Workshops
At the summer meeting of the American Psychological Association on August 18, 2007, Dr. Serlin chaired the panel on integrative healthcare for the whole person.
 Whole Person Healthcare
Mind/body therapies offer an exciting new healthcare frontier, addressing the complex interaction of mental, physical and spiritual dimensions of health and illness. Beginning with the introduction of the word “health” into the mission statement of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2001, an APA “Health Care for the Whole Person” Task Force in 2004 under the leadership of APA’s president Ron Levant, Tool Kits being introduced in the Practice Directorate, and a Task Force on Whole Person psychology under Laura Barbanel of Division 42 in 2006, the Whole Person approach to health care in psychology is beginning to gather evidence of the effectiveness and best practices of integrative collaborative care.
Whole Person Healthcare integrates the best evidence/based integrative therapies into a biopsychosocialspiritual model. The Whole Person approach considers the person in the context of his or her world, seeking to understand the meaning of symptoms, as well as their biological and behavioral causes. Learning Whole Person approaches is important for psychologists because the public and patients are already looking for quality professionals who can provide them.
Whole Person approaches to health deal with the whole person in his or her setting, rather than reducing illness to isolated disease entities or body parts. This panel is designed to introduce the healthcare professional into different areas of Whole Person health care, and provide a comprehensive overview of the field. It is transdisciplinary, drawing from practitioners and programs from psychology, medicine, clergy, public policy, and the arts. It lays a foundation of definitions and practices of integrative health care for the 21st century. It helps practitioners develop protocols and assess efficacy of alternative practices, emphasizes the relevance of integrative health care for the marginalized population, and discusses risk prevention, policy and issues of patient protection.
A Whole Person approach to health care also focuses on issues of meaning in illness, the role of spirituality, health and mental health, chaplaincy and pastoral care, and research and practice in yoga, meditation, imagery, QiGong, prayer, ritual, and death and dying. Finally, a Whole Person approach introduces the practitioner to the history and practices of art and health care throughout the ages. It presents the history of art and health in ancient healing rituals, shows the relevance of rituals in the growing number of international contemporary Art in Health programs, and discusses applications of art, music, dance, drama and poetry therapy programs at the bedside, in groups, and in cross-cultural conflict.
The Year of the Whole Person provides a timely window for a much-needed collaboration among health care professionals. This collaboration can bring together the best practices from the science and art of psychology and medicine for a comprehensive treatment approach. The current unsustainable healthcare system urgently needs a more efficient utilization of services; the underserved patients are demanding that their healthcare professionals talk to each and coordinate quality traditional and complementary practices, and healthcare professionals can rediscover their modern yet ancient roles as healers of the mind, body, and spirit.
Chair: Ilene A. Serlin, Ph.D, Union Street Health Associates, Inc.
1. Panel Presenter: Russ Newman, Ph.D, JD, Director, APA Practice Directorate
Tool Kits for the Whole Person
Health care practices are expanding from traditional medical settings into new areas such as rehabilitation, wellness programs, and community education, offering practitioners new opportunities and challenges. These developments are consistent with a variety of recent trends within psychology, such as the addition of the word “health” into the mission statement of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2001, and the “Year of the Whole Person ” (Serlin, 2001-2). An APA “Health Care for the Whole Person” Task Force in 2004, under the leadership of APA’s president Ron Levant, gathered evidence of the effectiveness and best practices of integrative collaborative care, and a Task Force on Health Care was organized by Division 42 in 2006 under President Laura Barbanel.
The Practice Directorate of the APA has begun to integrate new attention to areas of psychology like resiliency, positive psychology, coaching and wellness to teach practitioners how to bring these Whole Person approaches into their own practices. While some psychologists will choose to affiliate with medical settings and work on healthcare teams, others may want to bring integrative practices into their own private offices. This presentation will discuss efforts currently underway to address the crisis in healthcare by building on trends in Whole Person approaches and making these Tool Kits available to APA’s practitioners.
