PRACTICUM 11

ENVISIONING THE FUTURE USING ACTIVE VISUALISATION/ WORLD VIEW TECHNIQUE

OBJECTIVES

1. To experience and learn the technique. 2. To elicit the emerging group themes 3. To interpret the same.

INTRODUCTION

GROUP THERAPY

Group therapy is a type of psychotherapy that involves one or more therapists working with several people at the same time. This type of therapy is widely available at a variety of locations, including private therapeutic practices, hospitals, mental health clinics and community centers. Group therapy is sometimes used alone, but it is also commonly integrated into a comprehensive treatment plan that also includes individual therapy and medication.

Advantages of group therapy

Group therapy has many benefits. Some of the major benefits are, Firstly it allows people to receive the support and encouragement of the other members of the group. People participating in the group are able experiance a feeling of isolation with other group members. Secondly, group members can serve as role models to other members of the group. As each person progresses, they can in turn serve as a role model and support figure for others. This can help foster feelings of success and accomplishment.

 Thirdly, it is very cost effective. Unlike clinical counselling , the therapist can devote his or her time to a much larger group of people. Fourth, it offers a sense of security and confidence. Participants are assured confidentiality. And, the therapist gets to observe firsthand how each participant behaves in a group.

CREATIVE VISUALISATION Creative visualization is a similar practice with meditation. One tries to visualize, mostly with eyes closed, things which relaxes or gives us pleasure. It also refers to the practice of seeking to affect the outer world by changing one's thoughts. It is the technique of using one's imagination to visualize specific behaviors or events occurring in one's life. Advocates suggest creating a detailed schema of what one desires and then visualizing it over and over again with all of the senses, by visualizing a certain event or a situation, or an object, such as a car, a house, furniture etc., we attract it into our life. It is a process that is similar to daydreaming. Creative Visualization is the basic technique underlying positive thinking and is frequently used by athletes to enhance their performance. The concept originally arose in the US with the nineteenth century New Thought movement. One of the first Americans to practice the technique of creative visualization was Wallace Wattles (18601911), who wrote The Science of Getting Rich. In this book, Wattles advocates creative visualization as the main technique for realizing one's goals; a practice that stems from the Hindu Monistic theory of the Universe that is subscribed to by the book. Visualization practices are a common form of spiritual exercise. In Vajrayana Buddhism, complex visualizations are used to attain Buddhahood, e.g. Generation Stage. Additionally, visualization is used extensively in sports psychology.

MEDITATION Meditation has different meaning and concept according to cultural variations and religious practices. In general term, meditation refers to the practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit. It is generally an inwardly oriented, personal practice, which individuals do by themselves. in religious term, meditation may involve invoking or cultivating a feeling or internal state, such as compassion, or attending to a specific focal point. The term can refer to the state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state. There are numerous specific styles of meditation practice, the word meditation may carry different meanings in different contexts. Meditation has been practiced since antiquity as a component of numerous religious traditions and beliefs. A number of definitions have been given by number of people. Cahn and Polish (2006) says, meditation is used to describe practices that self-regulate the body and mind, thereby affecting mental events by engaging a specific attention set.... regulation of attention is the central commonality across the many divergent methods. Jevning et al (1992)defines meditation as a stylized mental technique... repetitively practiced for the purpose of attaining a subjective experience that is frequently described as very restful, silent, and of heightened alertness, often characterized as blissful.

Benefits of meditation
Apart from the benefits of achieving peace of mind and calmness, studies have proved that there are other health benefits as well. There are various studies related to meditation. A review of scientific studies identified relaxation, concentration, an altered state of awareness, a suspension of logical thought and the maintenance of a self-observing attitude as the behavioral components of maditation, it is accompanied by a host of biochemical and physical changes in the body that alter metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and brain activation. Meditation

has been used in clinical settings as a method of stress and pain reduction. Meditation has also been studied specifically for its effects on stress.

There are different kinds of meditation.

Religious meditation
The most popular of all the religious meditation is the Buddhist meditation. the main purpose is to achieve nirvana. Their techniques have become highly popular worldwide. Their techniques include breath meditation; they have over fifty methods for developing mindfulness and forty for developing concentration, while there are thousands of visualization meditations. The Christian meditation involve singing, praying and reading the bible. the main purpose of their meditation is to attain peace and oneness with god. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (biblical scene involving Jesus and the virgin Mary) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God. There are many schools and styles of meditation within Hinduism. Yoga is generally done to prepare one for meditation, and meditation is done to realize union of one's self, atman, with the omnipresent. This experience is referred to as moksha by Hindus. They believe that meditation bring calmness and peace fron within, attaining oneness within self. The Muslim meditation includes praying, mostly. During prayer a Muslim focuses and meditates on god by reciting the Qur'an and engaging in dhikr to reaffirm and strengthen the bond between Creator and creation, with the purpose of guiding the soul to truth. Such meditation is intended to help maintain a feeling of spiritual peace, in the face of whatever challenges work, social or family life may present.

Secular Meditation
Meditation may be practiced for many reasons, such as to increase calmness and physical relaxation, to improve psychological balance, to cope with illness, or to enhance overall health and well-being.

