The University of Natural Medicine Announces the Start of its Distance Based Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychophysiology

Clinical psychophysiology focuses on the amelioration / treatment and prevention of disease through teaching people techniques for recognizing and correcting abnormal physiological levels of function and responses. The field has a long history of making major contributions to health care in both treatment and prevention arenas. For instance, relaxation techniques are widely recognized as being effective in both the treatment and prevention of headaches. However, the majority of the field's techniques are only gradually making the transition from alternative medicine to mainstream medicine.

Effective incorporation of behavioral medicine techniques into the treatment of a wide variety of clinical problems has been stymied by (1) the lack of appropriate training in these techniques among health care providers and (2) the frequent poor design and small sample sizes utilized in studies supporting these applications. Even those techniques which have been well documented enough to be acceptable to the health care community, such as biofeedback for urinary and fecal incontinence, have not been widely used because few health care providers are trained to apply them effectively.

This is the only doctoral program in applied psychophysiology in the world at this time. The program is designed to train people to be true professionals in the unique constellation of assessment and interventional techniques which combine to form the profession of clinical psychophysiology. The program was developed and tested through the Behavioral Medicine Research and Training Foundation's courses. Students in the program's initial trial came from counseling, MFT, nursing, physical therapy, and social work. All but four of the courses were taught during the trail and five have been taught by distance education with great success.

The core doctoral program consists of a combination of distance based lecture courses, laboratory experiences, seminars, dissertation work, and training experiences for a total of 90 credits. The doctoral program is designed for two groups of people. First, clinicians who are already independently licensed or certified at the Masters level will learn to use psychophysiological techniques to extend their scopes of practice within their credentials to include new types of patients with a wider variety of disorders by incorporating a wider variety of evaluative and interventional techniques into their current skill sets. Second, people who have completed their bachelor's degrees but do not have a clinical background suitable for state certification or licensure will become professional clinical psychophysiologists capable of using psychophysiological assessment and interventional techniques with a wide variety of patients. People from the second group take three additional courses beyond the core curriculum in basic clinical skills in order to insure that they have the clinical skills needed to work with patients safely and effectively.

The program is designed to be offered mainly via distance education supported by several hands-on training sessions held in conjunction with meetings of the field's professional organization - the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. The distance courses are provided through audiovisual lectures recorded on CDs and student - teacher interaction via the internet following each lecture. The program is projected to cost about $18,500 for students who are already licensed or certified in a clinical field and about $21,800 for students who need clinical training exclusive of travel expenses.

Faculty are drawn from among outstanding members of the field and include Russell Hicks, M.D., Jeffrey Kisling, M.Div., MFT, Gerry Kozlowski, Ph.D., Susan Middaugh PT, Ph.D., Don Moss, Ph.D., Graham Patrick, ARNP, Ph.D., Mary Scholz, RN, Ph.D., Rich Sherman, Ph.D., Wes Sime, Ph.D., Ph.D., Seb Striefel, Ph.D., and Eric Willmarth, Ph.D.

The University began in 1989 with the aims of becoming one of the foremost educational institutions for Natural Medicine, create training programs that integrate healing practices from all disciplines and cultures, and to provide availability and affordability of education in natural medicine for people around the planet. The University now has campuses in many nations and provides education in over ten languages. It is a non-profit institution that is fully licensed by the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education as a Private Postsecondary Institution of Higher Learning. Degree programs include BS, MS, MA, PhD, NMD, & ND.

For More Information please contact Dr. Rich Sherman, the program's director, at rsherman@nwinet.com or (360) 598-3853. Course descriptions and faculty CVs can be found on the University's web site at universitynaturalmedicine.org