2. Panel Presenter: David Spiegel, MD, Medical Director
Integrative Healthcare at Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center
Health care practices are expanding from traditional medical settings into new areas such as rehabilitation, wellness programs, and community education, offering practitioners new opportunities and challenges. These developments are consistent with a variety of recent trends within psychology, such as the addition of the word “health” into the mission statement of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2001, and the “Year of the Whole Person ” (Serlin, 2001-2). The Practice Directorate of the APA has begun to integrate new attention to areas of psychology like resiliency, positive psychology, coaching and wellness to teach practitioners how to bring these Whole Person approaches into their own practices. An APA “Health Care for the Whole Person” Task Force in 2004, under the leadership of APA’s president Ron Levant, gathered evidence of the effectiveness and best practices of integrative collaborative care, and a Task Force on Health Care was organized by Division 42 in 2006 under President Laura Barbanel.
This presentation describes the program at the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center as a model for biobehavioral and medical healthcare professional collaboration.
3. Panel Presenter: Pat De Leon, Ph.D, Past-President APA
Envisioning Healthcare for the 21st Century
Mind/body therapies offer an exciting new health care frontier. This series introduces the public, health care professionals, and students to this future. Mind/body therapies address the complex interaction of mental, physical, and spiritual dimensions of health and illness. Because these therapies deal with the whole person in his or her setting, rather than in terms of isolated disease entities or body parts, this integrative approach is being referred to as “Whole Person Health Care.” Each volume of this series demonstrates the application of mind/body therapies in a variety of contexts, showing their relevance across a wide range of settings and disciplines. Health care practices are expanding from traditional medical settings into new areas such as rehabilitation, wellness programs, and community education, offering practitioners new opportunities and challenges.
This presentation will focus on a policy perspective on healthcare in the 21st Century, as well as the place of psychology in an integrative model.
4. Panel Presenter: Marie A. DiCowden, Ph.D
Treating the Whole Person
This presentation will focus on a model that combines physical, psychological and spiritual protocols in rehabilitation and overall healthcare. Based upon the Biscayne Institutes of Health & Living, Inc., a HealthCare Community©, the philosophical basis for combining traditional medical and psychological approaches with complementary approaches will be presented. The HealthCare Community© model, which has been providing services for over 17 years will be used to illustrate both the administrative and clinical feasibility for providing an integrative approach to healthcare. The historical basis for this combined approach will be reviewed. Protocols for pediatric and adult patients with both emotional and physical disabilities will be presented.
Research data, as well as case illustrations of protocols, will demonstrate the method and efficacy of combining traditional rehabilitation with non-traditional approaches. Traditional methods include neuropsychological and psychological assessment and treatment, along with speech, physical and occupational therapy, applied in currently accepted healthcare delivery. Non-traditional treatments include the application of visual and music arts to the healing process; the use of music and drumming to change brain waves of neurologically impaired individuals; relaxation exercises and acupuncture in combined protocols to address pain management; mind awakening exercises, e.g., yoga, visualization, and “journeying” in treatment of disabled children; and mindfulness meditation used to address physical and psychological impairments for both adults and children.
An overview of how this model can be adapted for other institutions and private practice will be addressed.
5. Panel Presenter: Bruce Feldstein, MD
Spirituality and Health
There is strong evidence in the medical literature of the relationship between spirituality and health and the importance of spiritual care (Anandarajah and Hight, 2001, January 2). As a result of illness or trauma and its treatment, including hospitalization, patients, families as well as healthcare providers will encounter various degrees of suffering such as alienation, anger, anxiety, guilt, indecision, turmoil, intrusiveness, anguish, questioning, hopelessness, confusion, fear, and grief (Katonah, 1985). They can also experience profound blessing, awe, appreciation, gratitude, a sense of connection and belonging, vision, meaning and inspiration.
