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Congratulations Bev – Imagery Person of 2010

Monday, December 19th, 2011

We chose Bev Hollander for the 2010 Imagery Person of the Year because she has been an integral part of our Imagery International organization and our hearts since 2007, having served as Board Member, President, and Editor

Bev Hollander IPY 2010

of II’s Journal ImagiNews. Under our fun-loving trail blazer’s forward thinking cutting-edge intuition and editorship, ImagiNews has become the glue that holds our international community together. In honoring Bev, who introduced the use of a theme for each publication, the 19 selected themes from her published issues are used randomly in the expression of II’s deepest gratitude for all that she has given our community in so many ways. It is with great respect that we honor Bev with the esteemed Imagery Person of the Year award. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, Bev!

A TRIBUTE TO BEV

Bev, coming on the Board of Imagery International while also starting an Editorship of ImagiNews created “New Beginnings” for you. To jump right in with “Courage” allowed you to overcome the initial overwhelm of your first journal issue. Right from the beginning, your determined “Resolution” and “Intention” that everything done for ImagiNews would be for the greater good and “Growth” of our Imagery International “Community” became evident.

Bev Hollander, Judith Ewing r. reads tribute

The “Clarity” of your focused “Intuition” to provide themes around which articles can be written still brings “Illumination” to the ways Imagery can be used in “Healing.” The “Passion” within your “Compassion” has guided the alignment of our authors’ messages of “Hope” and “Joy” in sharing transformational modalities and practices in working with Imagery. This in turn has opened “Portals” of “Opportunity” for us as healthcare practitioners to take on the responsibility to reach even greater depths of awareness and understanding of Imagery in order to make important “Transitions” to support and embrace our clients.

Another delightful feature of ImagiNews initiated by your “Kindness” is the invitation to artists to showcase their original art on the cover. This provides international exposure for them, and it graces our cover with beautiful Images. Then, there is “Serendipity”—finding something valuable and pleasurable when looking for something else. In the beginning, Imagery International was looking for a Board Member, a President, and an Editor. What we found was a most valuable and pleasurable “you” who has taught us on many levels the importance of Transforming to the fullness of compassion, wisdom, and love.

Posted in Member Articles, News, Personal Growth | No Comments »

Anger Gets a Bad Rap

Saturday, November 19th, 2011

Befriending Anger with Meditation and Guided Imagery
by Leslie, Davenport, MFT

Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
–Aristotle

Leslie Davenport, MFT

Anger has been getting a bad rap for centuries. Medieval Christianity decreed anger as one of the seven deadly sins. Buddha teaches that anger side-tracks enlightenment and is rooted in illusion. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna regards anger as a sign of ignorance that leads to perpetual bondage. And the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, a source of Judaic law, advises, “Anger is a very evil trait and it should be avoided at all costs. You should train yourself not be become angry even if you have a good reason to be angry.” Even current medical research conducted through the American Heart Association lists its negative health consequences, including anger as a trigger for heart attacks. Click to read more.

Posted in Member Articles, Personal Growth, Self-Care, Spiritual | No Comments »

Oct. 21-23 Woman’s Retreat in Mexico

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

A Woman’s Retreat Tepozatlan, Mexico, October 21-23

Glenda Cedarleaf

Come immerse yourself in a women’s circle and into your creative imagination through Guided Imagery, Expressive Arts, Movement, Healing Ritual and FUN !!!

You will open to inner guidance and release emotional blocks for greater clarity and commitment

This retreat will be facilitated by  Glenda Cedarleaf MSW LICSW  and includes a very special  experiential with  Mary Lynn Patton Ed.D Clinical Psychologist

Glenda Cedarleaf is a Guided Imagery practitioner and Clinical Hypnotherapist - who follows her calling to be a muse and midwife for deepening the healing process through creative exploration.

She has facilitated women’s retreats since 1995. She has a psychotherapy and guided imagery practice in Minnetonka Minnesota.