Over the past 20 years, mindfulness-based programs have become increasingly important to Westerners and in the Western medical and psychological community as a means of helping people, whether they are clinically sick or healthy. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program in 1979, has defined mindfulness as 'moment to moment non-judgmental awareness. Several methods are used during time set aside specifically for mindfulness meditation, such as body scan techniques or letting thought arise and pass, and also during our daily lives, such as being aware of the taste and texture of the food that we eat. Scientifically demonstrated benefits of mindfulness practice include an increase in the body's ability to heal and a shift from a tendency to use the right prefrontal cortex to a tendency to use the left prefrontal cortex, associated with a trend away from depression and anxiety and towards happiness, relaxation, and emotional balance. Jacobson's Progressive Muscle Relaxation was developed by American physician Edmund Jacobson in the early 1920s. In this practice one tenses and then relaxes muscle groups in a sequential pattern whilst concentrating on how they feel. The method has been seen to help people with many conditions especially extreme anxiety.

Physical Postures
Various postures are taken up in meditation. Sitting, supine, and standing postures are used. The bodily positions applied during yoga. Popular in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism are the full-lotus, half-lotus, kneeling positions, etc. Meditation is sometimes done while walking, known as kinhin, or while doing a simple task mindfully, known as samu. HYPNOSIS Hypnosis is a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination. It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment. It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. Hypnotic suggestions may be delivered by a hypnotist in the presence of the subject, or may be self-administered ("self-suggestion" or "autosuggestion"), which is not used clinically. The use of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes is referred to as

hypnotherapy, while its use as a form of entertainment for an audience is known as stage hypnosis. The words hypnosis and hypnotism both derive from the term neuro-hypnotism (nervous sleep) coined by the Scottish surgeon James Braid around 1841. Hypnosis as a method in clinical practice was used extensively and popularized by Sigmund Freud. In the present study, we have used the technique of creative visualization as a method in a group therapy. SETTING Classroom setting. MATERIALS REQUIRED Pen/ Pencil Paper INSTRUCTIONS Now let us play a game. Close your eyes. Let us imagine that we are all getting into a plane for a flight. Are you ready? Have you tightened your seat belt? We are taking off now and are gaining altitude. We are now flying over the clouds and you cant see anything below. Now if you look out of the window you can see an opening in the clouds and what you are seeing below is the wonder world thye kind of place you have always dreamt of. Your kind of lifestyle, freedom, activities, music and luxury. What can you see? Your career, what are you doing? your family. PROCEDURE A group of ten people were seated in a circle. Two people played as observers outside of the group. Everyone was asked to sit comfortably, instructions were given and the group was allowed to visualize for about fifteen to twenty minutes. After that everyone in the group shared their experiences.

ANALYSIS The aim of the therapy was to create visualization about the motives and self. The observation that was recorded has three particular themes; FAMILY CAREER MISCLLEANEOUS

Family
Family is the basic social unit. Family represents people living together by ties of marriage, blood or adaptation, thus representing a single household. According to sociology, the family has the primary function of reproducing society; biologically, socially, or both. There are various structures of a family based on the relationship shared between the parent and the children. Family for most of us is the only group of people we are most comfortable around. The positive aspects of family are love, kindness, and positive attachments. For most people, the thought of family makes them happy; while unfortunate others would not even want to recall their family members, depending on what kind of experiences they had. Interactions in the family or the family system mostly define what kind of person one would become. Visualization therapy allows one to see oneself in the kind of family that is most ideal to the person.

Career
Career is what one professionally works as after completion of studies, or even without formal education. Career planning is essential for everybody. This domain has been included in the visualization therapy because career is a major area in our lives. The kind of career one adopts, or fall into determines how contented or not

one is. Also, the kind of career one pursues will determine ones lifestyle choices. Career plays an important role in our live. Visualization allows us to see ourselves in the light of the career and lifestyle one is pursuing, allowing us to feel that it is possible in the real life.

Miscellaneous
After the broad themes of family and career, miscellaneous may include the major domains of the visualized stories, i.e. landscape, etc. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE In the beginning, it was hard to concentrate and think of anything because I was not alone in the room. After sometime of telling myself that nobody is watching, I was able to visualize something, an ideal simple helping life I always wanted. In the beginning I was in a large green farm, just like the ones in the computer game the age of empires, I was in a long gown with an apron and a hat, milking a cow, with a man. After that very quickly a lot of children came running to me, some in wheelchairs and some with other assistants approached. There were hugging and kissing, then playing, and a lot of noise. This is a reflection of the life I want after completing my studies. I have the dream of living in a place far away from metropolitan cities, a place quiet and serene. Professionally I want to work in schools for people with special needs. In fact I dream to have one of my own such schools. CONCLUSION

The main objective of the visualization technique was to experience and learn the technique. For most people in the group this was first time experience visualizing in a group, under proper instructions, which proved to be a success. After the visualization was over, everyone in the group began sharing. And by the way sharing was done, with a lot of emotions and honesty, it can be said that the technique was helpful, and the aims were fulfilled.

Visualization is a very helpful, therapeutic technique. It can be used in counseling and therapies effectively. It does not require assistance, for adults, is less time consuming, enjoyable and doesnt require much effort hence very convenient.

REFERENCES Mary B. Ballou, Psychological Interventions: A Guide to Strategies, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995. Carl L. Wesckcke, Keith Randolph, The Truth about Creative Visualisation, 1984. Andrew Caruso, Sports Psychology Basics: For Serious Players and Coaches, Reedswain Inc., 2005. Feuerstein, Georg. Yoga and Meditation (Dhyana). Moksha Journal. Issue 1. 2006. Ospina MB, Bond K, Karkhaneh M, et al. (June 2007). Meditation Practice for Health: state of the research. B. Rael Cahn & John Polich (2006). "Meditation states and traits: EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies". Psychological Bulletin (APA) A clinical guide to the treatment of human stress response, George S. Everly, Jeffrey M. Lating (2002).