Health

Many individuals, because of difficult neonatal and infantile experiences,  have not been able to ‘enter’ their body. Their physical ego, the kernel of the self, has been formed in a problematic way lasting till adult life and appearing as body dysphoria, physical distress, organic disease or psychosomatic disorders.

In this workshop we will examine the formation of the invisible membrane embracing the psychosoma during the first months of life and we will reflect on the negative outcome of an inadequate body-mind integration during childhood and adult life.

Relaxation techniques are often used in cases of severe anxiety as well as in stress management and physical problems, i.e. headaches, hypertension, pain etc.
In this workshop participants experience 4 different methods of relaxation and receive instructions about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Why do we fall ill? Why do we get the specific disease? This seminar will provide answers to these questions based on different theoretical perspectives: psychoanalysis (Franz Alexander, Francoise Dolto, Joyce McDougall) alternative medicine ( acupuncture and homeopathy) and contemporary research findings with patients.
The following diseases will be explored from a psychological perspective: coronary heart disease and hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, ulcer migraine headaches and cancer.
The participants will also have the opportunity to explore experientially their personal symptoms.

Francoise Dolto, the well-known French psychoanalyst, has mapped the layers constituting our unconscious body during each developmental stage. Her work is a significant contribution to the puzzle of psychosomatic ailments in childhood or in adult life.

This workshop is an introduction to the area of clinical health psychology and addresses issues encountered by psychologists working with an inpatient or outpatient medical population. It explicates the common problems encountered when we work with physically ill patients; it provides a framework to formulate diagnosis and intervention with the physically ill; it offers practical skills useful in the area of clinical health psychology.