Spiritual care involves recognizing and responding to these multiple expressions of spirituality. Spiritual care is everyone’s job—the patient, their family and friends, members of the health care team, as well as chaplains and clergy (Mohrmann, 1995). There are many crucial moments in healthcare that call for a spiritual presence and response—a listening ear, a gentle touch, a compassionate word and sometimes a blessing or prayer. So often the physician or nurse or other health care provider is the one who is available. It is not only appropriate but sometimes necessary for them to provide a spiritual response (Feldstein, 2001). And yet, while spiritual care may be everyone’s job, it is not everyone’s primary role. Furthermore, physicians, nurses and healthcare workers can themselves be overwhelmed and unprepared to respond to these needs.
In the healthcare setting, it is the primary role of the healthcare chaplain to provide for the spiritual care of patients, families and staff. This presentation will demonstrate the role of the chaplain who works closely with others in a health care team to provide integrative treatment in a clinical setting.
6. Panel Presenter: Kirwan Rockefeller, Ph.D
Imagery: Multiple Modalities
Imagery has its roots in ancient philosophical and spiritual practice. However, imagery has become a central part of preventive and traditional Western medicine in the past 20 years. Psychologists can be trained in basic imagery techniques and applications. And more and more therapists are employing such approaches. Research has demonstrated the efficacy of imagery, especially in the treatment and rehabilitation of cancer patients.
Since imagery is verbal, visual and kinesthetic, this presentation will introduce the audience to the theory, clinical case examples and hands-on training in multi-modal approaches to imagery.
The first section of this presentation will present theories of multiple intelligence as well as research and case examples of verbal, visual and kinesthetic images. The second section will demonstrate Tool Kits that teach clinical applications of multi-modal approaches to imagery using case studies and experiential training.
Overall, this presentation will give participants an opportunity to experience innovative clinical skills that build upon psychologists’ role as agents of social change. The focus of non-traditional approaches, e.g. imagery, will be discussed in improving the lives of the disenfranchised; contributing to healthy communities through prevention and treatment; illustrating an emerging role of psychologists in combining mental health and healthcare; demonstrating best practices in education and training; developing specific strategies for working with diverse populations; and showing the many roles of culture and the arts in psychology and rehabilitation.
7. Panel Presenter: John Graham-Pole, MD
Art and Health
The quickly expanding field of arts medicine and the arts therapies is finding an essential place in three major areas of modern Western healthcare: (a) Clinical: the care of patients and their families; (b) Education of both professional and non-professional groups; and (c) Research into the efficacy of the arts and arts therapies as healing modalities. In this presentation I will briefly describe each of these, including a review of the expressive arts therapies as one aspect of mind-body medicine, a review of the history and scientific rationale of this evolving discipline, and a comprehensive coverage of world trends in the arts medicine field. Specific sections are also devoted to the visual arts, music, dance, drama and poetry therapies respectively, each seen from clinical, educational, and research perspectives.
Clinical: The most conspicuous aspect of healing art is its contribution to the aesthetic quality of physical healthcare environments, through architecture, signage, and installations of art and sculpture. Of even more significance, however, are the clinical practices of artists and expressive arts therapists at the hospital bedside and other health settings, which make use of a constellation of arts media (McNiff, 1992; Samuels and Lane, 1998; Graham-Pole, 2000). Artists thrive on a kind of deconstruction and reconstruction of chaos, allowing them to bring to their work in healthcare a certain fearlessness in the face of the kind of chaos that every seriously ill person’s life has become. Educational: The arts are being used to educate all students of healthcare, for example, through medical humanities programs (Charon and Montello, 2002), which have become widespread in medical and nursing training, and incorporate the literary, visual, musical and dramatic arts. Educational courses in the healing arts are also attracting the attention of a wide diversity of healthcare and related professionals. Research: A growing body of research related to arts medicine, both quantitative and qualitative in scope, has emerged over the past fifty years. The science of creativity and health that underlies all assessment of art as therapy is reviewed.
