9th Annual Conference

Guided Imagery Council (GIC) is a facilitated group process rooted in indigenous traditions throughout the world. Council has been used in contemporary fields as diverse as social justice, education, and business. Council allows for effective delivery of Interactive Guided ImagerySM (IGI), a mind-body modality used to promote stress-reduction or lifestyle behavioral change. In underserved, Latino adolescents, we have shown GIC is highly acceptable and deliverable, promotes empathy and group relatedness, reduces subjective stress and biomarker salivary cortisol levels, and reduces type 2 diabetes risk factors. We have used GIC to promote self-care among pediatric resident physicians serving underserved patients at a large, urban public hospital. This will be a hands-on, experiential workshop. Participants will learn and practice, the main principals of council: 1) sitting in a circle to minimize hierarchy; 2) using a designated object ( “talking piece”) to empower “speaking and listening from the heart. IGI will be conducted and debriefed in council to allow participants to experience the stress reduction of GIC that is easily translated to ongoing self-care, patient care, or institutional-level applications. Extensive discussion and Q&A will make clear how GIC has been used successfully in the past, and can be utilized in the future, at personal, group, clinic, or research intervention levels, as well for institutional wellness initiatives. Clinical pearls for using GIC among underserved populations will be emphasized, based on the extensive experience of the presenters. This workshop incorporates the conference themes of presenting new information using a highly innovative educational methodology, promoting self-care, promoting social justice (by recognizing the value of incorporating indigenous pedagogies and world views), and offering extensive hands-on experiential practices to teach skills for personal self-care and to share with clients.

Both presenters are extremely experienced clinicians (pediatric endocrinology [MW] and health psychology [TF]), and have been leaders in the integrative health field at their institutions and nationally for over 10 years. Both have used the modalities described in this workshop in their clinical practice for over 20 years. MW has also used these modalities in clinic-based interventions and clinical research (NIH-funded RCT).

guided imagery, group interventions, council, adolescents, stress reduction, diabetes, obesity, lifestyle behaviors, interventions

Skill-based training or Experiential workshop: provide an opportunity to acquire and practice a new skill and to observe and refine teaching techniques for this skill

This session is appropriate for all audiences and skill levels