Tepoztlan is in the mountains and is known for being the birthplace of the mighty Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. It is home to artists and lovers of Native Mexican culture. This town is filled with beautiful loving and authentic people who have maintained the best of their native culture. You will love the weekend market filled with the colorful and flavorful foods and crafts of the people of this lovely village.

Glenda writes and records guided imagery journeys. Her audios “Your Healing Journey” and “Healing Surgery” are now being provided to patients in the Cardiac Catheter Lab, Emergency Room, Joint Center and Surgical Department.

For more information on the retreat and how to sign up click here.

To learn more about Glenda’s work visit her website http://www.guidedimagerycd.com/

Posted in Events, Personal Growth, Retreat, Self-Care, Spiritual | No Comments »

Is Guided Imagery Dangerous for Someone Who Dissociates?

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

What are the side effects of listening to a Guided Imagery recording?

The following is an important discussion about one patient who listened to “Panic Attack”. Belleruth Naparstek is probably the leading creator, producer and seller of Guided Imagery recordings. Her “Prepare for Surgery” has been clinically tested and found effective in reducing the patient’s loss of blood and speeding the course of healing. So what do we learn about this questioners experience with a client?

Is Guided Imagery Dangerous for Someone Who Dissociates?

Question:

Are the guided visualizations safe for persons with a history of traumatic dissociation and a traumatic brain injury? I introduced a client to the Panic Attack tape and she felt “funny” and dissociated at the end of the session. We did some grounding exercises to return her into her body, and she was fine, but she is questioning the safety of follow-up work with these tapes. Thanks for any feedback you can offer!

Answer:

Great question – a lot of therapists who don’t work regularly with hypnosis or imagery ask it.  Since guided imagery is a form of conscious, purposeful dissociation, it can actually be used to help train a client like this to gain control over her dissociative process. By practicing with it, she can get a better idea of what it’s like to be ‘home’ inside her body, and what it’s like to go AWOL and be someplace else in her mind. By opting to use imagery on a regular basis, starting out with you keeping her company, she can become skillful at realizing when she’s floated out, and can then pull herself back into her body quickly – by doing those grounding exercises you gave her, for instance.

As you know, it’s much safer for her to be “home” in her body – it’s the ungrounded, floaty, dissociated people who get pegged as prey by predators looking for their next mugging or sexual assault victim. In that disembodied state, they broadcast with their body language and that spacey look in their eyes, just how easy it would be to figuratively or literally knock them over. Similarly, they have more auto accidents and accidental injuries while ironing, using an oven or slicing things with a knife.   But this means she should continue to practice this with you in the office, where she can safely learn to get a handle on this – it won’t be long before she’ll be able to do it on her own and she’ll be far safer and happier for it.

She should be able to tell you when she feels in control.   As I mention in Invisible Heroes, 2 psychologists from Georgia State, Drs. Joen Fagan and Erma Shephard, way back in the 1980’s, amply demonstrated the power of dissociative techniques, such as hypnosis and guided imagery, for helping people who dissociate, even people with the most extreme diagnoses, such as what they used to call at that time Multiple Personality Disorder – now Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I hope this helps.

All best,

Belleruth

To see the article on Belleruth’s website click here.

Posted in Counseling, Member Articles, Personal Growth | 4 Comments »

About Guided Imagery

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Guided Imagery defined

Dr. Jeanne Achterberg, a leader in imagery exploration and application, refers to imagery as “the thought process that invokes and uses the senses: vision, audition, smell, taste, the senses of movement, position and touch. It is the communication between perception, emotion, and bodily change.” Guided Imagery can evoke change through the senses both physical and imagined by skillful guidance.

Guided Imagery Experienced

A definition does not capture the experience of working with a trained Guided Imagery practitioner. And most people who have not had experience with this approach want to know about research on efficacy of Guided Imagery for changing symptoms, behavior before deciding to try it out. Imagery International’s professionals have written about their work over the years and through articles in Imagery International’s newsletter – ImagiNews - discuss how they have incorporated their Guided Imagery training into their practices.

