Workshop Description

In this workshop, Dr. James S. Gordon, the psychiatrist who founded The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), will share a comprehensive, evidence-based approach of self-care and mutual support which he and his colleagues have been using for the last 30 years to heal population-wide trauma during and after wars and after climate-related disasters with Indigenous people who have endured historical trauma, as well as with victims of torture.

Dr. Gordon will give participants practical experience of two self-care techniques that draw on the world’s indigenous wisdom, as well as modern science, and restore the physical and psychological balance that torture and other forms of trauma have disrupted. He will explain how these techniques provide the foundation for a comprehensive approach that mobilizes participants’ imagination, intuition, and intelligence so that they can reduce their stress levels, find solutions to previously insoluble challenges, enhance their resilience, and chart a meaningful life path forward.

Dr. Gordon will describe CMBM’s signature small group model, which family physician Dr. Mara Rabin is successfully using at THRIVE, a model in which 16 self-care techniques are taught. He will present research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this model can reduce the number of adults and children who qualify for the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by more than 80%. He will discuss CMBM’s comprehensive training program and its small group model of trauma healing, which has been hailed by The New York Times as having “the strongest evidence that it works to cure PTSD.”

In the second part of the presentation, Dr. Rabin will provide a case history of THRIVE, demonstrating the effective use of the CMBM model of self-care and mutual help with torture victims who have taken refuge in the United States. Sneha Pusapati, therapist with THRIVE will present a case study demonstrating how Mind Body Skills groups contribute to long-term therapeutic effects on clients’ healing journey.

Learning Objectives

After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:  

• Understand how a mind-body approach can be foundational in healing trauma/torture.
• Experience two foundational mind-body self-care skills.
• Review the science demonstrating the efficacy of “Mind-Body Skills Groups.”
• Understand how one torture treatment center has been using the MB Skills groups.

Registration and Audience

Staff of torture rehabilitation programs that are funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and/or are members of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs as well as Staff of SASIC programs. This session is designed for providers working with survivors of torture and forced migration populations across disciplines, such as: legal services, social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and case management.

About the Presenters

Dr. James S. Gordon is the Founder and CEO of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. A Harvard-educated psychiatrist, and the author most recently of Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing, Dr. Gordon founded CMBM in 1991 to make self-awareness, self-care, and group support central to all healthcare and education systems. Dr. Gordon leads a global faculty of 150 and a US-based staff of 26 who have trained more than 7,500 clinicians, educators, and community leaders in CMBM’s model. Those who have experienced CMBM’s training have spread its therapeutic and educational programs to hundreds of thousands of traumatized and stressed people, and people confronting the challenges of anxiety, depression, and chronic and life-threatening illnesses. Dr. Gordon believes that, regardless of age or education level, everyone has a great and largely untapped capacity to help and heal ourselves and one another. A peace-maker and consensus-builder, Dr. Gordon is known for cross-cultural relationship building, as well as deep life-changing therapeutic work with individuals, families and groups. For more than 30 years, he has led CMBM teams in relieving population-wide psychological trauma: in on-going conflict zones in Ukraine; during and after wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, and South Sudan; after climate related disasters in Louisiana, Texas, California, Puerto Rico, and Haiti; in schools affected by mass shootings in Uvalde, TX and Broward County; in communities impacted by systemic and historical racism in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservations and Baton Rouge; and with active duty U.S. military and veterans and their families. Dr. Gordon is currently a Clinical Professor at Georgetown Medical School, and was Chairman (under Presidents Clinton and GW Bush) of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy.

Dr. Mara Rabin attended Georgetown Medical School in Washington, D.C. and completed a family medicine residency at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. After that, she practiced rural medicine and provided volunteer medical care to patients in Southern India and Senegal. In 2000 she began caring for many refugees and immigrants in her primary care practice, where she also conducted health screenings for newly arrived refugees. Over 14 years she and her practice partner cared for over 11,000 refugees. Early on in this work, she became acutely aware of the impact of trauma on health and how trauma history could impact successful integration to building a new life in Utah. In 2003, to help address the needs of her patients, she helped open Utah Health & Human Rights, now known as THRIVE Center for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Rabin advocated for the universal screening of refugees for a history of torture. This has allowed symptomatic survivors to access mental health services early in their resettlement. In 2013, she became certified in leading Mind Body Skills groups to help her patients and THRIVE clients improve their ability to manage the stress of trauma. Over the past 11 years she has led MB groups at THRIVE with clients from Afghanistan, DRC, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Iraq, South Sudan, Western Sudan, and many other countries. She is a supervisor with the Center for Mind Body Medicine and has supervised individuals in the certification process who work with Unaccompanied refugee minors as well as THRIVE staff who run MB groups. Dr. Rabin is a frequent speaker to healthcare providers about refugee health and trauma informed care.  

Sneha Pusapati has spent most of her life within the immigrant community of Salt Lake City and began her work with the refugee community while working with first-generation college students at the University of Utah. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Cognitive Science in 2019 and headed various anti-racist social justice efforts during this time.

Following this, Sneha pursued her Masters of Social Work at Boston College in Massachusetts where she interned at homes for the developmentally disabled and later as a therapist at a domestic violence shelter. She received the Margaret McGinley Award for academic excellence and continued efforts towards cultural competency in the field and graduated in 2021.

Sneha seeks to center compassion, equity, and community in her work at THRIVE and continues to be driven by social justice principles. As a therapist at THRIVE for the last three years, she encourages clients to heal through mutual-aid, nature, and holistic practices. Outside of her work, Sneha is a concert-goer, foodie, and avid explorer! She believes in the power of play and community healing as drivers of change. She is currently leading our annual Recreation Therapy Group and serves as our therapist in rotation at the University of Utah Redwood Clinic. Sneha started leading Mind Body groups over the last year along with Dr. Rabin and hopes to continue doing this work with various communities.