Full Course Description
Brain-to-Brain: Mastering the Neurobiological Waltz
OUTLINE
- Therapeutic relationship as dance between attachment systems
- Impact of early childhood experiences on attachment and affect regulation
- Arousal and self-regulation
- Secure v. insecure context
- Brain structures and systems related to self-regulation of affect
- Functions of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
- Consequences of hypoarousal and hyperarousal
- Unconscious nature of early attachment experiences
- Body memory/somatic learning
- Approach v. avoidance
- Therapeutic relationship and managing sense of threat
- Styles of attachment
- Unconscious nature of body memory
- Nonverbal cues and therapeutic communication
- Successful regulation of arousal
- Optimal window of arousal
- Sources of therapist dysregulation
- Identifying somatic transference and countertransference
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Impact of internal dialog, labeling
- Mind/body integration
- Integrating mindfulness practices
- Co-regulation in interpersonal psychotherapy
- Effective methods of communication
- Connecting and integrating sensory perceptions
- Experimentation as technique
- Working brain to brain
- Role of mirror neurons
- Social engagement system
- Flowing with resistance
- Summary
OBJECTIVES
- Explore how to recognize certain core issues in the therapeutic alliance—such as idealization and devaluing, stuckness, struggles for control, and abandonment fears—as manifestations of traumatic attachment
- Explore how to become skilled at “right brain to right brain” communication, or being able to “talk” without words
- Explore how to engage in a “dyadic dance” with your clients, mirroring their rhythms, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures
Copyright :
26/03/2017
Enhancing Neuroplasticity: Strategies for Rewiring the Brain
OUTLINE
- Choosing experiences to rewire the brain
Mindfulness
- Compassion
- Tools of intelligence
- Purposes of enhancing neuroplasticity
Regulation, relation, reflection and resilience
- Strategies for implementing positive neuroplasticity
- Brain structures and systems related to perception of safety
Functions of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
Consequences of hypoarousal and hyperarousal
- Unconscious nature of autonomic systems
- Therapeutic interventions to optimize feelings of safety
Beneficial exercises: breath, touch, posture and movement
Nonverbal cues and therapeutic communication
- Therapeutic resonance and healing
Techniques for developing resonance
Deep listening and acceptance of emotions
- Mindfulness and self-compassion
- Therapeutic exercise: Compassionate friend
- Shifting brain functioning through positive emotions
Neuroscience research
Gratitude exercise: Web of life
- Imagination
- Default mental play space
Therapeutic exercise: Wished for outcome
- Meta-processing and brain change
Journaling and creating a coherent narrative
- Summary and clinical take-aways
OBJECTIVES
- Discover how to teach clients tools of self-directed neuroplasticity to reverse the impact of stress and trauma on brain functioning and their capacities to cope
- Discover how to cultivate positive emotions to shift brain functioning from contracted survival responses to larger perspectives and openness to change
- Discover how to use practices of mindfulness and self-compassion to recover the capacities of the prefrontal cortex for response flexibility and resilience
- Discover how to strengthen capacities of empathy and deepen skills of relational intelligence to foster healthy, resonant relationships
Copyright :
24/03/2017
What the Brain Needs for Transformational Change
OUTLINE
- Different types of change and memory reconsolidation:
Counteractive
Transformational
- Transformational change therapies
Common therapeutic factors across diverse approaches
Permanence of transformational change
- Memory deconsolidation and reconsolidation
History and research
Nonverbal, implicit structure
Schemas and their self-protective function
- Impact of competing new learning
Brain circuits involved
Challenges of incremental learning and change
- Schema and implicit memory erasure
Non-reactivation
Symptom cessation
Effortless permanence
- Change mechanisms and sequences across therapeutic approaches
- Process for schema erasure
Reactivation
Guided contradictory experience
Juxtaposition with target schema
- Preparation for intervention
Symptom identification
Retrieving underlying schema
Finding contradictory experiences
- Nonspecific common therapeutic factors
- Verifying therapeutic outcome
Dissolution of schema
Evaluating presence of multiple schemas
- Clinical case examples of transformational process
Therapist factors
Potential complications
Symptom deprivation
Overt statements
Sentence completion
OBJECTIVES
- Discover the series of steps in the brain’s core process of profound unlearning
- Discover the process that swiftly reveals the emotional schemas generating symptoms
- Discover how to combine resource states and negative learnings into the juxtaposition experience that triggers reconsolidation and transformational change
