Welcome to L.I.F.E.

The Shanti L.I.F.E. Program is a health-enhancement and wellness counseling program for individuals living with HIV, cancer, hepatitis C, and other illnesses.

The Shanti L.I.F.E. Institute offers curriculum development, training, technical assistance, outcomes evaluation, and research to health departments, medical clinics, and agencies across the country. We also offer direct client services in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Can Long-Term Survival with HIV Be Learned?
How is it that some people who have HIV or even AIDS have remained alive and healthy for many years? Can you learn something from these survivors to regain or improve your health? The L.I.F.E. Program^® offers some answers to these questions, with step-by-step guidance on how to support your immune system in its fight against HIV.

L.I.F.E. stands for Learning Immune Function Enhancement. It is a new approach to health and healing based on more than three decades of published medical research. The standard "biomedical" approach to treating disease relies primarily on the use of drugs. A new, comprehensive, "biopsychosocial" approach enhances traditional medicine by also looking at internal psychological responses and external social factors that affect immunity and the course of a disease.

Studies in psychology, immunology and the specialty field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI) have shown that for people living with HIV disease and other life-threatening illnesses, certain psychological and social factors can either help or hinder the effectiveness of the immune system. By understanding these psychosocial "Cofactors," and improving performance on them, people with HIV may gain significant control over their survival with HIV disease. For example, research studies show that long-term survivors of an AIDS diagnosis typically are self-assertive, a characteristic known to enhance immunity.

The L.I.F.E. Program^® does not conflict with established medical therapies for HIV, and in fact it can provide much-needed support for primary healthcare. Participants in the L.I.F.E. Program^® simply discover new ways that disease progression can be replaced by health progression. We believe that the best treatment for HIV disease is a collaboration between anti-HIV medical treatment and immune-boosting psychological treatment.

Interested? Please explore the rest of our website. If you are in the Bay Area and are interested in attending one of our upcoming workshops, you can preregister at the right or contact us at (415) 674-4706. For information on L.I.F.E. Workshops in other cities click here or contact us at (415) 674-4716. Sample nine of the cofactors by taking our Interactive Self Survey at right.