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Exploring The Frontiers of
Spirituality and Healing
Is the Paradigm Changing?
The Subject Tonight is Love
The subject tonight is Love And for tomorrow night as well,
As a matter of fact I know of no better topic
For us to discuss Until we all die!
-Hafiz (Daniel Ladinsky)
Intimacy, Relationality, and Healing
Love is the Heart of Healing
• TLC reduces IL-6 and cortisol levels, while increasing HGH levels. This is part of how loving support induces and sustains the self healing mechanisms of the body.
Empathy and Healing • Over 700 pa5ents with common colds were assigned to one
of 3 groups1) no interac5on with a prac55oner; 2) a “standard” interac5on that focused on history and examina5on, but offered liGle touch or eye contact; or 3) an “enhanced interac5on” in which clinicians promoted “PEECE”: posi5ve prognosis, empathy, empowerment, connec5on, and educa5on.
• Those whose CARE score was high had reduced severity and dura5on of colds.
• High CARE scores were also associated beGer immune responses
Percep'on of empathy in the therapeu'c encounter: Effects on the common cold. David Rakel et al, Pa5ent Educa5on and Counseling; vol 85: pp 390-‐397; 2011
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Spirituality and Health • Koenig et al: Duke Center for Theology,
Spirituality and Health. Spirituality- or at least attendance at religious services- is a significant force in prevention, illness recovery, and quality of life. More than 70 peer reviewed studies over forty years.
• Elizabeth McSherry: One chaplain’s visit, which gave post-surgical hospitalized patients the opportunity to explore issues of meaning, saved an average of $4,000 and reduced pain medication (66%), calls for nurses(66%) and length of stay significantly (2 days).
“I have come to believe that it is through the establishment of a unique doctor-friend-patient relationship that most of the healing occurs, whether helped along by surgery, acupuncture, or regular doses of approved medicines.”
-Joseph Martin, MD Former Dean of HMS
The Healing Presence
Compassion and Healing Showing a film of Mother Theresa resulted in increased sIGA. After an hour levels fell to baseline, but rose again when the subjects were asked to contemplate a time when they experienced compassion and kindness.
Love and Health • Antagonist to stress • Stimulates pleasure system (increases
endorphins, endogenous cannabinoids, endogenous morphine, dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, nitric oxide)
• Decreases anxiety and depression • Enhances motivation and positive choice • Increases wellbeing • Decreases physical symptoms
Modern Mind Science Interpersonal Neurobiology
“The mind is an emergent, self-‐organizing process that shapes how energy and informa5on move across 5me. … The mind is not separate from our bodies or from our rela5onships-‐it both arises from them and regulates them.” –Daniel Siegel, MD The Mindsight Ins5tute From Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: Integra've Handbook of the Mind. WW Norton and Company, 2012
Age Standardized Death Rates per 100,000 men ages 40-69
Marital Status Nonsmokers 20+ per day smokers
Married 796 1560
Single 1074 2567
Widowed 1396 2570
Divorced 1420 2695
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Negative Emotions and
Proinflammatory Cytokines
• IL-6 overproduction results from both physical and emotional stress.
• Depression and anxiety increase IL-6 production.
• Inflammation is a commonality in heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, aging, some cancers and many chronic illnesses
Natural Killer Cells Moving On Jill Bolte-Taylor, Ph.D. www.TED.com
Exercise
• Recall a time when you experienced healing
• What feelings were associated with it? • Discuss in dyads
Spirituality and Healing
“Posi5ve Emo5ons, Spirituality, and the Prac5ce of Psychiatry” Mens Sana Monograph 2008; 6:48-‐62
George Vaillant, M.D.
“This paper proposes that eight posi5ve emo5ons: awe, love (aGachment), trust (faith), compassion, gra5tude, forgiveness, joy and hope cons5tute what we mean by spirituality. These emo5ons have been grossly ignored by psychiatry….Spirituality is not about ideas, sacred texts and theology; rather, spirituality is all about emo5on and social connec5on… Our whole concept of psychotherapy might change if clinicians set about enhancing posi5ve emo5ons rather than focusing only on nega5ve emo5ons.”
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Spirituality and Religion
“The spiritual is that realm of human experience which religion attempts to connect us to through dogma and practice. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails. Religion is a bridge to the spiritual- but the spiritual lies beyond religion. Unfortunately, in seeking the spiritual, we may become attached to the bridge rather than crossing over it.
-Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
Spirituality and Meaning
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the soul that rises with us, our life’s star, hath elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar, not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come. -Wordsworth
Present to Ourselves Emo5onal Regula5on
Requirements (Siegel) 1. Monitoring one’s affec5ve state 2. Modifying the flow of energy “in a way that
moves the system-‐ body and rela5onships-‐ toward wellbeing.”
This is called integra5on, which leads to health. This requires a fundamental change in the brain
A Basic Defini5on of Mindfulness
. Mindfulness medita5on is the inten5on to stay focused on the moment-‐to-‐moment flow of experience in an open, curious, observant state that bypasses judgment. It is a “biological process that promotes health-‐a form of brain hygiene-‐not a religion.” (Daniel Siegel, MD)
Mindfulness develops the func5on of mindsight, the capacity to witness one’s own and other’s internal state of being.
An Essen5al Aspect of Mindfulness
“Mindfulness training can be hypothesized to change an individual’s rela5onship to his or her emo5ons so that they are not viewed as fundamental cons5tuents of self, but rather as more flee5ng phenomena that appear to the self.” –Richard Davidson, Ph.D. Ibid, previous slide
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The Guest House- Rumi This being human is a guest house Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Training Compassion
Longterm meditators: Tibetan Buddhist monks, versus controls studied with fMRI •Decreased stress •Increased empathy (rt brain structures) •Increased happiness setpoint (lft prefrontal)
Lutz et al Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by
Compassion Meditation. PLoS One 3 (3): e1897, 2008
Compassion Meditation Forgiveness
Forgiveness and Health Unforgiving persons have increased: •anxiety •paranoia •narcissism and callousness toward others •psychosomatic symptoms •heart disease •incidence of physical illness •depression
Forgiveness Stats
• 94% of adults think that forgiveness is a good thing, but only 48% have tried it.
• The older we get the higher we score in forgiveness of others.
• Men prefer the terminology of letting go of grudges rather than forgiveness (Thoresen)
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Forgiveness is for the Forgiver
• “Anger is like a hot coal you pick up to throw at somebody else, but it’s you who gets burned.” -The Buddha
• “Hatred is a banquet until you realize that you are the main course.”-Herbert Benson MD
• “Letting go of a grudge is a way to return to the peaceful center inside you.” -Frederic Luskin, Ph.D.; former director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project
Forgiveness After Abuse
Emotionally abused women after relationship ends often have PTSD and affective disorders. 20 women were assigned to either forgiveness training or an alternative training in anger validation, assertiveness and interpersonal skill building.
Results
Women in the forgiveness intervention had significantly greater improvement in depression, trait anxiety, PTSD symptoms, self-esteem, forgiveness, environmental mastery, and finding meaning in suffering.
Reed, GL et al Enright RD, J. Consult and Clin Psych, Oct
2006, 920-929.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms… I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
-Mary Oliver
When Death Comes