Lecture Evening ANXIETY DISORDERS ASSOCIATION OF VICTORIA

Lecture:

Page created September 21, 2008

Topic 1	"Tai Chi for Anxiety Management and Stress Reduction"
	Presenters: Fiona Biancotto & Maree Chadwick
Topic 2	"Mindfulness Meditation"
	Presenter: Rani Hughes

Date	Wednesday 12th November 2008
Time	7.30pm - 9.30pm
Venue	Hawthorn Library Meeting Room 584 Glenferrie Rd, HAWTHORN Melways 45/D11
Cost	$20.00 - Non-members (pre-payment required) $10.00 - ADAVIC members (pre-payment required) [ become a member]
	NOTE: You are purchasing an attendance to the lecture presentation (not an audio recording or transcript of the lecture)

Topic 1: "Tai Chi for Anxiety Management and Stress Reduction"

Fiona Biancotto

Fiona is an Occupational Therapist who has worked in mental health, general medical and rehabilitation settings. She is also a qualified tai chi leader (specialising in Dr Paul Lam’s tai chi for Health Programs) a mum with 2 teenage children, and an ADAVIC member.

Last September, Fiona experienced a panic attack whilst driving home after visiting the location where her father died in a boating accident 5 years before. Although she had been outwardly coping with this loss and many other stresses, Fiona knows now that at that time she had reached stress “saturation point”.

Following the initial panic attack, Fiona began to experience other anxiety symptoms, particularly when driving. These heightened feelings motivated Fiona to look into various forms of self-help.

One approach was tai chi, and this soon became the focus of Fiona’s interest as it combines both     physical exercise and mental relaxation. Fiona began participating in tai chi classes and completed a tai chi leader training course at the Arthritis Foundation of Victoria.

Fiona believes that tai chi has had a significant and lasting effect on her physical and mental well-being and has been instrumental in minimising her stress and anxiety symptoms.
One of Fiona’s key philosophies is that we all have the capacity to actively participate in maintaining and improving our own health. Fiona firmly believes that learning tai chi is one way we can do this, and it is her passion to teach this exercise form to others in a safe and effective way.

Fiona will be outlining the tai chi program she will be running with the support of ADAVIC commencing February 2009.

Maree Chadwick

Co-presenter Maree Chadwick is an experienced Occupational Therapist who has been teaching Dr Paul Lam’s medically modified Tai Chi for Health programs for 10 years. At the same time Maree has also   continued to develop her own skills and passion for varied forms of for Tai Chi and Qigong. She has     attended many classes and workshops, both in Australia and overseas.

As one of Dr Lam’s master tai chi trainers, Maree helps to develop tai chi programs and train instructors for the Arthritis Foundation. She also teaches tai chi to community, rehabilitation and corporate groups, to medical staff and to individuals.

Maree has worked in varied fields within Occupational Therapy including: rehabilitation, acute and       adolescent psychiatry, aged care and falls prevention. As such, Maree brings a wealth of Occupational Therapy experience to the field of “Self - Empowerment through Tai Chi”.

Maree has also worked on special community projects including training of Youth Leaders for YMCA,    Occupational Health and Safety for Municipal Home Care Staff, and voluntary Home Tutor work with     recently arrived migrants. These activities have all enabled Maree to pursue her interest in working with people from varied groups in our community.

Topic 2: "Mindfulness Meditation"

Rani Hughes

Rani is an Occupational Therapist who works in the emerging area of Mindfulness Meditation.

Having learnt meditation for over 20 years, Rani has attended meditation retreats in India, Thailand, Nepal and Australia. By experiencing the benefits of mindfulness meditation in her everyday life, Rani was keen to explore how meditation could be applied in her therapeutic role.

Mindfulness Meditation, or developing awareness of the present moment, is a profoundly simple way to change habitual tendencies of the mind. We often live our lives on “auto pilot”, not fully seeing, tasting, touching and smelling. Past memories, future plans and negative thoughts can absorb our thoughts. This may remove our ability to focus on what we are doing, as we are doing it, creating stress, anxiety and depression. With practice, mindfulness can break through our “auto pilot” thinking and help us to         reconnect with our moment to moment experiences.

In 1996 Rani became a volunteer with the Mindfulness Meditation program at Austin Health. This program began in the oncology unit, however due to its great success it was expanded to include all    patients, friends, family and staff at Austin Health. When the program founder, Bhante Kassapa, returned to Sri Lanka in 2000, Rani continued to run the program. Recently Rani has moved to the Yarra Valley, however she continues to teach at Austin Health once a month. This program has touched hundreds of people’s lives.

Rani has taught mindfulness to a variety of people, including older people as a falls prevention strategy, conference delegates, hospital staff as stress management and to a football team.
At this lecture Rani will discuss both the theory and practice of mindfulness. We will experience some mindfulness meditation and explore ways to bring this technique into our every day life.