Mind-Body Healing/Integrative Medicine
The Mind-Body Medicine Group is dedicated to healing the whole patient—mind, body and spirit. As part of the UCLA Department of Head and Neck Surgery, the Group provides integrative care to patients and their loved ones through the treatment and recovery process.
UCLA Mind and Body Healing for Head and Neck Cancer
Our psychologists help patients tap into the healing potential of their thoughts, will, emotions and spirit. Together we assess your strengths and needs, creating a personalized strategy that is as safe and as effective as possible. As a patient, you and your loved ones benefit from psychological counseling and treatment for a range of goals, including:
- Clarifying priorities
- Formulating questions for their health care providers
- Choosing a treatment plan
- Coping with cancer treatment
- Enhancing long-term healing and quality of life
Integrative Medicine for Head and Neck Cancer: What to Expect
The Mind-Body Medicine Group offers individualized services in integrative medicine, tailored to the needs of each patient. Our work is based on the most current research and more than two decades of clinical experience with head and neck cancer patients. Our wide range of services begin with clarifying and supportive discussions in the following areas:
- Emotional responses
- Medical information
- Effects of your diagnosis, treatment and healing on your sense of self, relationships and work
- Meaningfulness inherent in each patient’s experience of diagnosis, treatment and healing
These discussions usually help patients achieve:
- Greater comfort, integration and clarity
- More useful and satisfying communications with their medical providers
- Enhanced inner strength and readiness to confront the challenges of treatment and recovery
We also help patients with psychological preparation specifically for cancer treatment:
- Surgery
- Radiation therapy
- Chemotherapy
Integrative Medicine Services at UCLA
We provide targeted, psychotherapeutic and behavioral/cognitive-behavioral treatments for patients and, as appropriate, for the patient’s entire “healing team:”
- We can provide this care in the inpatient setting when surgery is the treatment
- We can treat patients in the outpatient setting when radiation therapy or chemotherapy are the treatments
With these services, we aim to address:
- Treatment-related sadness, grief and depression
- Fear, anxiety and panic
- Pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- Insomnia
- Loss of morale or motivation
- Difficulties in performing self-care
- Communication issues with care providers or loved ones
- Smoking cessation
The Mind-Body Medicine Group also offers the following services:
- Medical hypnosis and guided imagery to speed recovery and better manage distress from symptoms, including reducing or eliminating side effects of treatment
- Mindfulness and concentrative meditation, along with adaptations of meditative methods, to enhance a sense of calm and control symptoms and side effects
- Exploration of spiritual and philosophical dimensions of treatment to clarify meaning and identify value in experiences
- Continuity of care following treatment, supporting long-term quality and duration of life
Mind-Body Healing Appointments
