UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
CENTER FOR SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH
Quarterly Report (Third Quarter)
January 1 – March 31, 2006
This report summarizes our activities during the third quarter of our 2005-2006 funding period.
CENTER DIRECTOR’S REPORT
The Center continues to organize and implement very well-received undergraduate, graduate and professional courses and a spectacular Speaker Series. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Rob Hatch for receiving the highly coveted Hippocratic Award from the graduating medical class and Lou Ritz for election to the Society of Teaching Scholars in the College of Medicine.
This is an intense time for the Center and its future. We have met with Mickey Singer, Doug Barrett (VP, Health Affairs) and Neil Sullivan (Dean, CLAS), as well as several Development Officers. Mr. Singer would like to see us gradually find increasing alternative sources of funding for our standard course educational efforts and our Speaker Series but encouraged us to develop web-based and other electronic approaches to “educating” a much larger audience. A proposal for continuing support will be submitted to Mr. Singer before May 15. VP Barrett has agreed to support for at least two years a multidisciplinary Health Science Center course on End-of-Life and Palliative Care. We are still negotiating with Dean Sullivan.
In some ways triggered by the need to renew and restructure funding and in some ways related to the retirement of both Neims and Isenberg, this is a time of opportunity, challenge and anxiety for the Center. It is the time to strengthen that which we love to do and which serves, it is the time to begin new endeavors, and it is the time to phase out other activities that are deemed less attractive, meaningful or important.
Education Committee Quarterly Report
Spring 2006
We are participating in the following courses in Spring 2006.
“Cosmic Dance” by Drs. Shaya Isenberg, Monika Ardelt, and Allen Neims.
“Honors Spirituality and Health” by Drs. Gene Thursby and Lou Ritz.
“Spiritual Issues in Counseling” (MHS 6061) by Dr. Mary Fukuyama.
“Mindful Living” in the College of Education, taught by Ms. Kerry Hess.
“Worlds of Consciousness” by Drs. Shaya Isenberg and Gene Thursby.
“End-of-Life Issues” - for one-quarter of the third year medical students (class of 2007), presented by College of Medicine faculty of the S&H group (Drs. Hatch, Neims, Graham-Pole, Ritz).
All courses are described on our website (http://www.spiritualityandhealth.ufl.edu/ufcourses/).
Spring Seminar Series:
Attached is a letter from a group of students from Sarasota, regarding the seminar talks that we have videoed and put on the website. Our first success with Distance Education!
Jim Gordon, MD
"Self-Care is the Heart of All Health Care"
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 7pm, HPNP Auditorium
Dr. Gordon reviewed the major principles of mind-body medicine, discuss the most significant studies on psychosocial influences on health and illness, and touch on the utility of mind-body therapies, including relaxation therapies, meditation, hypnosis and guided imagery. He will then explore the ways that health professionals can integrate mind-body medicine into clinical practice, and some of the avenues for obtaining deeper insight into, and more training in, its various approaches.
James S. Gordon, MD, is the Founder and Director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, DC and is a Clinical Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Dr. Gordon also visited UF’s Shands medical campus in Jacksonville, where he presented a similar talk and consulted with faculty about their development of an Integrative Medicine Clinic
Louis Ritz, PhD
"Neurotheology: This is your Brain on Meditation!"
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 at 7pm, HPNP Auditorium
Are religious and spiritual experiences brain-based? If they are, what are the implications to understanding brain circuitry? If they are not, what are the implications to our understanding of who we are? In this lecture, we discussed the role of meditation in spirituality and health, the emergence of meditation research in medical science, and the implications of brain correlates to religious and spiritual experiences. The lecture ended with speculation, based on near-death reports and the deep transcendent experiences of mystics, that trans-brain mechanisms directly involving the soul account for spiritual experiences.
Dr. Lou Ritz is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience, in the McKnight Brain Institute and the College of Medicine at the University of Florida. Dr. Ritz's research interests investigated new procedures and techniques that hold promise in helping to alleviate the devastating consequences of injury to the spinal cord. Dr. Ritz is the course director for Medical Neuroscience, a first year course for medical students, and a member of the College of Medicine Curriculum Committee. As a member of the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health, he co-directs Honors Undergraduate courses entitled “Spirituality and Health” and “Neurotheology”. Dr. Ritz has had a longtime interest in meditation and in the relationship of the central nervous system, and of trans-brain mechanisms, to mystical experiences.
This talk was attended by about 300 people, including a number of medical students from Dr. Ritz’s first year Medical Neuroscience class. There was much discussion after the talk, which continued via email in subsequent weeks. The talk was videoed digitally, the PowerPoint slides were merged with the video for high-quality images, and is now on the Center’s website.
