Thursday, May 22, 2008

Finding Om: the sequel

Looks like Finding Om may continue sooner than expected. After the last class on Tuesday night both Julie (the yoga teacher) and I were feeling pretty pumped. Things felt like they had gone really well, and we immediately began talking about continuing this program, broadening the target audience to include all eating and body image disorders and marketing it to the general public. Obviously there is a lot of work to do, but a lot of it has been done already.

Happily, our feelings of success are confirmed, at least anecdotally, by the responses I have gotten from the returned program evaluation forms.

Yes, people feel more aware of their bodies as a result of participation in Finding Om. Yes, people feel more in control of their bingeing as a result of participating in Finding Om. Yes, people feel Finding Om was beneficial to them. Yes, people would do this again or recommend it to a friend. Perhaps most importantly, Yes, people would pay money to participate in a program which combined yoga and talk therapy.

When asked how much they would pay per session, given that an hour of yoga is about $15 and group therapy ranges from $25-60 for 75-90 minutes, Finding Om participants threw out numbers from $10 (ridiculous) to $45 (wow).

As I read the responses I literally cried tears of joy. I am so relieved that my project worked-- at least in people's anecdotal responses. Today I am going to enter in the rest of the assessment data and compare pre- and post-intervention responses. I only have half the "exit interview" forms, so I can't conclude anything yet. But I hope hope hope hope hope that my results are statistically significant.

Even if they aren't, Julie and I know that what we did was successful. And I know that I want to continue doing this. And it looks like we will do so sooner that later.

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