Conference paper
REWRITING NEURAL PATHWAYS TO STOP DEPRESSIVE DISTRESS IN A SUSPENDED SPACE AWAY FROM EVERYDAY LIFE
Maria Grazia Spurio
; Research Center and Psychological Training "Genius Academy", Rome, Italy
Abstract
An increasing number of human behavior scholars are redirecting their professional curiosity towards studies carried out with
innovative research and intervention methods, far from the obsolete and reductive systems of analysis of the past. As part of these studies, aimed at the individual's bio-psycho-social betterment, the fascinating perspective of using the opportunities offered by a trip as a catalyst for important changes, has an important place. A sort of 'Journey' in the Journey, in which the suspended space-time of a travel can be the frame for innovative and interesting situations of parallel discovery of one's inner world. According to Hippocrates, therapy was not just a question of medicine and diet, in fact the cure he gave to his patients included also a trip to an island in order to temporarily move away from their environment, and therefore from the context that, somehow, had contributed to the emergence of the disease. Furthermore, the journey in itself, produces extraordinary beneficial effects. According with another study, for example, conducted by the Global Commission on Aging and Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, in partnership with the U.S. Travel Association, women who vacationed every 6 years, or less, had a significantly higher risk of developing a heart attack or a coronary death, compared to women who vacationed at least twice a year. Similarly, another study showed that men who did not take an annual vacation had a 20 percent higher risk of death and 30 percent greater risk of death from heart disease. (www.globalcoalitiononaging.com, 2013) As regards the therapeutic value, the idea of facing a fascinating “Journey” in a Journey, could prepare the individual to enter in a sort of a suspended space, in which, according to many authors, the travel can induce both psychophysical and psychosomatic beneficial changes. For this reason, Body and Mind project, prepared by the Genius Academy Research and Psychological Studies Center, started in 2015, thanks to a protocol of intervention which includes associated psycho-physical inductions, with the aim of demonstrating the increase in the level of well-being (from the 30% to the 60% ). The research, continued in 2016/17 with the objective of raising the level of well-being perceived and measured, has shown a further health improvement. This improvement was evaluated and compared to data expressed by measurement of heart rate, blood pressure, hours of night time sleep, headache, sense of anxiety recorded an increase in well-being of 67% by stimulating the organisms affected by a specific suffering such as depression in the oncological patient. As the results of three years of study have been so encouraging, it was decided to continue the research by making the necessary changes to contextualize the Body and Mind project within a travel situation. The project a "Journey" in the Journey, which for the last five years optimizes the opportunities offered by a trip to promote the psychological growth of individuals through prescriptions, work shops, seminars, drinking and talking, social dreams, has therefore widened the research space, also bonding the objectives of the Body and Mind project. A "Journey" in the Journey in the places of Body and Mind, develops along two main directions: 1) the places of Body and Mind; 2) the Body and Mind project.
But the red thread that binds and unites the study and research initiatives we have talked about is always the same: the innovative strategic approach where the individual is at the center of the scene, in contexts where life is live and where it is always the person to have the role of leading actor.
Keywords
suspended space; places of body and mind; journey as therapy; changement
Hrčak ID:
262966
URI
Publication date:
21.11.2018.
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