Dr. Bart Bödy

Self-Generated Therapy

Autogenic Training is the core technique of Autogenic Therapy, a body-mind system developed in the early part of the twentieth century in Germany, by Dr. Johann Schultz and his colleagues. It has spread widely to medical settings in Europe, Canada, South America, Japan, and also to a few practitioners in the USA. The underlying principle of Autogenic Training is that you learn to change your physiological state and your state of consciousness, thus giving free reign to the wisdom of the body, and to your intuition, to generate the desired healing or mental-emotional change. The effects are “autogenic,” or self-generated, in the sense that you do it on your own, to yourself, relying on your inner forces. Autogenic Training involves the use of “passive concentration,” combined with specific verbal “formulas,” to produce a state of deep mental and physiological relaxation and quiet. Over a period of several weeks or months, students engage in one to three periods of practice a day, consisting of just a few minutes each. The usual pattern is to practice until some particular objective is achieved. But some choose to continue indefinitely, as an enhancement of physical and mental health, and of the quality of life.

Relax at Will, Stay Calm, Yet Alert

With Autogenic Training you learn to relax at will, to stay calm yet alert, able to act effectively and appropriately even in the face of severe physical and mental stress. With the very first session, you begin to overcome and to reverse the cumulative effects of stress. As you master the six standard formulas, you establish a considerable degree of control over the autonomic nervous system, such as the ability to induce relaxation or warmth in any specific body part, and to regulate breathing and heartbeat. With Autogenic Training, you also learn to de-activate the sympathetic nervous system and activate the para-sympathetic, and vice versa. When you can switch from one to the other, completely, rapidly, and at will, you can, in effect, choose between the brake or the gas pedal, rather than always pressing both. This makes for greater effectiveness, and at the same time it sets you on the road to recovery from stress and ill-health. There are stories of soldiers in foxholes using Autogenic Training to deal with their fear and physical discomfort. Avalanche victims have used it to avoid frostbite by warming specific body parts. This author has used it to extend a day of skiing by warming his hands while the lift carried him back up the hill. His spouse used it to prevent frostbite while stuck on the lift for over an hour in the midst of a snowstorm.

Healing and Change on Multiple Levels

For many people, Autogenic Training has been the primary means of recovery from assorted physical problems and difficulties, such as asthma, allergies, hemorrhoids, hypertension, and so on. It is also a useful adjunct to almost any other effective method of treatment. Special medical formulas have been researched and tested for use in reversing specific symptoms and disease conditions. However, many find that they recover completely, or nearly so, before they have finished the standard formulas, thus making the special medical formulas unnecessary. With Autogenic Modification, personally crafted intentional formulas are used to achieve specific physiological and behavioral objectives: to go to sleep or wake up at a particular time, to overcome overeating, to stop smoking, to overcome stuttering.

Autogenic Training has proven useful in the context of psychological healing and unfoldment. Because it quickly leads to a state of relaxation and peace, it is an ideal starting point for desensitization procedures, guided visualization, and Crowd of One.

Products, such as cottage cheese, buttermilk, or yogurt. There are those who avoid white sugar, some who eschew all refined carbohydrates. The long and short of it is that if you are trying to improve your diet, there are only a few broad guidelines that work in general. What you eat ultimately comes down to your particular nature, your particular needs and priorities, and your particular internal and external constraints — such as local and family customs, personal beliefs, finances, work schedules, etc. Still, you can find a way to go that works for you. Keep in mind, however, that it will not happen without time and effort on your part. It will be a learning experience that starts now with no end in sight. And unless you have a very special circle of family and friends, you will definitely be swimming against the current. Ready? Here are four suggestions to get you started.

1. Learn about nutrition in general. Find out about calories, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates; vitamins, minerals, and enzymes; how your digestive system works; what different foods have to offer, the good and the bad. You might try an introductory nutrition textbook. If you are somewhat ambitious, check out the Foods and Nutrition Encyclopedia, Pegus Press.

