Counseling Workshop Description

Ellen Langer, Ph.D., one of the most creative social psychologists of this generation, is a renowned and highly respected presenter from Harvard University. She will be speaking about her latest research and her most recent book, Counter Clockwise, which investigates how our minds and bodies are connected and affect our overall health.

In 1979 Dr. Langer began her landmark “counterclockwise” study, in which she had a group of elderly men live for a week as though it were 1959. She found that the elderly men appeared to grow younger and that their overall health had improved in several ways by the end of the week. She has continued in this line of research, finding that the secret to growing and feeling younger lies in “being aware of the ways we mindlessly react to cultural clues.” To become aware of environmental and cultural clues is to live “mindfully.”

Our minds have incredible power over our bodies. Because of this mind-body connection, our minds have the ability to improve our health if we live mindfully, and to cause a decline in our health when we live mindlessly (taking in information without questioning it). Langer’s research has verified that as we become mindful, as we reorient our attitudes and beliefs and make subtle changes to our environment, these changes transform our lives and we have better mental and physical health. Her research in the “counterclockwise” experiment holds stirring implications for health factors such as vision, weight, heart, aging, cancer, and our perceived levels of overall happiness.

Langer’s work, as well as important work from other researchers, is based on scientific studies that have found that the quest for certainty in medical diagnosis and treatment can be limiting when it comes to potential solutions to mental and physical illnesses. For example, in one study she found that merely changing word choices can result in health benefits. Cancer patients who use the word “cured” instead of the word “remission” to describe their stabilized condition were found to have better physical health and function, less pain and fatigue, less depression, and more hope for the future than patients who viewed their cancer as “in remission.”

Further, Langer has found that the labels doctors often use in their daily practice often are followed by hypothesis-confirming searches by patients that result in their feeling worse and experiencing an increase in health problems. In this presentation, Langer will discuss her research as well as other important research in this field. She will help us to learn how to take an approach to life that is more mindful, challenging cultural and environmental beliefs and attitudes in an effort to improve our physical and mental health. Through her research, she has found ways in which we can help ourselves and our patients turn back the clock, both psychologically and physically.