Preliminary evaluation of PAMFA: Psychological assist to medical first aid
✍ Scribed by D. H. Schuster
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1975
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 382 KB
- Volume
- 31
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This exploratory study investigated the relative effectiveness of a brief psychological technique designed to speed up the normal healing process after physical injury. This technique is a combination of Gestalt psychology@) and Yoga('). The method itself can be considered an extension and combination of Gestalt sensory awareness wherein a person reviews a somatic injury and his accompanying sensory impressions, couples this with an examination of his attitudes, feelings and emotions at the same time such that the person develops an awareness of all sensations and feelings that surrounded the time of physical injury. A similar concept was developed by Hubbard(2). The concept of life energy control or directing it with one's mind is a Yoga technique called "pranayama;" similar techniques are to be found in the practice of Christian Science'l).
Thus the technique can be considered as curt psychotherapy of one's sensations and feelings that surround the time of a physical injury such that one develops a full awareness of the event; this is followed by the direction of life energy to the injured part of the body to speed repair and healing. The technique is given in full in the Appendix as a didactic vignette. Basically, one picks a short time period before the actual injury (such as 5 seconds before the injury). Then one systematically follows all sensations individually from this prior time to something like 15 seconds after the injury occurred. Next, one reviews all of the sensations collectively with the associated thoughts and emotions t o develop full awareness a t the time of injury. Finally, one uses tactile imagery to send energy to the afflicted part of the body to facilitate healing; this simply may be increased blood flow to that part of the body.