Mind Body Seminar: October 1977

Everyone in the United States thinks they are under stress. Research on psychological and physiological aspects of stress abounds, yet the concept remains vague for many people.

Physicians, psychologists, nurses, and other health professionals particularly must deal daily with the consequences of stress on their patients’ conditions. They must evaluate what the patient defines as stressful and take measures to manage the patient’s level of stress when necessary.

Yet how does the health professional begin to understand what is stressful for the patient and evaluate therapies for stress management?

This symposium presents some of the foremost clinical researchers working with stress today. They will describe the most recent techniques of stress management and lead workshops in their application, and discuss what underlies stress at psychological, interpersonal and physiological levels. This should enable clinicians to better understand and individualize management of stress-related disorders and the stress which accompanies all illness.

FACULTY

THOMAS BUDZYNSKI, Ph.D., B.S.E.E., is an Assistant Clinical Professor and Co-Director of the Biofeedback Laboratory at the University of Colorado Medical School at Denver. He is also Clinical Director of the Biofeedback Institute of Denver – a private clinic specialized in the use of biofeedback for stress-related disorders. His training is in Psychology and Electrical Engineering and his research with low-level surface EMG feedback techniques made electromyography practical for feedback. He is an associate editor of Biofeedback and Self-Regulation.

MARDI J. HOROWITZ, M.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry, University of California Medical Center at San Francisco, arid Director of the Psychotherapy Evaluation and Study Center at the Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. He practices psychiatry and his research involves the psychological responses to serious life events about which he has written a book, Stress-Response Syndromes.

MYRA LEVINE, R.N., M.S.N., F.A.A.N., is Associate Professor of Nursing at Rush University, Chicago. She has studied and written extensively on the role and management of stress in nursing and related health-care professions.

RAY H. ROSENMAN, M.D., is Associate Director of the Harold Brunn Institute Mt. Zion Medical Center, San Francisco, where he and his collaborators first described Type A behavior and its relation to coronary artery disease. He has published numerous research papers on this and is co-author of Type A Behavior and Your Heart.

HANS SELYE, M.D., C.C., is Emeritus Professor of the University of Montreal, Faculty of Medicine and President of the International Institute of Stress, Montreal, Canada. He holds earned doctorates in medicine, philosophy, and science, numerous honorary degrees, and has been made a Companion of the Order of Canada, his country’s highest honor. His major contribution is the description of the general adaptation or “stress” syndrome. The Stress Of Life, Stress Without Distress, and the recent The Stress of My Life are among the books and over 1,600 articles he has authored.

CHARLES SWENCIONIS is Managing Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, a Research Associate at Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California, San Francisco, and a doctoral candidate in Psychology at Stanford University. His research interests include cardiovascular self-control, effects of psychological exercises on physiology, and health psychology.

CARL E. THORESEN, Ph.D., is Professor of Education and Psychology, Stanford University, where he is a member of the Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development at Stanford. He is also founder and Executive Director of Learning House in Palo Alto, a residential social learning treatment facility for disturbed children. Recent books include Counseling Methods, Behavioral Self-Control, Self-Control: Power to the Person, and How to Sleep Better. He is currently working on a large study applying behavioral techniques to coronary-prone behavior patterns.

This course is co-chaired by Charles Swencionis, Hans Selye, and Lucy Ann Geiselman, Dean, University Extension, University of California San Francisco.

THE PROGRAM

Saturday Morning

STRESS: An Introduction—Robert E. Ornstein and Charles Swencionis

BEHAVIOR THERAPY IN STRESS MANAGEMENT—Carl Thoresen, Ph.D.
A cognitive social learning analysis has yielded techniques for individuals to control their own behavior. Behavior therapy can be applied to stress responses, and particularly to behaviors which support maladaptive responses to stress, such as coronary-prone behavior pattern. How one applies those techniques to stress-related behaviors will be described.

BIOFEEDBACK AND RELAXATION IN TREATMENT OF STRESS-RELATED DISORDERS—Thomas H. Budzynski, Ph.D., B.S.E.E.
Biofeedback and relaxation techniques permit the training of an anti-stress response in the body by teaching control of systems such as skeletal muscles and peripheral vasculature. By finding what an individual’s stereotypic response to stress is, a therapist can select the therapy modalities most suited to controlling it. The patient can then learn a low-arousal response to oppose his/her distress response. Finally, the patient learns to transfer the stress-coping skills to everyday situations.

Afternoon

STRESS AND NURSING—Myra Levine, R.N., M.S.N., F.A.A.N.
Stress is too often a vague concept in nursing. If we can define it more closely, we begin to see that it frequently arises from communications between health-care professionals and patients. Identifying this can allow us to restructure communication to make the experience of illness less stressful.

WORKSHOPS-Thoresen, Budzynski, Levine, Swencionis

SUMMARY—Charles Swencionis

Sunday Morning

INTRODUCTION—Charles Swencionis

THE GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME—Hans Selye, M.D., C.C.
The body’s generalized stress response will be described, with emphasis on the physiological mechanisms. The implications of this syndrome for a code of behavior will be described, suggesting how stress can be used as a positive force. The lecture will be followed by a discussion among participants and a question and answer period.

Afternoon

PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO STRESS—Mardi J. Horowitz, M.D.
Serious life events such as death, loss, or personal injury elicit common psychological responses which include excessive preoccupation with an intense emotional reaction or denial and avoidance with emotional numbing. The systems of personal meaning which make certain events more stressful for some individuals than others and the general principles of management of psychological stress reactions will be discussed and illustrated.

TYPE A BEHAVIOR AS A STRESS RESPONSE—Ray H. Rosenman, M.D.
Responding to stressful situations with extreme time urgency and hostility is associated with a high probability of coronary artery disease. Yet this response, which has been labeled Type A, is not the only way to cope with stress. One can deal with pressures and produce useful work without incurring the Type A pattern and its associated risk of cardiovascular failure.