Wellness
New Ways Caregivers Can Benefit from Guided Imagery: A Focus on Mentalizing, Mindfulness and Connectedness
Presenter: Felipe A. Jain, MD, Director of Health Aging Studies, Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Presenter: Felipe A. Jain, MD, Director of Health Aging Studies, Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
- Providing care to a person with a chronic or debilitating illness, whether as a family member or professional, can be challenging and stressful. Caregivers often struggle with a balance between empathizing with their care recipient’s pain or distress and maintaining their own personal sense of wellness, between providing appropriate care for the realities of illness versus holding normal “expectations” for what their care recipient can do, and between attending to their care recipient’s needs and engaging in healthy and fulfilling activities for themselves. The stresses of caregiving challenge the caregivers’ ability to understand the care recipient, the dynamic and changing social situation, and themselves. One approach that can help caregivers thrive is that of using mindful guided imagery techniques to facilitate greater self and other understanding, or balanced mentalizing, while recognizing concepts of connectedness emerging from a modern physical understanding of the structure of the universe to provide solace and inspiration. Dr. Jain will outline this approach, the evidence for its use in caregivers based on research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard Medical School, and measurable changes in brain connectivity that result from practicing these techniques.
- CEUS: .5 ACVREP; Certificates of Attendance by request
- Length: 44 minutes
- Resources: Free website with Mental Imagery Therapy (MIT) techniques: https://fernhillcenter.org
- REGISTER to view this free session. Please Note: The date you will see when registering for the "Focus" Talk is the date that the presentation was recorded. All "Focus" Talks are available for viewing immediately after registration.
Friends Matter! One Friend Can Change Your Whole Life
- Presenters: Colleen Goff, Training Consultant; Maureen O'Rourke King, M.Ed., DDS SE Region Learning and Development; Luke Hutter Ross, Trainer; Zach Rosetti, Ph.D., Boston University, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
- Friendships are personally valuable and developmentally important relationships for all people. Yet friendship between individuals with and without intellectual developmental disabilities or vision loss remain infrequent. People with intellectual disabilities can really be faced with challenges of loneliness on a higher level. This panel discussion will share thoughts on friendship and strategies for growing friendships.
- CEUS: .5 ACVREP; Certificate of Attendance by request
- Length: 59 minutes
- Register to view this free session. Please Note: The date you will see when registering for the "Focus" Talk is the date that the presentation was recorded. All "Focus" Talks are available for viewing immediately after registration.