Les Lancaster, PhD
"Transpersonal Psychology: Towards a Science of the Sacred"
Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 7pm, HPNP Auditorium
Professor Les Lancaster, PhD, who visited the Center from March 27-31, is Chair of the British Psychological Society's Transpersonal Psychology Section, and Co-Director of the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit at Liverpool John Moores University. He is the UK’s first Professor of Transpersonal Psychology. An Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for Jewish Studies at Manchester University, Dr. Lancaster has been active in the area of inter-faith dialogue over many years, and frequently appears on BBC radio programs in the area of psychology and religion. He has studied Kabbalah for more than 30 years, and runs workshops and groups on kabbalistic psychology.
On Monday , 3/27/06, 4pm – 6pm, met with the SOUL Group in the Neuroscience Conference Room with about a dozen members and gave us a very enlightening introduction to the complexities of Transpersonal Psychology with reference to the evolving divisions within this newly emerging field.
He delivered his major lecture in HPNP auditorium, "Transpersonal Psychology: Towards a Science of the Sacred," to about 200 people who were so enthralled that they kept him with questions for more than a half hour after the lecture. His connection of transpersonal psychology with Kabbalah was of particular interest.
On Tuesday, Prof. Lancaster attended a lunch with about ten members of SOUL, several graduate students and other faculty, to focus in on key issues in research and methodology in Transpersonal Psychology. That evening he attended and presented in Shaya Isenberg and Gene Thursby’s CSH class, Worlds of Consciousness. Student journals reflected enthusiasm—and some puzzlement—for his applications of Transpersonal Psychology in the context of the class. Lancaster also commented at some length on the place and importance—and limitations—of Ken Wilber.
The Psychology Department hosted a very well attended lunch for Psychology faculty and graduate students. About 35 people attended and the feedback was excellent. That was especially gratifying for CSH, for Psychology is a key department in relation to what CSH does.
Immediately afterward, Prof. Lancaster attended Mary Fukayama’s graduate course, Spiritual Issues in Counseling, where he presented Transpersonal Psychology in a therapeutic context. Students were very interested and the discussion proceeded at a very high level. (CSH members Shaya Isenberg and Harris Friedman were also in attendance.
Once we discovered that Lancaster was a pioneer in web based courses in the UK, we invited him to present what he has learned about that mode of teaching right after Prof. Fukayama’s course and arranged for a lunch on Thursday with SOUL members especially interested in pursuing web based courses. Again, it was a very enlightening event for those of us concerned with the place of web based education in the future of CSH.
Additional Activities of the Group:
The following, while not specifically funded by our grant, represent some of the spirit-based activities of S&H group members.
1) Gene Thursby, along with his Indian colleague Sushil Mittal, edited the book Religions of South Asia: An Introduction (Routledge, 2006). It is being published simultaneously in cloth and paperbound editions. Mittal is director and Thursby a senior advisor to the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence which was inaugurated recently as a research and teaching center for peace studies and nonviolent conflict resolution at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
2) Monika Ardelt publication - Ardelt, Monika and Cynthia S. Koenig. 2006. “The Role of Religion for Hospice Patients and Relatively Healthy Older Adults.” Research on Aging, 28(2): 184-215.
3) Monika Ardelt, Mary Fukuyama, Mary Rockwood-Lane, and Allen Neims:
Panel: Spiritual Aspects of Aging among Older Women.” Women’s Healthy Aging Symposium: Mid-Life and Beyond. University of Florida, March 24, 2006.
4) Ana Puig - I presented my dissertation to Mary Fukuyama's class, entitled: The Efficacy of Art Therapy to Enhance Emotional Expression, Spirituality and Psychological Well-Being of Stage I and Stage II Breast Cancer Patients.
5) Ana Puig - Kim, T., Lee, S. M., Yu, K., Lee, S., & Puig, A. (2005). The Effects of Hope and Meaning of Life on Adolescents' Resilience. Asian Pacific Education Review, 6, 2, 141-150.
6) Ana Puig - Goodwin, L.K., Lee, S.M., Puig, A., & Sherrard, P.A.D. (in press). Guided imagery and relaxation for women with early stage breast cancer. Journal of Creativity in Counseling.
7) Ana Puig - Puig, A., Lee, S.M., Goodwin, L., & Sherrard, P.A.D. (in press). The efficacy of creative arts therapies to enhance emotional expression, spirituality, and psychological well-being in early stage breast cancer patients. International Journal of the Arts in Psychotherapy.
