Certificates in Relaxation, Meditation and Mindfulness
Stress Institute | Department of Psychology

The Roosevelt University Stress Institute is dedicated to the scientific exploration and instruction of diverse approaches to stress management, relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness. Students can master personal coping techniques in the Institute’s highly popular classroom (or online) course, Coping with Stress (Psychology 203). The Certificates in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness are the Stress Institute’s basic and most popular professional training options.

The Certificate in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness: Level 1

The Certificate in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness teaches health professionals to become qualified instructors of relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness. Training is comprehensive and integrative, based on Dr. Smith’s innovative and critically acclaimed ABC2 Relaxation Theory. Students learn:

Professional Skills

• How to teach relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness individually, one-on- one. Techniques include:

  -  Yoga Stretching
  -  Progressive Muscle Relaxation (3 systems)
  -  Breathing exercises (11 techniques)
  -  Autogenic exercises (2 sequences)
  -  Imagery (two sequences)
  -  Meditation (7 approaches)
  -  Mindfulness (3 approaches)

• How to teach techniques in a group format
• How to conduct abbreviated training
• How to make an audio instruction recording
• How to run stress and relaxation workshops and seminars
• How to conduct a training program evaluation

Employment Tools

• How to use your Certificate to enhance employment opportunities
• How to market your skills
• How to work as a stress and relaxation consultant
• How to develop a client / customer base

Requirements

Psyc 373: Relaxation and Meditation
Psyc 379: Advanced Relaxation and Meditation (concurrent with Psyc 373)

Prerequisites

Valid high school diploma and 9 semester hours of college credit in psychology

Certificate in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness: Level 2

Our Level 2 Certificate in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness incorporates Level 1 and provides additional training in critically understanding the potential of alternative medicine as well as widely-publicized spiritual and paranormal experiences often associated with relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness.

Requirements

Psyc 373: Relaxation and Meditation
Psyc 379: Advanced Relaxation and Meditation (concurrent with Psyc 373)
Psyc 346: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Prerequisites

Valid high school diploma and 9 semester hours of college credit in psychology

The Stress Institute’s Philosophy

Basic and Specialized Training in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness

The Stress Institute distinguishes between two types of training in relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness (RMM).

Basic programs provide foundation training in core knowledge and skills required for all approaches to RMM.  For example, one learns the basic physiology of muscle relaxation, stress arousal, and breathing; the diverse psychological effects of relaxation; the six families of relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness; introductory training in all major approaches; and how to provide tailored relaxation programs.

Specialized training adds knowledge and skills specific to a particular spiritual, religious, philosophical, or psychological perspective.  For example, after learning the basics, one may go to a yoga monastery and learn specialized kriya yoga, master therapeutic massage from a chiropractic massage program, master Christian contemplative techniques from a Catholic church, or learn mindfulness meditation from a specialized Buddhist retreat.

The distinction between core basic training and specialized training is common throughout education.  In high school and college one masters certain core requirements, and then specializes by choosing a major.  And we see this distinction in specific disciplines.  For example, a professional singer first masters core knowledge and skills related to singing, for example, reading music, singing scales, breathing properly, and so on.  Once these fundamentals are acquired, a singer can specialize by in opera, jazz, gospel music, and so on.  There is an important advantage to mastering core basics before specializing; such a division of training provides one greatest flexibility and freedom in selecting a specialization, combining specializations, or changing specializations once one has been chosen.

Training programs in relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness typically mix basic and specialized training.  In a yoga program you may learn the physiology of stress arousal (a basic concept) while mastering a certain head-stand posture (a specialized skill).  In a Christian program of contemplative meditation you may learn that excessive stress may contribute to mental distractions during practice (basic concept) and learn to repeat the “Jesus Prayer” (specialized).  In a Buddhist program you may learn to breathe slowly (basic skill) and that the “ego is an illusion” (specialized).

The Stress Institute believes there are risks mixing basic and specialized training. 

• Trainers may confuse what is specialized and idiosyncratic with what is basic and universal.  For example, the concept of stress arousal is relevant to all of relaxation; whereas a claim that repeating a specific prayer may please God is a special idea unique to a particular religious perspective, and may not apply to other religious perspectives or to secular or spiritual approaches. 
• Trainers from mixed programs may have difficulty understanding the unique strengths of other approaches. 
• Finally, trainers from mixed programs may find it difficult adopting or benefiting from other approaches. 

In brief, programs in relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness that do not clearly differentiate basic and specialized training are more likely to produce trainers with a limited range of skills, and prematurely committed on one approach over others.  Mixed programs produce “true believers” overconfident in their approach and undertrained in the full range of skills available elsewhere.

The Stress Institute Approach to Basic Training

The Certificate in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness is the product of over a decade of research on over 10,000 individuals and four dozen approaches to relaxation. It is based on these principles: [For curriculum texts see www.lulu.com/stress] 

1. Various approaches to relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness have two general types of effects: physical and psychological.  The physical effects are well known and include specific reductions in tension as well as a global anti-stress “relaxation response.”  Recently research has focused on psychological effects and has identified a set of fundamental 15 “R-States” (relaxation or renewal states) as well as five types of mindful awareness. 
   
   
2. New research suggests that the hundreds of approaches to relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness actually sort into six basic family groups:
   
   Yoga stretching
   Progressive Muscle Relaxation
   Breathing Exercises
   Self-Suggestion and Autogenic Exercises
   Imagery
   Meditation / Mindfulness
     
   
3. Each family approach targets different skills, has different psychological and physical effects, and works for different people.
      
4. The most effective way to learn relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness is to learn all families of approaches and develop a personalized program targeted to individual needs.
   

The Certificates in Relaxation, Meditation, and Mindfulness are designed to provide comprehensive basic training in all six families of relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness. Graduates have the knowledge and skills to teach basic relaxation to others in a variety of contexts. The Stress Institute's Certificate Programs are ideologically neutral; graduates can apply what they have learned in variety of specialized programs based on often contrasting spiritual, religious, philosophical, or psychological beliefs.

Core Courses

PSYC 203 COPING WITH STRESS

Self-help course with option of student participation. Relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness; active coping techniques. Yoga stretching, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, breathing exercises, imagery, meditation / mindfulness; making personal relaxation recording. Active coping includes problem solving, time management, reducing negative stressful thinking, making and building relationships, assertiveness, and managing anger and aggression. Available as a traditional classroom course or online.

PSYC 373 RELAXATION AND MEDITATION

Professional training in yoga stretching, progressive muscle relaxation, breathing exercises, autogenic training, imagery, and meditation / mindfulness. Students develop a personalized relaxation program combining approaches that work best. Review of theory and research.

PSYC 346 PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL

Application of the skills of critical thinking and scientific psychological inquiry to alternative medicine as well as claimed extraordinary spiritual / paranormal / psychic experiences. Topics include: alternative medicine, astrology, biorhythms, channeling, chi, deja vu, demon possession, ESP, faith healing, Feng Sung, ghosts, magnet therapy, moon madness, mystical and religious experience, near-death experiences, out of body experiences, parapsychology, precognition, prophesy, psychic readings, psychokinesis, reincarnation, spiritualism, therapeutic touch, and ufo’s.

PSYC 379 ADVANCED RELAXATION TRAINING

Advanced training in teaching relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness to others. Making individualized relaxation recordings, assessing relaxation skills, conducting stress and relaxation workshops, evaluating programs. Advanced theory and research.

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