Our membership is comprised of diverse licensed and certified professionals who show how this work is useful to virtually all types of work.

To see these articles that range from relevant research citations to treatment of symptoms and behavioral problems visit our About Guided Imagery page.

All types of professionals are not represented here. We will be adding information as articles are submitted.

Posted in CAM, Children, Coaching, Counseling, Dreams, End of Life, Energy, Hypnosis, Medical, Member Articles, Nursing, Personal Growth, Self-Care, Spiritual, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Not Fearing Death

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Click on the title to visit David Spero, RN’s blog: Not Fearing Death

from David Spero RN’s blog Reason to Live: Healing stories and Self-Care Strategies For Chronic Illness, Depression, and Hard Times

When I worked at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, I had an 82 year old cardiac patient named Wilson. First name Mel, but he preferred just “Wilson.” He was one of those classic crotchety old guys, wrinkled, with a scruffy white beard. He had been a Merchant Marine and could swear like it if he felt it necessary.

David Spero

But he also had a gentle sense of humor and was a favorite of the nurses, because he could make us laugh.

Wilson had come to hospital because of a heart attack, and he was still having frequent angina (chest) pain, requiring nitroglycerin for relief. One day, Dr. Simon, the hospital’s top cardiac surgeon, a tall distinguished looking man in a suit, not a lab coat, came in and told Wilson, “We need to do coronary artery bypass surgery on you.”

“I don’t like that idea much,” Wilson replied, as flatly as if he was deciding on the lunch menu.

“Well,” said the doctor, “If you don’t have the surgery, you’ll die.”

Wilson immediately brightened up. “You mean,” he asked with apparent excitement, “if I have this surgery, I won’t die? Great! When did you guys come up with that? I’m surprised it hasn’t been in the papers.”

Dr. Simon had to backtrack, looking somewhat embarrassed and bemused at the same time. “I’m afraid you misunderstood,” he said. “What I meant is, you won’t die from these blocked arteries.”

“Oh,” replied Wilson, as if greatly disappointed. “So we’re just talking about timing then. You had me going for a minute. In that case, get out of here. Keep your hands off my heart.”

(more…)

Posted in Coaching, End of Life, Personal Growth, Self-Care | No Comments »

Health-Care Debate

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

This opinion piece on the Health-Care Debate refers to an article printed in our local newspaper titled Health-Care Debate: A doctor prescribes addressing real issues by Dr. Scott Morris published in the Vacaville Reporter: 01/28/2011 01:04:06 AM PST. The first few paragraphs and link to the article follows my opinion.

The three points Dr. Morris focuses on are:

1. Admit government cannot do it all.
2. Confront our unholy love affair with technology.
3. Stop skittering around end-of-life issues.

I’ve been studying alternative approaches to health and wellness for the last 30 years. My working hypothesis is that unrecognized trauma (trauma includes experiences that do not fit with the definition of PTSD) can generate symptoms that are misdiagnosed and mistreated as disease. Medicine/medical doctors do not recognize the difference between trauma based symptoms and organic symptoms in diagnosis and treatment. If treated as a disease, trauma symptoms do not respond as expected. People who are not cured will have a chronic problem that often requires maintenance with drugs.

An alternative response to failure of medications to work is ‘we need more tests’ or lets try another drug. Where there is good research showing alternative approaches achieve excellent results, that approach is not likely referred – Irritable bowel is an example.

Dr. Morris discusses his hard hitting observations about fear of death and the focus on death panels. He believes that patients are kept alive at great expense because of fear of death and not for love or care.

I believe the even greater over-arching unconscious motivation is fear of loss.

(more…)

Posted in CAM, End of Life, Medical, News, Personal Growth, Self-Care | No Comments »

New! II Introduces Podcasts to Go!

Monday, January 24th, 2011

This year we are pleased to offer Podcasts to all — visitors and members alike. Just click on http://imageryinternational.org/about-guided-imagery/podcasts and enjoy!

Listen to them at your convenience–they’re archived.