Online Courses
Introduction to Humanistic Psychology
An On-line Course for Psychologists by Dr. Serlin and Sage DeBeixedon, PhD
3 CE credits - $29
This is an introductory course on Humanistic Psychology. Humanistic Psychology provides a treatment model that is client-centered, emphasizes strengths rather than pathologies and is devoted to the discovery of meaning and purpose in work, relationships and life. Because of the underlying values embraced by Humanistic Psychology, it enables clients to live authentically and to attain their optimal selves. The course reviews the foundations and basic principles of Humanistic Psychology and its applications to special populations.
This course will teach psychotherapists to:
• Identify the history, theory and basic issues in humanistic psychology.
• Apply basic issues of humanistic psychology to the psychology of trauma.
• Apply basic issues of humanistic psychology to the psychology of women.
• Compare and contrast humanistic psychology with the related new field of positive psychology.
The course is available now at www.drzur.com/humanisticpsychologycourse.html.
For more information, contact Zur Institute, Innovative Resources and Continuing Education,
at the Zur website www.drzur.com, e-mail: drzur@drzur.com, or phone 707-935-0655.
Here are some past courses taught by Dr. Ilene Serlin.
 Psychotherapy and the Arts - This course helps experienced clinicians use expressive therapies in a brief therapy model. By directly accessing the central metaphors of a client's problem, both client and therapist can understand, experience, and shift them more quickly than when the therapy stays with the discursive story line of the client's situation. In addition, the power provided by movement or enactment can bring energy to a stuck place, shifting it even further. Listening to the metaphors is developed in the language of poetry, visual image, kinaesthesia, music and drama. Participants have the opportunity to practice skills of clinical integration of modalities while tracking central themes and metaphors of the client's process.
Part I presents the foundations of the history, theory and practice of expressive arts therapies.
Part II demonstrates clinical examples of integration.
Part III provides an opportunity to practice in small groups.
Ecopsychology and Creative Arts Therapies - Ecopsychology is one of the newest movements in psychology in the United States, growing out of the global ecology crisis and the understanding that psychology must move beyond a concern for the personal psyche to a concern for the sustainability of the environment. This course covers the theory of ecopsychology, and examines the role of the artist-healer in the context of the natural world.
Space, Movement and Healing - This talk for a San Francisco architecture office focuses on the interrelationship of space, movement and healing, with particular attention to how buildings are constructed to evoke certain movements, both historically and in the present. Labanotation, a movement observation language system, is used to describe parameters of time, weight, space and flow in the vocabulary of movement and space. Examples are given of healing and movement work done in the context of a support group for women with breast cancer.
The Anne Sexton Complex - The Anne Sexton complex describes, in a language deriving from the arts rather than psychopathology, the lure and seductiveness of the Underworld. Recent films about Sylvia Plat and Sabina Spielrein and books about Christiana Morgan and Sexton illustrate renewed interest in the relationship between women, creativity, and suicide. It is very important for therapists to understand this dynamic.
This presentation for The Dream Institute of Berkeley, juxtaposes case vignettes with selections from Sexton's poetry and life to illustrate how this dynamic shows up in ourselves and those with whom we work. 4 hours CEU.
Continuing Education
USHA offers a range of continuing education courses in adult education including the 3 unit course, "Psychotherapy in the Arts." $50.00 per packet. For more information, email Dr. Ilene Serlin or call 707/235-7959 or 415/931-3819.
Past Events
Recent events featuring Dr. Ilene Serlin
International Conference in Israel: Creative Arts in Conflict Resolution
 IMAGINE: Expression in the Service of Humanity
Creative Approaches to Dealing with Conflict in Groups
April 2-6, 2006 in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel
About the Conference - This conference focuses on the development of creative therapeutic tools appropriate for dealing with conflict in general and the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular. The predominant theme is touching and understanding the pain of the other as a vehicle for growth and development and to explore new ideas and approaches.
