Course Purpose: In this seminar you will learn to apply the latest principles and techniques of mind-body health care in your chiropractic practice. Although Palmer was a full century ahead of his time in acknowledging the importance of the central nervous system to health, discoveries in both psychology and conventional (allopathic) medicine since then have profound implications for chiropractic. Recent breakthroughs, such as the gate control theory of pain, the emerging science of psychoneuroimmunology, and studies in areas such as the placebo effect, hypnosis, and biofeedback have all shown that the mind-body connection includes much more than the nervous system alone. It also includes the endocrine system and even the psyche of the patient, which may explain why different chiropractors, who all use the same basic techniques, achieve vastly different outcomes.

Course Objectives: You will learn...

• Mind-body vs. conventional, alternative, complementary, and holistic medicine

• The basic scientific evidence and theory of mind-body therapy and its relationship to chiropractic health care

• Distinguishing therapies with a scientific basis from those based on theory and speculation

• The benefits and cost savings mind-body therapies provide

• The risks, drawbacks, and limitations of mind-body therapies

• Utilizing your existing training and background in mind-body treatment modes

• Understanding skepticism about mind-body therapy and why it is changing

• Strategies for collaborating with other health care professionals to optimize patient outcomes and minimize overall costs

• Emerging standard practices in defining and assessing pain

• Basic pain physiology

• The philosophy of pain management: important experiential lessons from the Buddhists and Stoics

• The "gate control" theory of pain modulation and control

• The diathesis-stressor psychological model of chronic pain syndromes

• The scientific evidence supporting the techniques of mind-body interventions in pain management

• Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS): a controversial but often useful theory in treating back, neck, and other forms of chronic skeletomuscular pain

• Mind-body treatment modes and their use with different types of pain

• The proper roles of the chiropractor, physician, nurse, and the mental health professional in mind-body pain management

• The multi-disciplinary pain clinic as a model for integrating mind-body medicine with conventional treatment in the era of managed care

• Chiropractic manipulation as a mind-body therapy

• Mind-body concepts in the chiropractor-patient relationship

• Integrating mind-body medicine into the process of chiropractic adjustment

• Demonstration of chiropractic adjustment integrated with mind-body techniques

• Discussion of case studies from your practice (as time permits)

Course Materials Provided: Class includes a detailed and fully footnoted outline that corresponds directly with the instructors’ running slide show.

Chiropractors who want to learn to apply the latest principles and techniques of mind-body health care in their practice, improve patient outcomes, and/or deepen their understanding of the mind’s role in chiropractic care.

Nurses, physicians, mental health professionals, and pain clinic administrators responsible for collaborating with chiropractors in developing this new dimension in their practice.

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Copyright© 2002 Arthur Preston Smith, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
Last modified: April 20, 2011