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Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.
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VIDEO: Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. - Mind-Body Connection, What Is This?

Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. introduces herself and explains the mind-body connection.

Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.:
I am Katherine Puckett, National Director of Mind-Body Medicine for Cancer Treatment Centers of America. I am a licensed clinical social worker by training. My doctorate is from University of Chicago in Social Work, and I have been working at Cancer Treatment Centers of America for six and a half years in mind-body medicine.

People used to think that the mind and the body operated separately, but thankfully we’ve been knowing for the last few decades that they do connect, and I think it's really important for a person to understand, going through any healing process, and we’re talking about cancer here, that each person is a whole person. The mind, body, and spirit work in concert with each other, so you can’t really separate out one part from the other.

If I am going for the first time to a doctor and I feel nervous, I may get butterflies in my stomach, my heart may pound. Those are illustrations of the mind-body connection. I have the emotion of feeling anxious; I feel it in my body.

Another example that’s so important going through treatment and healing, but it’s less obvious, is that when a person is under stress over time, the immune system is compromised, and then it makes it harder for the body to heal in the way that it wants to, to work in the way that it wants to. So understanding that connection between mind and body makes a person more aware of different modalities of healing that they can use and being able to bring many, many things to bear in the healing process.

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