2. Check out “alternative nutrition.” Read something on Macrobiotics. Pick up a vegetarian magazine. Read the nutritional articles in the Yoga Journal. Go to a lecture or two. Talk to the people at the natural foods store. Take home some flyers. Keep an open mind, but use your discrimination. This is a crime story, and your name is Holmes.

3. Learn about your own dietary needs and predilections. If you have a digestive or allergic disorder, note if it flares up after meals. If so, what did you eat when it flared up and what did you eat when it did not? If you have a condition that is known to be related to nutrition and other lifestyle factors, such as hypertension, examine your customary diet in that light. Consult with a professional who is lifestyle-oriented.

4. Begin to shape you diet in accordance with the converging consensus. Emphasize fresh fruits, berries, and nuts; raw or lightly cooked leafy vegetables; cooked root vegetables; whole grains other than wheat, and legumes, including tofu. Avoid or reduce consumption of sugar and sweeteners of all sorts, whether natural or artificial: check labels for cane sugar, beet sugar, sucrose, fructose, corn syrup, aspartame, etc. Restrict your intake of fats — no more than 20% of calories, ideally more like 10%.

Eat What, When?

Most people hold off eating, even starve themselves, during the day. Then they literally feast at supper time. But what your body needs is just the opposite: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper.”

Chinese medicine teaches us that the activation of each organ system in the body rises and falls in a daily rhythm. Thus the stomach reaches its peak of activity and receptivity from seven to nine in the morning, and sinks to its low point from seven to nine in the evening. In other words, it is most receptive to food, and best able to handle it, early in the morning, from seven to nine. Therefore, breakfast is the time to eat plenty of complex carbohydrates, such as leafy vegetables, legumes, and whole, unmilled grains. These slow-burning fuels provide a foundation of energy throughout the active part of your day. If your breakfast was not adequate, you may feel the need for a snack midmorning. You may also get hungry after lunch. Ideal snacks are: nuts, nuts and fruit, crackers with spread.

Proteins, in the form of meat, fish, eggs, tofu, and cheese are ideally eaten at midday, when the heart and the small intestine are at their peak (11-1, and 1-3, respectively). Be sure to complement protein with leafy vegetables (like a salad), not starches (as in bread or potatoes).

Supper can be just a snack. Earlier is better than later. Never eat after eight. Late in the day, simple carbohydrates are best because they burn rapidly and thus are used up in the relatively brief interval from supper to sleep. This includes simple sugars as in fruits, and light starches such as potatoes, white rice, and crackers. In a pinch, supper can be a small portion of anything other than complex carbohydrates or animal protein. Think small (stomach). Eat light, sleep well!

Eat As If It Mattered

Do you have trouble “finding time” to eat? Do you distract yourself to avoid eating? Eating is an honorable and important activity. It matters. In fact, how we eat may have more effect on our health and well-being than what we eat.

To eat with serenity, we must provide the physical and temporal space. We take time to properly plan, prepare, and serve the meal. We set aside a proper place for eating. And we schedule a specific time just for eating.

We also need to provide the mental space. That means that when we eat, we focus on it fully. We take a break from all outward-directed activities: working, reading, socializing, listening to the news, etc. Sharing a meal with friends can be a meaningful social act and a delight. But keep it simple. While eating, keep talk to a minimum, and keep it light. Focus on the eating. Many religious communities observe silence during meals. Sounds extreme? But hey, why not? Try it, you might like it!

To be truly nourishing, eating must reflect caring for ourselves. “Food is love.” When we sit down to eat, we consciously and deliberately switch off our usual attitude of struggling, striving, and producing. We allow ourselves instead to be receiving, relaxing, and enjoying. You may need a personal ritual to make the transition: When you come to the table from some project, from battling traffic, or from preparing food, first wash your hands, sit quietly, and take a few minutes to touch base, rest, meditate, go inside, get centered.

Now for the main event. For proper digestion, chew each mouthful of food. Savor and relish the various flavors, colors, and textures. Visualize health and energy flowing in. Enjoy!

by James M. Yeh, D.O., and Bart Bödy, Ph.D.

