ITP Faculty and Student Make Health and Spirituality Presentations
ITP Core Faculty member Olga Louchakova and ITP doctoral student Arielle Warner made presentations, in October, 2002, at the Second Annual Conference on Spirituality and Healthcare, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, sponsored by the University of Toronto School of Medical Sciences and its Department of Theology. The interdisciplinary, international forum included 500 psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, nurses, educators, researchers, and practitioners of alternative approaches to health and healing.
The two presentations were "Neuroimmunology and Kundalini Yoga: A Comparative Study Towards Direct Knowing" (co-authored by Olga Louchakova and Arielle Warner, Year 2 ITP doctoral student), which presented a model of embodied, de-centralized consciousness, based on an epistemology of yoga and supported by recent findings of neuroimmunology; and "Psychospiritual Practices From the Prayer of the Heart in Monitoring the Cardiovascular Disorders: A Case Study" (by Olga Louchakova), which introduced the concept of disease associated with spiritual growth, namely spiritual heart attacks and brain strokes; psychosomatic practices that can cause the development of health problems were analyzed, and methods of correction were introduced; it was suggested that, used differently, these psychospiritual practices (e.g., Prayer of the Heart) can prevent development of cardiovascular diseases.
