Autogenic Therapy

AUTOGENIC MINDFULNESS TRAINING (AMT)

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN AUTOGENIC MINDFULNESS TRAINING PLEASE EMAIL lstrainer@hotmail.com. Lynne Stevens, our Autogenic Mindfulness Trainer will then contact you in order for you to further discuss your interest and answer any questions you have.

Is Autogenic Mindfulness for you?

This training is for anyone who wants to benefit from gaining the self-help tools to manage stress in the present and to develop a strategy and the resilience to reduce stress for life.

It is also for qualified or trainee counsellors who want to gain a deeper trust in their relationship with 'self'; enhancing the process of the actualising tendency (the ever present natural human tendency toward growth and development).

Those persons in the Caring/Helping professions who want to learn offloading and clearing techniques for self care in their work will also really benefit from engaging in this training.

Entry Requirements

• The completion of a questionnaire regarding your physical and emotional wellbeing and a supportive, inter-personal assessment 1-1 with Lynne Stevens our AMT Trainer.
• The commitment and motivation to undertake the daily practices, keep notes of experience is essential.
• A commitment to attend all the AMT course sessions and the 1 Follow-up Session.

Course Description

As the pace of everyday life increases, our day-to-day experience can often become a struggle; trying to achieve goals, meet deadlines, organise our time, and perform satisfactorily for colleagues and family. Whilst these activities are often necessities, focusing on them exclusively can lead to anxiety, frustration, feelings of failure, and a feeling that life is being driven by external events beyond our control. We can become oblivious to warning signs from our bodies and subconscious minds, and also to the emotional needs of friends and family. The wider meanings of and joy in life can be lost.

The ‘fight, flight and freeze’ response is a primeval physiological reaction to a perceived threat or challenge. For our ancient ancestors this primeval response would have been stimulated by the sighting of potential prey or apparent danger from a predator. The body reacts and prepares us for physical exertion; pupils dilate, heartbeat increases, adrenaline is secreted, the bronchi of the lungs dilate, gastric movement decreases, muscle strength is increased and energy is diverted from non-urgent tasks such as digesting food.

Such bodily change and exertion is typically short-lived as the crisis passes or challenge is met. Our bodies re-set to the ‘rest, repair and recuperate state’; our pupils’ contract, our heartbeat reduces and the digestive process is re-stimulated.

It is easy to see how such rapid physical reactions suited our hunter-gatherer ancestors. However, in modern life whilst we are constantly exposed to challenges, these threats no longer require the burst of physical activity that was needed by our forefathers, therefore, our bodily reactions to the ‘fight, flight and freeze’ response’ no longer diminish swiftly.

Stresses such as living with the threat of impending redundancy, or waiting for the results of medical tests, may continue for weeks or months without respite. The perceived threat to the mind-body system of a row at the office or in the home does not lead naturally to running away or fighting – at least not in any socially acceptable way – so we are left to simmer. Our human grasp of language and logic gives us the ability to predict threats which are quite abstract, to imagine the outcome of those predictions, and to react to our imaginings as if they were real. A pet cat or dog awaiting the result of a critical x-ray or blood test has none of the anticipatory fear that a human in the same situation would experience. In this sense, we, as humans, are the victims of our own ability to imagine and to think.

Hence the need for a tool such as AMT, which trains us in how to move quickly into the ‘rest, repair and recuperate’ state, is essential to healthy living in our modern world. The AMT technique is well-known in main-stream medicine in many parts of Europe, having been developed in the early part of the 20thC by Johannes Schultz (a German psychiatrist and neurologist).

The word ‘autogenic ‘is specifically used because it relates to the unique process that Schultz realised each person undergoes during the implementation of the AMT technique, which should not be interrupted or directed.

The coping effects of AMT

Practising AMT encourages a shift to a different mode of perception; a movement toward self-awareness that experiences ‘self’ without judging or striving. The AMT experience will be novel to many and requires careful explanation and support from the therapist.

AMT provides profound enhancement to personal and professional development, especially for counsellors/psychotherapists because AMT organically encourages a deep connection with and trust in self.

There are no right or wrong results during the practice of AMT, carrying out the exercises in line with the recommended posture and mental attitude is all that is required.

Regular users of AMT report:

• a freedom from anxiety
• a greater resilience to emotional and physical upsets
• a calm centre within themselves and a returning sense of being in control of their lives
• greater spontaneity in their relationships
• a freedom from unwanted habits

Many participants develop greater awareness of their thoughts and feelings and increased creativity and enhanced openness to intuition is also experienced.

Course Content

1-1 assessment with therapist
6 weekly sessions + 1 follow up session (groups - 90 mins/individuals - 60 mins)
All course materials
Participants learn simple mental exercises allowing them to enter deep states of relaxation - a 'westernised' form of meditation - without any religious or spiritual overtones.
Continuing access to therapist during and after the course
The techniques are practised between sessions for about 5-10 minutes 2-3 times a day
No special clothing or unusual postures are required

Autogenic Therapy Trainer

Lynne Stevens has been an Autogenic Therapist, for the past ten years, having earned her Diploma in Autogenic Therapy accredited by the British Autogenic Society. Her experience of Mindfulness Training more recently has inspired her realisation of how she can combine the benefits of both, but without the religious overtones - more palatable for westernised society. She is also a person-centred counsellor in private practice, a counsellor support and development coordinator in a local children's centre and is a tutor on LCandCTA's HPD Courses
Lynne has a profound belief in the holistic, mind, body, spirit approach to health and well-being. Her aim is to empower individuals to help themselves to connect with and utilise their own capacity for self-healing and self-development.

Cost:
Group - £210
Individual - £400