Digital Download - PowerPoint Synchronized with Live Audio

Over the last 15 years The Center for Mind-Body Medicine has taught hundreds of thousands of children and adults its powerfully successful, integrative, evidence-based program for healing psychological trauma—in Kosovo, Bosnia, Israel, Gaza, Haiti, and Macedonia, as well as in the United States.

This talk will describe the model, which includes mind-body approaches (deep breathing, meditation, guided imagery, yoga, and biofeedback) and self-expression in words, drawings, and movement presented in a meditative and educational small group setting. I will discuss how the CMBM approach addresses the psychobiological changes that occur with trauma, as well as the social isolation and the spiritual despair that afflict so many traumatized people.

During the presentations we will experience some of the techniques ourselves and see, in brief and moving video clips, how they are inspiring and mobilizing war and disaster traumatized children and adults in Gaza and Haiti. I will also share published research on this model (showing an 80-90% improvement in PTSD symptoms) and preliminary data from a Department of Defense sponsored randomized controlled trial with war-traumatized US veterans.

Throughout, the message will be that hope is possible, even in the darkest and most discouraging situations, that ordinary people have a great capacity to help themselves and one another, and that integrative clinicians can facilitate this process in any community in which they work.