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How did you get involved in the integrative
health field?
I followed a path. In 1989, when I was
a student at San Francisco State University,
I began to explore Rosen Method bodywork
by taking a six-week class with Mara
Keller [currently a CIIS Women's Spirituality
professor] and psychotherapist Jan Messer.
I also had a powerful private session in
Rosen Method bodywork.
Two years later, I began the "fundamentals" training with Marion Rosen, the founder of the method. During that same time, I completed a master's degree at San Francisco State in Interdisciplinary Social Science and worked as a research project coordinator in the psychiatry department at Stanford University. At Stanford I worked with women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in a study of group psychotherapy intended to enhance the women's quality of life and, possibly, their longevity.
All these experiences began to mesh together
and inform each other. I could see clearly
that I had a calling to do bodywork—to
work with people using the vehicle of touch
and talking. In the Stanford project, I
experienced the power of women talking to
each other about their fears, discomforts,
and triumphs. Also during this time, I was
pregnant with my first child.
The need we all have for the supportive and strong bonds of friendship, love, and caring was evident in everything I was doing, including my own embodied experience of pregnancy and nurturing a new life into being. My personal experiences convinced me that using touch therapies and psychotherapy, and creating healing communities, are central to people's wellness.
How did you "discover" or find CIIS?
CIIS found me. I had previously assisted Marion Rosen at workshops she had conducted here at CIIS and attended Women's Spirituality events at the Institute.
My relationship to the Integrative Health
Studies program began in a very organic
way. My teacher at The Rosen School suggested
to Arisika
Razak [the Integrative Health Studies
program director] that I might be helpful
in setting up research internships for the
program. Arisika and I met and I was hired
as assistant director and instructor.
What is your role in the program?
This fall, I will be teaching the Fundamentals
of Integrated Health Sciences class
and coordinating the administrative aspects
of the program. As the assistant director,
I will try to foster a strong sense of community
among students and faculty, to move the
program forward, and to increase the program's
visibility in the integrated health care
community.
How do you define "integrative health
studies"?
Integration means to meld together so that
the sum of the parts is stronger than the
individual components can be on their own.
For health care this means creating a vision
of wellness that encompasses not just diagnosis
and cure, but looking at each person's needs
for total healing, joy, and fulfillment.
This vision will be different for each patient
and we need to use many modalities and complementary
therapies to complete the journey toward
being well.
What is integrative health studies'
relevance to the problems our society faces
in health care today?
Complementary therapies are extremely relevant to modern health care, even though many modalities originate in centuries old traditions. The biggest issues facing health care delivery today are cost and the compromise in quality care by managed care systems. Complementary therapies are usually cheaper to deliver, promote and enhance the typical treatment practices of allopathic medicine, and support overall wellness, which leads to prevention.
What sets CIIS's Integrative Health
Studies program apart from other programs
of its kind in the nation?
Our program differs from other programs because it is here at CIIS. The Institute has such a commitment to evolutionary thinking, to challenging and changing dominant paradigms that may not be as effective as they could be, or paradigms that need a shift because they do not serve people. Our graduates will build on this philosophy and begin to create a new definition of health care, taking their skills out into the medical community and making change.
Also, our program is an administrative
one, with a focus on research as a vehicle
to create this change. By understanding
the tools of the medical community—evidence-based
medicine and technology—our students
will be able to offer real, substantive
contributions that show how complementary
modalities can fit in to mainstream medicine.
What kind of learning experience can
student expect in this program?
Students can expect an experiential format
with lots of opportunities to have a felt
sense of what they learn—to really
begin to understand at a cellular level
what wellness and healing is. They will
find a sense of community between faculty,
staff, and students that fosters this common
mission. This will give them the support
they need to facilitate change.
What sorts of career opportunities are
available to students with a master's degree
from this program?
We believe that our students will be a new generation of health care advocates and guides in many health care delivery settings. Some of our students will find careers guiding research projects in alternative medicine, some will run clinics both in the United States and abroad. We expect some students will start clinics and work in an alternative modality, offering health care to their patients, while others will work for international development agencies, NGO's [nongovernmental organizations] or nonprofits helping to shape the health care policy of the future.
Why is there a critical and urgent need
for people with an integrative health background?
The time is now! Health care cannot continue to be delivered in the U.S. the way it is now. It is too expensive and places far too much emphasis on curing and fixing rather than living well. We have a baby boom generation that in seven years will begin to reach retirement age, and their health care costs and needs will surpass that of any generation previous to them. This coupled with the present crisis of about 45 million uninsured Americans and the global crises that exist in health care demand solutions. I believe these solutions involve fundamentally changing the philosophy of mainstream medicine by introducing concepts from the alternative modalities.
Integrative
Health Studies Program
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Meet
the Assistant Director