Audio recording

Presenter: Assen Alladin, PhD

This evidence-based workshop is based on a recent paper by Dr. Alladin entitled Mindfulness-Based Hypnosis: Blending Science, Beliefs, and Wisdoms to Catalyze Healing (AJCH, 2014, 56, 285-302) and will demonstrate how third-wave psychotherapy such as mindfulnessbased cognitive therapy (MBCT) can be assimilated with hypnotherapy to catalyze healing and enhance outcome. We live in a global village, comprised of people with diverse cultural and religious beliefs. How do we integrate these different convictions in our clinical practice? MBCT offers a secular context for incorporating various cultural beliefs and wisdoms in therapies.

This workshop will critically review the limitations of Western psychotherapies and highlights the needs for incorporating non-Western concepts such as mindfulness, acceptance, and the heart in psychotherapy. Although these concepts have been inherent in Eastern healing practices for centuries, recently they have been scientifically validated in the West. Mindfulness has been found to reduce relapse rate in depression when it is combined with cognitive therapy and, as an alternative treatment, it has been demonstrated to be effective with a variety of psychological disorders. Similarly, the new science of neurocardiology has established the heart to be a complex information centre and the most powerful generator of psychophysiological coherence (PC). PC has been extensively studied by the HeartMath Institute and it has been shown to improve nervous system function, emotional stability, and cognitive performance.

This workshop will describe via simulated demonstrations how hypnotherapy can be integrated with MBCT to generate PC in the healing of anxious, depressed, chronic pain, and chronic disability patients.