BRATTLEBORO — New “Train-the-Brain” support groups focusing on harnessing the power of the mind to assist in maintaining health will be offered beginning in January by a new nonprofit institute in Brattleboro.
The support groups will be offered by the Northeast PNI Institute for Healing (www.nepni.org), which was established in December 2009 by therapists Michael Gigante of Brattleboro and Rupa Cousins of East Dummerston, with start-up support from eight other professionals: Joanne Finkel of West Dover; Phyllis Gigante, Norb Johnston, Alexander Potter, Deborah Potter and Scott Willis, all of Brattleboro; Crystal Mansfield of Townshend; and Moon Morgan of Greenfield, Mass.
PNI stands for psycho-neuro immunology, an interdisciplinary field of research, including the behavioral sciences, neuroscience, physiology, pharmacology and immunology. A major aim of the field is to examine interactions between the mind and the nervous and immune systems and how attitude affects health.
“PNI embraces and extends beyond the commonly known mind-body connections by focusing on three specific systems of the human body: the nervous system, the immune system and the mental system and the effects they have on each other,” Dr. Gigante said in announcing formation of the Northeast PNI Institute for Healing. “Our brain knows how to keep us healthy; research is opening doors to that knowledge.”
Each Train-the-Brain group will focus on one aspect of health maintenance and healing, including “Train the Brain to Refrain: A Conscious Eating Group,” “Train the Brain to Reduce Physical Pain: Chronic Pain Reduction,” “Train the Brain to Sustain Through Upcoming Surgery,” “Train the Brain to Regain: Post-Surgery Recovery,” and “Train the Brain to Enhance Immune System Responses.”
Groups on other aspects of health maintenance will be scheduled as demand is identified.
The groups will help people change their attitudes, behaviors, forms of emotional expression, thinking processes, and beliefs in order to make healthy choices and to affect their own healing.
A free workshop from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11, will provide an introduction to PNI and will highlight the techniques that will be explored in each group. (Snow date: January 18.) The free workshop will take place in Brattleboro, Vermont. Reservations are requested by calling 802 254-8032.
After the free workshop, groups will meet weekly for ten weeks at a cost of $12 per person per week. Fee waivers are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
The support groups are one of six activities the PNI Institute sponsors. Others are:
• Training and community outreach to health-oriented practitioners, health care facilities and the general public to share the latest evidence-based findings in the field;
• Training for business managers in how to use PNI techniques to reduce stress, decrease absenteeism and increase productivity;
• Individual sessions to help clients work through blocks to their own healing, to teach proper and effective visualization techniques, and to reinforce the skills and learning they may be receiving in the educational and support groups;
• Research to further demonstrate the efficacy of the institute's work, and;
• Multi-day retreats for people who want to maintain their health or who are dealing with chronic illness, as well as those who provide care.
Gigante and Cousins draw on more than 60 years of combined experience in therapeutic service to conduct these activities.
Gigante is a psychotherapist in private practice for the past 30 years. He came upon PNI serendipitously through his own health issues, and has since practiced and taught PNI in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Russia. He is a founding member of the Associated Psychotherapists of Vermont and the Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis.
Cousins has been involved with body/mind integration for more than 30 years as an Alexander Technique teacher. In 1990 she became a Rubenfeld Synergist, a somatic psychotherapy. She has taught movement at Omega Institute, Rowe Conference Center and in Macedonia and Bosnia with survivors of conflict and war. She is president of the boards of the Vermont Healing Tools Project and the Associated Psychotherapists of Vermont.
For more information about the Northeast PNI Institute for Healing and the support groups, visit www.nepni.org or contact Gigante at 802-254-8032 or Cousins at 802-387-5276.