Introduction to stress management

This week we'll be getting started on Stress management by having a look at the question "What is stress?"

Weekly tasks

1. If you haven't already, familiarise yourself with the Course page.
   Note that there are a range of resources at the bottom of the page which may be of use to you in the course of your studies. Stress management resources (Wikieducator) contains a set of resources which have mostly been developed specifically for this course.
   
   
2. Download and review the course assessment. Don't worry about getting started on this yet, I'm not anticipating that you will get going with it for another month or so.
   
   
3. Elluminate - Monday 1-3pm.
   Introduction to Stress management
   This presentation will contain some fundamental ideas & models which you will need to have a good grasp of if you want to really understand the rest of the course. Interpretation of your clients' state of stress using these models is also a required part of the course assessment.
   
   I strongly recommend that in the time between this lecture and the next, you study this material to clarify your understanding.
   
   

Looking forward

1. In the next practical block you will be introduced to your first relaxation technique - breath retraining. We'll quickly run through some theory behind the use of breathing in stress management, will practice assessment of breathing patterns and breath retraining.
   
   
2. Two weeks later we'll get into looking at the chronic effects of stress, causes of stress, and assessment for stress.
   

Focussing on the exam

I'm sure you're all focussing now on the exam & end of semester clinical assessment. There is still one task to complete.

Multi-disciplinary stress management

As of 10pm on Sunday, no-one has worked on the case study which Judy prepared for you to help you to understand multi-disciplinary stress management. Can you please jump in there now, and answer the questions which she has posed.

Regarding the exam

You could be assessed on anything that we've covered so far. Remember that the exam will be composed of some questions on theories and some case studies that you will be expected to apply your learning to. You should be ensuring that you understand all of the theory that we've covered, and you should be practicing applying this theory to the case studies which will be provided to you through the Intermediate massage blog.

Multi-disciplinary stress management

This week your focus in stress management will be learning about how to work in conjunction with psychological health professionals to help your clients achieve their stress management goals.

Tasks this week

The week will start with an elluminate session on Monday at 11am. In this session Judy will introduce the ideas that you will be working with over the following week.

You will then be directed to apply these ideas to some work over the week.

Multi-disciplinary stress management

Hopefully you now have some level of understanding of how emotions can become stored in the body, how they can be released through massage, and how to deal with this when it happens. Unfortunately my attempt to video the mid-block tutorial wasn't successful (I think I need a tutorial on video camera use or something). In the mid-block tutorial we talked about these things, and clarified them. I've had a request to cover this again, and I'd be happy to run an elluminate or face-to-face tutorial at some stage over the next couple of weeks on this topic if it's required by more people.

Over the next two weeks the topic is multi-disciplinary stress management.

Judy Buckingham is going to talk with you about how counsellors and psychotherapists work with stress so that you can get a better idea about when it's a good idea to refer to a psychological health professional. Details to follow.

Week 14 - Emotional release pt. 2

Last week we had a look at how emotions may become lodged in the body, this week we'll consider what you should do if your client has an emotional release while you're working with them.

It's good to see there's been some work done on Feelings and their physical expression. Please continue to work on this. I have not been able to find any quality information on this, so what we're doing here is creating a resource which all of us can use in the future. It's good to realise that there is not a correct answer here. Different people are likely to experience emotions somewhat differently.

Hopefully you've completed the exercise in Box 6.2 from the second reading for last week, and you now have some level of self-awareness around how you are likely to cope with clients who present with different types of emotions. If you haven't please make this a priority for the week ahead.

Tasks for the week

Complete reading Emotional release from The psychology of the body, Greene & Goodrich-Dunn. I emailed you the files for this last week.

Mid-block tutorial - In the mid-block tutorial this week we'll talk about dealing with emotional release.

More reading - Sometime early this week I'll email you some reading material relating to the psycho-social management of stress. This is to give you an idea of some of the methods which counsellors and psychotherapists use, and will inform next week's work.

Week 13 - Emotional release pt. 1

Over the next two weeks in Stress management we'll be exploring emotional release. You'll find out how emotions become stored in the body, how these emotions can be released by massage and bodywork, and how to deal with an emotional release.

Tasks for this week

Please continue the email discussion around relaxation methods

I notice that no-one has yet contributed to the Google document- Feelings and their physical expression. Please take the time to notice how your body responds to emotions through this week and next week, and record your findings in this document.

You have two readings from the week. These will be emailed to you.

1. Emotional responses & Tissue memory from Outcome-based massage (2nd ed), Andrade & Clifford
   
2. Emotional release (p 1-7) from The psychology of the body, Greene & Goodrich-Dunn

After reading through these documents, please take some time to complete the exercise in the second reading which is in Box 6.2 - Exploring how you respond to client's emotions and behaviours. The purpose of this exercise is to prepare you for a client's emotional release.

Week 12 - Bodymind

This week in Stress management we'll be considering the body-mind concept.


Assessment
Remember that your clinical assessments are coming up this term. When scheduling assessment times, I've decided that letting you choose your own time is not going to work, so I've scheduled you all a time to sit this assessment. Please make sure that you have a look at the clinic schedule to see when you are on.

Also, your case study is coming up. Make sure that you're applying the stress management process in your work with clients so that you'll have enough clinical experiences to write about.


Tasks for the week

Continuing from our exploration of meditation, please

• Read this article on the place of meditation & sprituality in medicine.
• Watch this video - Jill Bolte, neuroscientist - My stroke of insight.
• Join in the discussion on the use of meditation and other relaxation techniques in massage practice

Read these articles on body-mind

• Mapping body into motion - Keith Grant
• Bodymaps part 1 & part 2

Real-world observation

• Over the next three weeks note how your body responds to different emotions, and record this here.