducted by Dean Ornish (p.305) published in the American Journal of the American Medical Association. What important findings occurred related to mind-body-spirit wellness and heart disease?

The studies conducted by Dean Ornish included developing a control group of involving diet, stress management, and other lifestyle changes. This randomized control group studied heart patients. Those involved in the control group improved in comparison to the group that did not incorporate these changes (Schlitz et al., 2005, p.305). I found this study quite amazing. All of these studies that we are reading about that show improvements physically when there are changes put in place mentally or spiritually cease to amaze me. There is an interconnection among the mind, body, and spirit.

Unit 3

Describe the five guiding principles of the integral approach to healing.

1.      Holistic - a concept in medical practice upholding that all aspects of people's needs including: - psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly, should be taken into account and seen as a whole.

2.      Evolutionary - we can always step up to a higher level of development that embraces our previous knowledge and capacity and at the same time transcends their limitations. With each step up, we acquire a more profound, accurate, and comprehensive knowledge of ourselves and our life. This shift is accompanied by new priorities, resources, and capacities.

3.      Intentional - Intention is the mental ability to consciously choose and act. Without intention, we cannot direct our life.

4.      Person-Centered - focus on the individual—on you and me. That means removing professionals and their therapies and remedies from the center of the healing process. Health and healing must address the needs of the individual.

5.      Dynamic - respect and concern for the dynamic and vital movement of our life. We should always consider the circumstances of today and act accordingly.

 

According to Dacher (Chapter 4), what is the final goal of integral healing? Describe how it relates to your profession.

The final goal of integral healing is human flourishing—a profound, hardy, and sustained health, happiness, and wholeness. As a medical assistant, part of my job will be to ensure that my patients have the tools to stay healthy, and to experience what it means to be truly healthy. Learning integral healing, and having the ability to pass on my knowledge to my patients, will allow others to experience abundant health, and life on a dynamic level, physically, spiritually, and mentally.

 

Unit 2

1)      The body creates a series of natural body proteins called neuropeptides; and by using our mind through mental imagery, for example, we can produce these proteins which would in turn alter our physiology. The conclusion, “A mental event can lead to a physical event.” These studies were very important to the field of health and wellness because it opened the doors for inner healing. If one can learn to change their inner negativity into positive, they could transform their body into a healthier one.

2)      The 1998 Schnall study focused on two groups of mid-level managers working under high stress: one group was identified as suffering from “job strain” and the other was not. The first group had developed feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and mental stress which eventually lead to physical symptoms of chronic hypertension and an enlarged heart. The second group, whose individuals did not cultivate the same negative feelings, found their inner strength to control their rising stress levels and did not develop physical symptoms related to the stress of their job. This research is important to me as every job in life is stressful, whether it is being a mother, a wife, a student, or a medical assistant. Life is not easy, so it is important to learn to deal with stress rather than letting affect my daily life. Learning to pull myself up when life seems to have me down will be beneficial, and it is an important lesson to pass on to my children.

3)      Different avenues to healing must be available at any time in order to continue one’s healing, no matter how much their needs change or not. The five  characteristics of Aesclepian Healing are:

ⁱ⁾         Holistic: this encompasses the four aspects of human life which are psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, and worldly.

ⁱⁱ⁾        Evolutionary: this was the encouragement of individuals to evolve and grow our knowledge, resources, and capacities in order to ascend into a new level of existence.

ⁱⁱⁱ⁾      Intentional: this means that we can be healed by carrying the intention for everything we do and say so that we own our life and lifestyle in hopes that we can attain the goals and priorities we set out for ourselves.

^iv)       Person-centered: Aesclepian healing was person-centered which meant that healing was based on each individual; tailored to their individual needs.

v)      Dynamic: It was understood that healing had to be a dynamic process because each person’s needs are susceptible to change. Different avenues to healing must be available at any time in order to continue one’s healing, no matter how much their needs change or not.

4)      Transpersonal psychology integrates both personal psychology and psychiatry, then adds higher aspects of human experience which transcend the ordinary; experiences that include those around them. Transpersonal Psychology might loosely be called the psychology of spirituality and of those areas of the human mind which search for higher meanings in life, and which move beyond the limited boundaries of the ego to access an enhanced capacity for wisdom, creativity, unconditional love and compassion. It honors the existence of transpersonal experiences, and is concerned with their meaning for the individual and with their effect upon behavior. This is an important aspect of being a medical assistant because a medical assistant should be aware of how a patient is doing spiritually as well as physically, as one greatly affects the other.

 

 

5)      The research revealed that prayer and religious involvement yields healthier patient outcome versus patients not involved in religious practices. Such outcomes were the healing of disease and restored. This information is critical for health and wellness professionals when dealing with religious persons and seeing a tremendous positive outcome in their health. If they are dealing with negative individuals who do not hold a higher awareness in their life, giving them help to become more spiritually educated could be the push they need to help heal them. Being dependent on Western medicine and healing only caters to the biological functions of the human, so if one is educated on the other aspects of holistic healing, the faster one can get onto the road to recovery in all aspects of health.

 

Unit 1

1.      Ken Wilbur’s Theory of Integral Medicine seeks a synthesis of the best of premodern, modern, and postmodern reality, and is often portrayed as his “theory of everything”. It offers an approach to bring together already existing separate models in various healthcare fields. Integral Theory is different from Western health professions in that Western medicine focuses primarily on curing illness and diseases whereas integral healing focuses on the body as whole, including spirituality, prevention,  and the root causes of illness.

 

2.      The four areas of focus within the integral healing model are:

·        Individual interior accounts (upper-left quadrant) include Freudian psychoanalysis, which interprets people's interior experiences and focuses on "I"

·        Interior plural accounts (lower-left) include Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics which seeks to interpret the collective consciousness of a society, or plurality of people and focuses on "We"

·        Exterior individual accounts (upper-right) include B. F. Skinner's behaviorism, which limits itself to the observation of the behavior of organisms and treats the internal experience, decision making or volition of the subject as a black box, and which with the fourth perspective emphasizes the subject as a specimen to examine, or "It".

·        Exterior plural accounts (lower-right) include Marxist economic theory which focuses upon the behavior of a society (ie a plurality of people) as functional entities seen from outside.

 

3.      An activity that would foster greater physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness would be yoga. Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline that helps a person alleviate health problems, reduce stress and make the spine supple. Yoga is also used as a complete exercise program and physical therapy routine.