The conference brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners from group psychotherapy and group analysis, psychology, psychiatry, the expressive therapies, education, social work and related areas of inquiry, as well as from the arts. The program will incorporate presentations by distinguished speakers, simultaneous symposia, workshops and panels. Some of the topics include: Living with Conflict and Ongoing Trauma, Conflict Resolution Among Indigenous Societies, Developing Dialog During a Time of Conflict, Building Resilience in the Face of Existential Survival Issues, Artistic Responses to Difficult Times, Social Trauma - Conscious and Subconscious Consequences.
Workshop presented by Dr. Serlin and Mimi Berger
Moving Through Conflict: Understanding Personal and Cultural Differences through Movement Style
at the pre-conference on April 2-3, 2006 at Mormon University in East Jerusalem
SYMPOSIUM IN SAN FRANCISCO: Creative Arts Therapies
First Annual Creative Arts Therapies Symposium of the Dance Therapy Institute:
Wisdom of the Arts in Life, Therapy and Research
March 9-11, 2006 at Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco, California
COLLOQUIUM IN GERMANY: Dance Movement Therapy
Second International Research Colloquium in Dance Movement Therapy
sponsored by the German Dance Movement Therapy Association in cooperation with the German Dance Research Association
February 10 - 11, 2006 in Pforzheim, Germany
SKIP: Serlin Kinaesthetic Imagining Profile
at the Poster Session
Presentation by Dr. Serlin - Saturday, February 11, 2006, 11:30 AM - 12:25 PM
Starfish Health Partners Forum Series presents:
BREAST CANCER PREVENTION: REDUCING RISK THROUGH LIFESTYLE
October 11, 2005 - Integrative Medicine Clinic of Santa Rosa
Presented by Bob Dozor, M.D. and Ilene A. Serlin, Ph.D, ADTR
COMMUNITY EVENT: Race for the Cure - Please join us for the 15th Annual San Francisco Race for the Cure, September 25, 2005 and at our warm-up before the race.
SUPPORT GROUP: Bereavement Spiritual Support Group
for those living with the loss of a loved one facilitated by Rabbi Aliza Berk and Dr. Ilene Serlin
sponsored by the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center
SYMPOSIUM: Challenges & Creativity
presented by Dr. Ilene Serlin, Dr. Marie DiCowden, and Dr. Tobi Zausner
sponsored by APA Division 1 - The Society for General psychology at the American Psychological Association annual convention in Washington, DC - August 20, 2005
This symposium discusses the central role of psychology in facilitating the creativity of challenged individuals and also in examining their creative processes. Psychology helps challenged people uncover their gifts and find a path to wellness through creative expression.
INVITED PAPER: The Postmodern War on Terrorism
presented by Dr. Ilene Serlin
part of a panel on 21st Century Psychology
sponsored by APA Division 1 - The Society for General psychology
at the American Psychological Association annual convention in Washington, DC - Aug. 20, 2005
SHORT COURSE: Whole Person Health Care: Integrating Mind-Body Therapies into Clinical Practice presented by Dr. Ilene Serlin - Univ. of California Extension, Irvine, CA - May 21, 2005
WORKSHOP: Integrative Psychology, A Whole Person Approach
presented by Dr. Ilene Serlin, Dr. Kirwan Rockefeller and Dr. Jean Chin
at the California Psychological Association annual convention in Pasadena, CA - April 9, 2005
WORKSHOP: Body Image: A Class for High School Women
In this class women explore what is real and what is ideal. Who is "the real you"? Is she a bad girl, a good girl, a wounded child, or a warrior woman?
COURSE: Foundations of Dance/Movement Therapy - Sonoma State University
This class builds a foundation on the history and essential practices of Dance/Movement Therapy. Students become acquainted with the field and learn about its application.
WORKSHOP: Movement Choirs As Transformative Process
A Community Healing Dance Ritual by Dr. Ilene Serlin and Margie Pulamano Torres
A workshop at the Sixth Conference of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA), "Expressive Arts: Voices for Peace and Transformation"
March 3-6, 2005 - Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
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