8) Ana Puig - Lee, S. M., Puig, A., & Clark, M. A. (in revision). The effect of religiosity on degree attainment. Manuscript submitted for publication to Counseling and Values.
9) Ana Puig - Puig, A. & Adams, C. (in press). Introducing spirituality into multicultural counseling. In W.M. Parker & M.A. Fukuyama. Consciousness raising: A primer for multicultural counseling (3rd Ed.).
10 Harris Friedman - Friedman, H. (2006). The renewal of psychedelic research: Implications for humanistic and transpersonal psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 34(1), 39-58.
11) Harris Friedman - the Transpersonal Psychology Review just released a Special Issue (Winter, 2005) containing a "selection of seminal papers" which were thought by that journal's editors to "define" the field of TP, among which is a reprint of: Friedman, H. & MacDonald, D. (1997). Towards a working definition of transpersonal assessment. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 29, 105-122. This is found on pp. 267-281 of this special issue.
12) Mary Rockwood Lane - Mindfulness: stress reduction course co-taught at the College of Nursing CEUs offered
13) Mary Rockwood Lane - Mindfulness Silent Retreat - Continuing Education for Shands Nurses CEUs offered
14) Mary Rockwood Lane - Book Proposal submitted to Elaine Markson (New York Literary Agent ) on Spirituality and Health: The Plus 10% Effect
15) Mary Rockwood Lane - Spirit Body Healing Research - Poster Presentation at College of Nursing Research Day
16) Mary Rockwood Lane - Panel Presentation-- The Path Of the Feather Personal Visionary
Journey : Spirituality and Nature. Saving and Creating a Sandhill Crane Habitat, in Gainesville, Florida at The Conference of Religion, Nature and Culture
17) Mary Rockwood Lane - Guest Speaker : “Women's Ritual and Ceremony” in Mary Fukuyama’s Spiritual Issues in Counseling class.
18) Mary Rockwood Lane - Mentored four Nursing Honor Students : Creativity and Spirituality Quilting Project On the Pediatric Unit Excellent out reach program!!!
19) Mary Rockwood Lane - Mentoring Graduate Student in Counselor Ed. for a Spirituality based course development
20) Mary Rockwood Lane - Invited Speaker: Qualitative Health Research: Phenomenology Hermeneutic Methodology: The Method of Presence.
21) Mary Rockwood Lane - Completed a manuscript Spirit Body Healing II: An Interventional Model for spirit based practice submitted to Cancer Nursing( in review)
22) Mary Rockwood Lane - Arts in health care: a new paradigm for holistic nursing practice. Lane MR. J Holist Nurs. 2006 Mar;24(1):70-5.
23) Mary Rockwood Lane - Spirit body healing--a hermeneutic, phenomenological study examining the lived experience of art and healing. Lane MR, Cancer Nurs. 2005 Jul-Aug;28(4):285-91.
24) Mary Rockwood Lane - Creativity and spirituality in nursing: implementing art in healing. Lane MR Holist Nurs Pract. 2005 May-Jun;19(3):122-5. Review.
25) Dan Robinson - Chair of the Concert in the Park Series at Sholom Park, one mile north of Hwy. 200, SW 80 St., Ocala, FL, www.hapi-info.org. Sholom Park is open 7 days per week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. It's purpose is to engender inner peace through the arts and nature and invite those who visit to share their inner peace with others in their family, community and wherever they travel.
26) Allen H. Neims - Teaching, Narrative Medicine Book Series with Nina Stoyans-Rosenzweig
27) Allen H. Neims - Teaching, Narrative Medicine Movie Series with Nina Stoyans-Rosenzweig
28) Allen H. Neims - Healthy Gators 2010, Steering and Surveillance Committees
29) Allen H. Neims - 2/5-6/2006: Speaker and Panel Moderator: Spirituality and Health at the Coudert Institute, Palm Beach, FL
30) Allen H. Neims - 2/27/2006: Speaker, Medical Education Journal Club, UF on the Relationships among Spirituality, Alternative Medicine and Evidence-based Medicine
31) Allen H. Neims - 3/24/2006: Speaker and Panel Moderator, Spiritual Aspects of Aging in Women at the Symposium on Women’s Healthy Aging, Gainesville, FL
32) Allen H. Neims - Initiation of New Projects: Interdisciplinary Health Science Center Course on End-of-Life and Palliative Care: organized brain-storming sessions and met with College of Nursing
33) Allen H. Neims - Initiation of New Projects: Distance Education in Spirituality and Health: meetings with Center and with UF’s continuing education and distance education leaders.