Internal Energy Arts Treat Trauma in Refugees, Tibetan Monks (June 14)

'Whatever works’ is a practical mantra that Dr. Michael Grodin of the BU School of Public Health applies whether prescribing antidepressants or practicing chi gung and Taoist breathing with refugee populations he treats. A BTC student, he will speak here June 14 about crossconnections between his mental health work and his longstanding practices of many forms of mindfulness and internal energy arts.

“I think in mental health we focus too much on the negative,” he says, “and not enough on the strength and positive aspects in people’s lives.” Resiliency has been a 30-year interest, which he has studied working with Holocaust survivors, their children, and some 500 refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder, from at least 60 countries. They find their way to Boston, and to the innovative, multidisciplinary Boston refugee health center that he directs, “any way they can.”

Maybe 60 percent of the refugees—onetime professionals and political activitists in their countries—speak English. Crosscultural understanding of idioms for distress takes some interpreting. Grodin notes, for
instance, that Latin Americans can complain of abdominal but not mental pain, Tibetans deal with past lives and problems with “life-sustaining wind,” Africans consider it disrespectful to look you in the eye.

Talk therapy goes only so far, he says, with people who have been tortured and therefore dissociate from their bodies. Getting reconnected physically and emotionally needs nonverbal, grounding techniques:
feeling a chair, feeling the feet, moving side to side, standing, breathing— where tai chi comes in. One of the best signs of progress is when people are able to laugh again; Grodin is fond of introducing New Yorker cartoons. Those who witness trauma in others and hear their stories can themselves develop symptoms, such as hypervigilance.

The center is “cognizant of caring for our selves and colleagues,” also with chi gung. And Grodin teaches chi gung for stress reduction to BU medical students. Being able to feel and release tension is a good safety net for anyone, he says. “Most of us have traumas at some point.”

When: Sunday, June 14, 8-9:30pm
Where: Brookline Tai Chi
Cost: FREE