In our first podcast of January 2011, new president Juliet Rohde-Brown, PhD interviews Martin Rossman, MD whose recent book The Worry Solution offers ways to change “bad worry” into “good worry” and life changing action. The science is compelling too as Dr. Rossman talks about the research on neuroplasticity.

Look for 6-8 podcasts this coming year, of exciting interviews with Imagery professionals, bringing you the latest applications and innovations, as well as the tried and true.

We are interested in your input on current podcasts and anyone you’d like to hear. Post your comments below.

Posted in CAM, Counseling, Member Articles, Personal Growth, Self-Care | No Comments »

2011 – Our New Board

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

Imagery International’s 2011 Board plus One

These are the folks who have elected to volunteer their time and imagination to keep Imagery International running. They bring wit, wisdom and hard work (with the help of bookkeeper and Office Manager Sandra Bolyard and our Website and Graphics Designer Jenn de la Fuente) to fulfill the mission of the Association. Please give them a warm welcome and let us know your wishes for the coming year.

Board members are 2nd from left Jann Fredrickson, Member-at-Large and Conference Chair; third from left is Juliet Rohde-Brown, President and Programs Chair; next is Doreen Leighton, Secretary; Bev Hollander, Past President and ImagiNews Editor, Judith Ewing, Member-at-Large and ImagiNews C0-Editor; Laura Simko, Treasurer; and Susan Ezra, Membership Chair. Far left is Sandra Warnken, who is not a current board member but ongoing as IT and Website Editor.

We thank outgoing officers:

Babs Vitale

Babs Vitale started out as Secretary then morphed to Treasurer. She was Conference Treasurer for both 2009 and 2010. She revealed an enormous talent for comedy. Her wit during board meetings livened discussions. She wrote a hilarious skit for Beyond Ordinary Nursing’s 2008 conference and engaged that years board to take part. We learned that humor and laughter feel good. Babs volunteered to take charge of Entertainment for Imagery International’s first Annual Conference. She did a fantastic job with a program she titled “Spontaneous Combustion”. Saturday night’s entertainment program which allowed all of us to participate to whatever degree of discomfort we could handle doing fun and funny activities. We all laughed in delight with the doing or watching. We learned to play kazoos and got to take one home. Thank you Babs for joining in and showing us all that you can have a good time and do a fantastic job besides. See more about Babs and her CD for Menopausal symptoms on her website Rainbow Yoga/Jolly Mudra.

Margo Adair

We also said a sad goodbye to Margo Adair earlier in the year as she passed on after a spirited fight for her life against cancer. Margo joined the 2007 board out as our Treasurer when we were transitioning into our non-profit organization. With Bev Hollander and Esther Johnson, she spearheaded the creation of Imagery International’s first regional workshop called Harmony Hill. She passed the Treasurer’s job to Babs Vitale and became our Programs Chair, a position she was delighted to take on. She started by scheduling speakers for the Telechats. If they were recorded she edited the podcasts and made them available to members on our website. Telechats are hour longs telephone conference calls where a guest speaker would present information pertaining to their work with Guided Imagery, for about half and hour, and then answer listeners questions. She also started work on our speakers bureau, but was unable to finish. Her partner Bill Aal is continuing their Tools for Change program.

Please let us know your wishes for the coming year. If you are interested in joining a committee, offering a skill or have ideas that would help get the word out about Guided Imagery please feel free to post a comment here.

Posted in Member Articles, Personal Growth | No Comments »

Happy New Year!

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

We wish you and your family a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

From the Imperial Thomsom Innovative Wellness blog, we learn how wishes can come true.

Janine Thomson says:

Your Wish or Intention can be on one of those pieces of confetti!!!!!

I am a big believer in sending out your wishes and intentions. Being open to possibilities no matter how big or small.

Imagine my surprise when I found out you can send out your wishes and intentions along with others from around the world. You can have your wishes and intentions release with the New Years Confetti at Times Square!

Read my blog and find out how.

Posted in Dreams, Hypnosis, Meditation, Member Articles, Personal Growth | No Comments »