- Discover how to shift unconscious emotional learnings into richly felt, conscious targets of change
Copyright :
25/03/2017
Treating Personality Disorders: Advances from Brain Science and Traumatology
OUTLINE
- Personality disorders in the US, prevalence and personal history
Risk factors, therapeutic options
- Diagnostic criteria for personality disorders
Cluster characteristics
Developmental characteristics
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Differential diagnostic criteria and defining characteristics
Pathological v. healthy narcissism
- Grandiose v. vulnerable narcissism
- Continuum of disturbance and loss of self
- Borderline Personality Disorder
Differential diagnostic criteria and defining characteristics
Boundary setting and treatment approaches
Attachment and therapeutic relationship considerations
- Antisocial Personality Disorder
Differential diagnostic criteria and defining characteristics
Victim v. perpetrator symptom expression
- Psychopathy and personality characteristics
- “No Solid Self”
Complex therapeutic history
Common underpinnings to varied personality diagnoses
Relationship characteristics
- Developmental processes underlying personality disorders
Family systems
Neurophysiological systems
Determining level of intervention
Self-regulation, positive regard, mirroring
Creating attachment and inserting self into therapy
Importance of non-verbal communication
Language selection and techniques
- Identifying meaning of disordered behavior and emotional regulation
- Therapist self-regulation, necessity and strategies
- Pictoral Coherence technique
- “Undissociation” technique
- General principles for therapeutic intervention
OBJECTIVES
- Explore how to develop a therapeutic alliance in the face of mistrust, control issues, and rock solid defenses while staying out of power struggles
- Explore how to work with the pathological dissociation typically present in personality disordered clients
- Explore practical, effective interventions informed by neuroscience that help clients safely manage frightening symptoms, including violence and emotional meltdowns, and develop healthier boundaries and a more differentiated sense of self
Copyright :
26/03/2017
Brain Care: Applying the Neuroscience of Well-Being to Help Clients
Program Information
Objectives
- Implement lifestyle choices that protect the physical brain as our clients age, and extend the “health span” portion of our lifespan
- Apply the tools of self-directed neuroplasticity in therapy that help reverse the impact of stress and trauma on emotional regulation, learning and memory, and empathy
- Engage clients with practices such as guided visualizations and process journaling that can enhance the higher brain’s capacity for response flexibility, discernment, planning, creativity, and imagination
- Apply interventions that help prevent/reverse addiction to digital technology and recover capacities for focused attention and concentration, relational intimacy, introspection, and self-reflection
- Employ valuable resources in the latest findings about the brain and the mind-body connection
Outline
- Brain structure, overlapping areas of physical pain, emotional pain and temperature
- Modalities impacting brain structure
Multiple approaches, experiences change the brain
Consciousness remains unexplained
Mindfulness, compassion
- Burnout and compassion fatigue
- Macro and micro approaches to self-care
- The impact of exercise on brain chemistry and development
Telomeres, longevity, types of movement
- The impact of sleep and rest on brain chemistry and development
Cognitive impairment, depression
Sleep improvement strategies
Brief restorative strategies
- Nutrition supports for brain function
MIND diet
Neurotoxins
Impact of obesity
- The role of play in sustaining healthy brain function
- Social relationships and well being
- The four intelligences of well being
- Body based tools for healing trauma
Reactivity and healing
Emotional regulation
- Priming the neuroplasticity of the brain
- Relational intelligence
- Mindful awareness
Modifying perceptions and reactions
- Exercise: Increasing somatic intelligence
- Exercises: Breath, posture and movement
- Positive psychology and neuroscience research
Contraction and reactivity
Resilience and health
Ability to shift perspective
Mindful self-compassion and acceptance
- Exercise: Hand movement, mindfulness and emotion
- Exercise: Visualization and self-compassion
- Exercise: Moments of kindness
- Exercise: Guided visualization toward self-acceptance
- Exercise: Playing Parts and self-integration
- Exercise: Integrating the inner critic
Copyright :
23/03/2017
How Hard Times Can Open the Heart
No CE Credit Available
OBJECTIVES
- State how our deepening understanding of neuroscience can enable us, even in times of great stress, to tap into five natural capacities of the brain
- Recognize how to help clients have greater access to their inner resources
- Develop a client’s capacity for deep pleasure and savoring the moment
Copyright :
20/03/2016