Richard Hite, Ma., LPC

Picture of Richard Hite Background Questions and Answers, Concerning New Directions in Integrative Health and Wellness Education.
Richard Hite's professional life reflects his commitment to holistic healthcare, education and lifestyle management. The focus of his mission has been to translate concepts of holism and healing into understandable, concrete practices that integrate into balanced yet dynamic lifestyles promoting wellness, personal and professional growth. In pursuit of this mission, he has served as a consultant to a variety of business, healthcare and educational institutions. His expertise in communication and teaching and his unique clinical experience in mind/body therapies is reflected in the effectiveness of the integrative psychophysiological treatment modalities and wellness practices that he shares in his presentations, workshops and seminars. Richard's pioneering work in integrative healthcare was recognized by his colleagues before alternative healthcare caught the attention of mainstream medicine and the popular media. He first presented his ground breaking psychophysical treatment protocols at the 1992 World Conference of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His presentations at major conferences in the United States and Europe continue to introduce new effective protocols for treating stress, chronic pain, anxiety disorders, post traumatic stress disorders, hypertension, and other lifestyle issues.

     Q. What are psychophysiological treatment protocols?
     A. I first began to use the term psychophysiological treatment protocols shortly after starting to provide therapeutic yoga for patients in southeast Texas hospitals in 1987. Blanca Diez, M.D. had asked me to work with her patients in Deer Park Psychiatric Hospital in a Houston suburb. Besides Dr. Diez, the other doctors had difficulty with understanding foreign terms such as yoga and qi-gong. So we used terms such as psychophysiological treatment protocols and stress management to describe the mind/body therapies and groups. As I integrated these approaches with elements of more mainstream western therapies, the term seemed even more appropriate than esoteric words such as yoga when discussing clinical issues. Now it can refer to most any integrative mind and body based treatment used in clinical settings even though terms such as therapeutic yoga and tai-chi are also commonly used without causing nearly as much a fuss as in 1987.

     Q. What is the difference between therapeutic yoga and the yoga most commonly taught in yoga studios that are so common in every major city today?
     A. All yoga can be therapeutic, but I believe that as soon as we connect the terms therapy and yoga to describe what is being taught, the teacher has an obligation to have an appropriate level of training in one or more therapeutic modalities in addition to their yoga experiences. The public and other healthcare professionals expect a certain level of professionalism, training and ethics to be a part of any therapeutic activities that are included in any serious clinical treatment protocols. There are way too many examples of yoga students injuring themselves in classes offered to the public to suggest that just any yoga teacher can claim to be providing specific therapy for health issues. The first rule in therapy is to do no harm! Therapeutic yoga, however is still a very generic term and each therapist can use the term to describe very different integrative approaches.

     Q. What do you mean when you use the term therapeutic yoga?
     A. Since my clinical training is in psychology, it is no surprise that there are specific elements from psychotherapy that I have integrated into the stretching, breathing, movement and mindfulness exercises from the more traditional practices such as qi-gong, yoga, various martial arts and the more modern physiotherapies such as Feldenkrais and Hanna Somatics. The most significant contributions from psychotherapy have been from Dr. Francine Shapiro's work with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Dr. Milton Erickson's Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, Ron Kurt's Hakomi Psychotherapy, Dr. Ira Progoff's journaling and other writing processes, art therapy and of course the Tibetan gongs bring in sound therapy. I also call this approach Holopathic, meaning "multiple paths to wholeness" to signify the integrative strategy that is the core for maintaining good health and a high quality lifestyle.

     Q. Who are good candidates for successful outcomes using this therapeutic yoga?
     A. Many of my best students were retired NASA engineers in their seventies and eighties. They appreciated the science behind what I was doing and they were my best critics, forcing me to fully understand something before I would ever dare say it in a class. Stress and pain relief are the immediate effects for almost everyone even in their very first class. Relief from insomnia, anxiety, post traumatic stress symptoms, chronic arthritic pain, fibromyalgia, depression and most lifestyle related problems such as obesity, diabetes and essential hypertension also comes relatively quickly as well. Integrating the different disciplines creates a synergistic effect facilitating good health and a high quality lifestyle.

     Q. What makes this Holopathic yoga more effective than say a traditional hatha yoga class for treating diagnosed medical problems?
     A. Let's keep in mind that this integrative approach was developed in hospitals and clinics over a twelve year period, working with a pre-selected population. And if we can agree that there is a greater need for effective and quick healing within this population than in the average person in a public yoga class, then that helps to understand why this approach focuses on creating a quick foundation of relief to build on. Integrating the effective communication principles from Ericksonian Hynotherapy and NLP into the teaching process from the beginning enhanced the therapeutic benefits and the learning experience for the patients. Knowing this, it was then a process of looking into different therapy modalities that seemed to be a good fit.
     When we learned how the alternating bilateral stimulation related to the eye movement process, an integral part of EMDR, had a profound effect on the level of tension in a muscle, we recognized the potential for pain reduction right away. Just as EMDR has been shown to provide rapid relief as a psychotherapy, integrating this process into the yoga facilitates much quicker relief.
     I had already been using the gongs in my yoga classes before I started working with hospital patients, so I brought these instruments into the hospital as part of the yoga. I had found them to be very relaxing to listen to at the end of the exercise and students had always commented on how deep their meditation was while I played. In the hospital, the gongs triggered some very profound healing on all levels of human experience, physical, emotional and spiritually. Patients gave them tremendous credit. We've been able to see their effect on brain states by taking electroencephalograph (EEG) measurements of brain activity. This has helped me in determining how to play to create a particular response in a listener.
     It also helped knowing that anything I might do with a patient was going to be reviewed by at least one doctor and they had to understand the what, why, how and when of what I was doing with their patients or I would have been out the door. It was definitely a results oriented environment and for me a great opportunity that I took full advantage of.

     Q. You last headed a program in a hospital in 1999, why and what have you been doing since?
     A. Effective holistic practices can radically lessen the need for expensive, heroic rescues such as surgery, yet medical hospitals are dependent on surgical revenues to support the other less profitable services they offer. So there is an inherent conflict on the economic side of the relationship. This became apparent when a number of people attending public classes offered by the hospital cancelled or indefinitely postponed upcoming surgeries. These outcomes helped validate the therapeutic yoga clinically even as they highlighted the financial conflicts. When the hospital terminated the program for financial reasons, it provided the perfect opportunity to write a book and explore other venues besides hospitals to offer what I had learned during the previous twelve years. I also have traveled quite extensively in a motorhome, learning how different communities were developing integrative healthcare initiatives.

     Q. What do you see in the future for holistic healthcare and your work?
     A. I really believe education is the answer, so I've been teaching weekend workshops and seminars open to the public and for businesses concerned about rising health costs for their employees. It is much more cost effective to address health issues before they become intense enough to require treatment or even hospitalization. I have also found that many church fellowships are excellent places to teach. Spirituality is already a built in component of the fellowship along with the concepts of the group supporting the individual to meet their goals. There is a tremendous need in our educational system for effective health and wellness programs. Physical education and health classes are not preparing students to make the right choices in diet and other lifestyle issues. It has been estimated that 50% of the children in school will die from lifestyle related illnesses. I have been working with school teachers to develop age appropriate lessons in mind/body wellness. The ability to make healthy, balanced choices is a necessary survival skill in a world of opulence filled with unhealthy temptations.
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