What Is It?

In 1874, Andrew T. Still, M.D., founded osteopathic medicine around the notion that the body’s structural components are critical in maintaining health. He himself suffered greatly from migraine headaches and only found relief from lying on his back, with his neck supported by a rope suspended between two trees. This led him to the development of his theories on body mechanics and its relationship to disease.

Around 1895, a former student of osteopathic medicine, B.J. Palmer, developed chiropractic manipulation and practice. Although there are some superficial similarities, osteopathy differs from chiropractic in both theory and treatment philosophy. Chiropractors focus on the alignment of the spinal vertebrae. Osteopathic manipulation addresses all the muscles, fascia, nerves, bones and joints. It aims to remove restrictions, to restore and maintain the flow of bodily fluids, such as blood and lymph, and to facilitates movement throughout the various bodily systems, and throughout the entire body.

Osteopathy sees the body as a complex structure in which each physiological system, such as the lymphatic, cardiovascular, nervous, or musculoskeletal, directly affects the function of every other system. To maximize intrinsic healing, all the systems must work together. If any one system is inhibited, healing is prevented or delayed. Osteopathic manipulation can optimize the functions of specific bodily systems, and thus relieve a wide range of ailments, such as TMJ, headaches, chronic pain disorders, sleep disorders, gynecologic disorders, back and neck pain, chronic middle ear infections, and eustachian tube dysfunction.

Who Does It?

A doctor of osteopathy, or DO, is a fully licensed physician, with training in both western medicine and the art of manipulation. DOs are fully qualified and licensed to prescribe medication, perform surgery, and to carry out any other medical procedures and functions in accordance with their specific training and certification. DOs can be found in a variety of medical specialties, from surgery to infectious disease.

DOs combine manipulation with other treatment modalities commonly practiced as part of standard western medicine, such as pharmacology and surgery. But they usually operate on a very different philosophy than do most practitioners of standard western medicine. They believe that the body has the intrinsic ability to heal itself. They concern themselves with not just physical motion, energy, and health, but also with “spiritual energy” and mental health. Many osteopaths have also studied other forms of healing, such as homeopathy, nutrition, herbology, and acupuncture.

Does It Hurt?

Osteopathic manipulation is usually gentle and soothing. But it is quite different from massage. Some forms are similar to chiropractic adjustments. At times it may be uncomfortable, but not acutely so. There are several different techniques that the practitioner can choose from, depending on the particular situation.

Mercury in Your Mouth

The dental community is sharply divided on the issue of “silver amalgam fillings.” The controversy starts with the term itself: “silver” fillings are actually made from a complex alloy that contains less silver than it does quicksilver, or mercury — an element known to be a potent neurotoxin.

The dental establishment, as represented by the American Dental Association and most state dental boards, stands foursquare behind such fillings. Supposedly, they rarely cause problems. How could they? After all, under normal circumstances the amount of mercury leakage from a single dental amalgam filling is negligible — just a fraction of what is normally inhaled and ingested from other sources.

Concerned dentists and health advocates, however, point out that, even if a single filling adds only a fraction of the background exposure, with five or six fillings you are roughly doubling the amount entering your bloodstream from all sources.

More generally, the problem is that the mercury leaking from dental fillings is in addition to all other sources that enter the bloodstream and accumulate in bodily tissues. More mercury in your body is clearly not a good thing, whatever the amount. From the health perspective, mercury is in some ways like lead. Both are heavy metals. In both cases, small amounts in the body can lead to major problems. In both cases, there is no accepted threshold level of intake that can be considered safe. So asking “How many mercury fillings would you like to have in your mouth?” is akin to asking “How much lead paint would it be ok for your child to eat?”

The Trend is Clear

Whatever their professional organizations may say, many dentists are abandoning the use of mercury-based amalgam fillings. Their concern is not just for their patients: They are beginning to realize that in handling mercury compounds on a regular basis, they and their assistants are exposed to a greater risk than a patient with a mouthful of fillings. Nationwide, one in five dentists now practice “mercury-free” dentistry.

