Elis 13 CC 

The Healer's Life

 

Newsletter of Dr. Elisabeth Crim and Moonstone Center

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Psychotherapy ~ Wellness ~ Professional Development

 


        
Stained Glass CrossArtist:Hartwell Crim 

 

April 3, 2011

 

 

Greetings Fellow Healers!

 

Welcome to April!  What a beautiful sunny day it is as I write.  I love the fresh energy of Spring - whether a day that is cool or warm, the air is different ~ a little more lively!  Our Jewish friends are observing Passover this week and our Christian friends, of whom I am one, celebrate Good Friday and Easter on Sunday.  The Passover recognizes God's magnificent freeing of his Jewish children from death and enslavement.   For Christians, Easter, a day of rebirth, celebrates Christ's resurrection and His brilliant defeat of sin and spiritual death!  Christians understand Christ as the Son of God who came to earth to defeat Satan (an entity representative of death, darkness, loss of life, freedom, love, peace, and joy).  Christ also came to model for and guide us in living life as one with God the Father and Holy Spirit even as He did on earth.  I have long understood "sin" as not necessarily doing something "bad" or "wrong" but actually as an act or state of being that is in separation from God, disconnected from our Source of all health, wholeness, and positive, loving, life-flowing and affirming energy.  For both Jews and Christians, this week is a Holy week celebrating God's miraculous gift of life and freedom.  For many individuals, including Christians, God becomes an entity who can be experienced relationally.  For others God becomes the Power and Holy Source of life and energy that lives and moves and has being - not only with us, but also within and through us.   When we consider God and Christ as our very Source and perpetual Creator of Life, we can celebrate Easter and Passover as Holy Days of Life-Giving.  From this perspective, new and ever-renewing Life and its natural, resulting Hope and Joy truly do spring Eternal!  Consider this!  Easter is a celebration of the very powerful flow of God, our Source of the never-ending, perpetually renewing and ever-revitalizing Life Force!  It is with deep respect for all religions and spiritual meaning-making, and from this wondrous understanding of God and the Christ that I wish you a Fulfilling Passover and a Happy and Glorious Easter! 

 

 

 

 Peace and Joy to you my friends and fellow Healers of Life!

 

    Elisabeth 

 

  ________________________________________________________

   Let's talk about the importance of the upcoming event:

 

 

 

 The Power of Collaborative Treatment Teaming:  Bridging Complementary-Alternative Therapies with Traditional Mental Health Treatment 

 

Power Collab Tx 

 

  Bridging.   It suggests that there is a separation.  A gulf, or chasm between two points.  A gulf that may be merely space and land, like a canyon or gully.  Or the gulf may be filled with water, like a river, creek or even a lake or sea.  Some bridges are short, some very long, some beautiful and elaborate, some very simple and pragmatic.  Bridge as Metaphor has many layers of meaning.

This is exemplified in the question posed to me recently by a trusted yoga teacher, when I told her about our upcoming training on this very issue.   "Do you think they (traditional mental health professionals) will even listen?"   Her question exemplified a commonly voiced Yoga Therapist's doubt that she will be received respectfully and her approach to whole health considered by a Western Psychotherapist.  I have also heard psychotherapists equally frustrated by the oversimplification by some yogis that a yoga practice for certain attachment or biologically-based disorders is enough to bring about whole emotional and relational health.  Though we have much work to do in building bridges to each other for the purposes of whole health treatment, I do believe that with continued training and communication, these two cultures, and approaches will interface easily and with mutual respect for one another.  At Moonstone Center and within other integrative organizations this is already occurring.  

The metaphor of Bridging that I have incorporated in the upcoming training and past trainings re: Yoga Therapy and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is at least two-fold in meaning.  There is the bridge between two approaches to health and healing.  This incorporates separate disciplines, with different training, different language, different cultures of health and healing.  Even Yoga Therapy and Acupuncture, which share in some aspects of language and conceptualization, are still two very different disciplines evolving from different cultures.  Even though both are considered in western culture to be Complementary and Alternative approaches to health care, they too need bridges built between each other.   Psychotherapy is currently building bridges within Western Health care between mind and body, connecting (or reconnecting!) the psychological with the physiological.  We are linking and building ways and means of communicating not only within Western Medicine but between Western and Eastern approaches to health and wellness.  We are even building bridges that allow a view of health care that integrates the conceptualization of sickness, pathology and repair with approaches that embrace the fostering of health, wellness with a focus on strengths and resilience.

  

 The concept of bridging is really metaphor for linking and connecting or re-connecting those areas of healthcare and aspects of the individual that have become conceptualized and treated as independent and separate.  In reality, within the individual, the connections and interactions already exist.  The bridging really is metaphor for the act of building awareness and attention to those connections.  Bridging and Collaborating allow for a renewed understanding of and appreciation for the complex and interactive human being we are treating.  

 

 This reconnecting and linking or bridging results in an internal integration within individuals we are treating.  Many Eastern or more Indigenous cultures have long treated the body as a whole.  In our western cultures, in our effort to truly understand various and different aspects of ourselves, we are discovering just how very disconnected we have become.  We need to build bridges within our very selves.  Bridges that connect our mental life to our physical life to our spiritual life to our relational life to our emotional life.  Increasingly we talk about this renewed understanding of human beings as being whole, interconnected, integrated.   In many circles individuals and communities are forming lifestyles that allow for conscious attention to the interconnectedness and integration of their being.  However, the practiced approach to this integrated oneness is still very early in its consideration and practice, let alone embraced and treated as standard practice in larger western society and the culture of health care, including Traditional Mental Health Care.

  

 It is the latter, the renewed consideration and the attempt to practically apply this understanding of ourselves and our patients or clients as whole, complex and interconnected entities that is at the core of the message and purpose of the upcoming training, The Power of Collaborative Treatment Teaming: Bridging Complementary-Alternative Therapies with Traditional Mental Health Treatment.  

  

 

Someday the bridging will be complete and moving to and from the various aspects of self will be understood as a given.  Collaboration with fellow health care professionals will be as seamless as inter-state and inter-continental travel is today. We will be functioning as whole entities, both within ourselves individually and between disciplines as we easily, naturally, and powerfully collaborate, cross-refer, team and even cross-train for purposes of Complete Whole and Integrated Health (mental-physical-emotional-spiritual-relational). 

 

I invite you: Take a moment, consider the Power of Collaborative Treatment Teaming in order to Bridge Traditional Psychotherapy with Yoga Therapy and Acupuncture.  Take a moment to consider the power of integrated whole health that can result from bridging understanding, language, and culture between Eastern and Western healthcare, Complementary-Alternative and Traditional treatment.  Take a moment and register for Moonstone Center's upcoming training where we will discuss and wrestle with these exciting concepts as we build bridges and learn how to powerfully collaborate with other disciplines for whole integrated health!   Register Today!

 

Until next month!

Peace and Gratitude,

Elisabeth and the Moonstone Center Team

 

 ARTICLES on SIDEBAR:

Speaking of Connectedness between Mind and Body:  Check out  Thich Nhat Hanh under  Self-Care Resources

Speaking of Bridging the Mind and Body Within, under  Featured Articles:  Check out the article by  Marjorie Rand, PhD, Co-Founder of Integrative Body Psychotherapy  and a respected Pioneer, Speaker, Author, and Trainer of mind-body process in psychotherapy!

 

Rose  

Upcoming
 
Boutique Continuing Education

Event:

Hermosa Beach, California

Power Collab Tx

 

The Power of Collaborative Treatment Teaming:

Bridging Complementary-Alternative Therapies with Traditional

Mental Health Treatment 

 

6 CEUs: Psychologists, MFTs, LCSWs

 

Friday, May 18, 2012

 

 

Presenters:

Elisabeth R. Crim, PhD

Licensed Psychologist & Certified Relax and Renew Yoga Trainer

Simone Marke't

Certified Yoga Therapist, Certified Yoga Teacher, Certified Yoga Teacher Trainer

JoAnn Fitzpatrick, MA

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

Kathleen Ryan Lowry, L.Ac., Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM)

Licensed Acupuncturist

 

6 CEUs - Psychologists, MFTs, LCSWs

 

Friday, May 18, 2012

The Beach House - Hermosa Beach, CA

Continental Breakfast & Beverages Served

Hotel Reservation Discount for Moonstone Center

For More Info & TO REGISTER TODAY! (click here)

 

Come join us

 

for a Weekend Away of Dynamic Learning

in a Setting of Self Care!

 

COURSE OVERVIEW:

The body's process in psychotherapy is an essential aspect of mental health treatment. The field of mental health is increasingly aware that treatments involving talk therapy and/or medication alone are not enough. Recent research and adapted clinical approaches are attending to individuals as mental, physical, spiritual and relational beings. Integrated treatment methods are emerging as these findings are applied. One powerful model incorporates the development of new alliances between traditional mental health treatment and complementary and alternative therapies such as yoga therapy and acupuncture. This workshop addresses a multi-faceted and holistic view of persons by exploring and celebrating the power of collaborative treatment teaming between psychotherapy, family systems therapy, psychiatry, yoga therapy, and acupuncture.  Led by Moonstone Center's Treatment Team of professionals, Moonstone Center adult and adolescent cases will be presented. Moonstone Center approaches continuing education through the integration of mind-body processes, incorporating yoga as experiential education with the didactic lectures of the day. In keeping with Moonstone Center's mission to provide dynamic education in a setting of self-care, we invite you to join us for this powerful day of continuing education. Please consider furthering your own self care and integration of the concepts learned throughout the day by staying at The Beach House (add Beach House interactive link) and taking in beautiful Hermosa Beach.

  

For More information or assistance in registering, please contact: 

Julie Brown, Moonstone Center Events Manager     

Email:  [email protected]                   

Phone:310-371-2800, ext 2#  

Looking forward to seeing you there! 

Peace,

Elisabeth, Julie, and The Moonstone Team

 

Upcoming

Events 

 

Power Collab Tx

 

Power of Collaborative Treatment Teaming 

 

 May 18, 2012 

6 CEUs 

 

REGISTER TODAY!!!

 

 

Dancing Image

Dancing the Transference CONSULTATION GROUP 

 

FORMING NOW!!!

 

 

More From Moonstone 

 

Moonstone Center Events 2011-2012

 

Dr. Elisabeth Crim's Speaking Engagements  

 

 

 

Featured Articles/Books 

 

Self, Body, and Boundaries

by

Marjorie Rand, PhD

with Gerry Fewster, PhD

 

Somatic Transference: The Body's Process in Psychotherapy 

by

Elisabeth R. Crim, Ph.D.

 

Dancing the Transference: Integrating Old Steps With New in the Rhythm of Psychotherapy

by

Elisabeth R. Crim, Ph.D.

 
 
Self Care Resources
 
Bhuddist Article:  The Moment is Perfect

Yoga International Magazine

 

 

Find Your LOCAL

Farmer's Market 

  

 

Christian Spiritual

Joel Osteen Ministries