In the past, governmental agencies have consistently upheld the official position of the dental establishment. The U.S. Public Health Service has said that there is no evidence to support claims of adverse effects from mercury fillings except in cases of allergy. Similarly, state dental boards have consistently denied that there is reason for concern.

But the winds of change are stirring. Some countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, officially recommend that dentists use alternative fillings, especially for children and pregnant women. In the US, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Maine have laws requiring dentists to explain potential mercury risks to patients. In 2001, the California legislature disbanded the state’s dental board when it dragged its feet warning the public about the mercury issue. In February 2002, the FDA announced a proposal to upgrade dental mercury from a Class 1 to a Class 2 medical device: This would require the makers of metal fillings to list all product ingredients on labels, and encourage dentists and patients to report side effects. Diane Watson, U.S. Representative from California, has introduced a bill in the Congress calling for stricter warnings, an immediate ban on mercury fillings in children and pregnant women, and eventually an outright ban.

Integrative Dentistry

For some dentists, ditching mercury is just the first step on a long and difficult road to a healthier, more natural practice. Integrative dentistry is an emerging trend that combines traditional, non-traditional, and innovative principles, methods, and materials, in a coherent, meaningful system.

As for materials, dentistry uses many different types: for bonding, cementing, fillings, impressions, crowns, and so on. Some remain in the mouth for just minutes, some for decades. They all interact in subtle and complex ways with the various systems of the body. It is therefore important that the materials used be bio-compatible, as much as possible. For example, to forestall setting up electrical patterns in the mouth, some dentists seek to avoid metallic dental materials. They also avoid standard anaesthetics in favor of those that are less stressful to the body and do not break down into substances with residual toxic effects.

In addition to the judicious use of conventional and innovative materials and methods, integrative dentistry may incorporate selected non-traditional principles and systems — biological dentistry, for example.

Biological Dentistry

Biological dentistry is based on the ground-breaking work of Dr. Weston Price, who first demonstrated the “focal infection” theory some fifty years ago. He took an infected tooth from a person with a particular illness and implanted it into a rabbit. Soon the rabbit manifested the same symptoms as the person with the infected tooth. He did this experiment over and over, with the same results. He concluded that a condition (such as an infection) in one part of the body (such as the mouth) can readily lead to a similar or corresponding condition elsewhere in the body.

There are many anecdotal reports of people who recovered from intractable chronic conditions throughout the body as a result of taking care of problems in the mouth.

Biological dentists often use Sannum remedies, a special type of homeopathics developed by Dr.Gunther Enderlei. His theory of pleo-morphism, developed in 1916, states that microbes of every type will adapt to their environment and to the nutrients available to them. By manipulating their environment in specific ways, they can be made to change back into forms that are no longer harmful to the body. Thus, potentially harmful microbes can be altered, and then eliminated from the body through natural means.

The Holistic Dental Association, will provide you with a referral to dentists in your area who practice holistic, or biological dentistry. Beware, however, it is not enough for dentists to call themselves “holistic,” or “biological,” and use the term as a way to market their practice. Check their references and other dentists’ experience in referrng patients to them, both technically and holistically.

    Dr. Bart Bődy

    email: emberfi@HolisticRenewal.com

Dr. Bart Bödy has been active in holistic health and holistic psychology for two decades — as clinician, administrator, and teacher. He helps people to understand their particular situation and achieve their goals by identifying and mobilizing suitable inner and outer resources. Inner resources include intuition, imagination, will, and the wisdom of the body. Outer resources include the transformational techniques and processes of Mindful Repatterning, and such health and wellness modalities as Autogenic Training, nutrition, and Chinese medicine.

At present, in-person appointments and workshops are available only in California: In the San Diego Area on a regular basis, and in the San Francisco Bay Area by special arrangement. However, telephone appointments can be arranged. A mix of in-person and telephone contacts has worked out for a number of people in the past. Often people come for a week of Holistic Renewal, then follow up with telephone appointments from home.