Full Course Description

Helping Make the Unbearable Tolerable: Trauma & the Treatment of Addictions

Unlike stress, which resolves itself after the event is over, trauma causes people to become physiologically and mentally stuck — hyper-aroused and/or frozen, unable to manage their bodily arousal systems.

This recording will clarify the neurobiological underpinnings of these broken biological systems, clarify how addictive behaviors of all kinds are invariably rooted in desperate attempts to manage and discuss the evidence-based methods that are available to help re-regulate mind and body.

Program Information

Objectives

Determine the neurobiological underpinnings of the arousal system that lead to trauma and increase clients’ substance abuse and addiction cycle.
Employ several evidence-based methods that foster re-regulation of mind and body that can aid in reduction of symptomology.
Investigate how addictive substances are used as coping mechanisms for unresolved traumatic stress.

Outline

The Neurobiology of Trauma

The body’s arousal system in the face of trauma

The Interplay of Trauma and Addiction

How addictive substances are used as coping mechanisms
Evidence-based methods that can foster re-regulation of the mind and body

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/15/2020

How Neurofeedback & Neurotherapies Can Heal Trauma & Addictions

For the past 40 years, The Meadows Model has been treating trauma and addiction, using both Pia Mellody’s Model on Codependency and cutting edge trauma interventions to provide safe container while patients learn to re-regulate and traverse the autonomic shifts needed within their nervous systems that allow for healing to occur.  Because meaning follows physiology, one of our main goals is utilization of various therapeutic modalities that interrupt negative feedback loops - including disorganized breathing patterns, thoughts, and brainwave patterns.  The state of our nervous system will inform how we organize our experience and make meaning of our life.   Through Neurofeedback, and working directly with the nervous system to help individuals reorganize the non-conscious survival adaptations developed by the sub-cortical or lower brain, we explore the importance of experiencing the body in the present moment because healing happens in the here-and-now.   This recording will include description of various neurotherapies utilized, how and why they are used within context of treatment planning, and a case presentation to demonstrate key concepts.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise Alpha wave importance & 2 devices that increase prevalence of this frequency range
Differentiate two types of brain wave training - Arousal amplitude NFB vs. Infra Low
Evaluate the therapeutic benefits and measurement of Neurofeedback (NFB) as ancillary treatment for trauma and addiction

Outline

Overview of Brain Center & Neurotherapy at MBH –
- Meaning follows physiology & importance of Alpha
- Traditional Arousal/Amplitude Training vs. Infra Low NFB
- Supporting embodiment through state shift awareness
- Identify 2 ways progress is measured
Case Study demonstrating how NFB allows for a different realm of healing & how research supports this

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/15/2020

Techniques for Creatively and Compassionately Addressing the Impulse to Self-Harm and Relapse

Many clinicians still insist that clients sign and abide by a standard safety contract as a way to manage self-harm and addictive behaviors. This inevitably creates a power struggle between clients and therapists and forces clients to "white knuckle" their destructive urges without giving them alternative ways to navigate and process the deeper reasons why they turn to acts of self-destruction.

This recording will offer therapists a viable alternative that helps to de-code the deeper trauma-based communication, metabolize emotions, access clients' creativity and self-compassion, while teaching them healthier ways to self-soothe that don't lead to an endpoint of guilt or shame.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise limitations and risks for the use of standard safety contracts.
Evaluate the three components of CARESS and how to prepare clients to use the model when they get the impulse to harm themselves or return to their addiction.
Assess various CARESS techniques and identify at least four open-ended questions that can be used to process clients work.

Outline

Why standard safety contracts don't work

evoking power struggles
re-enacting victim -perpetrator dynamics
leaving clients bereft of healthy replacements

Incorporating CARESS

walking clients through the model
negotiating alternative ways to communicate, release endorphins, and self-soothe
why contacting the therapist is not a part of the contract

Processing Clients' artwork

why therapists' interpretations are detrimental
asking open-ended questions to elicit clients'conscious and unconscious communication
identifying the iconic images that connect to trauma narratives

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/15/2020

Using the Experiential “Trauma Timeline” Intervention in Treating Trauma and Addiction

The Trauma Timeline, part of Relational Trauma Repair, Dr. Dayton’s psycho-educational model, is an experiential process for groups and one to one therapy, that helps clients to become aware of their developmental traumas and place them into the overall context of their lives. The Trauma Timeline bonds and engages groups, provides a map for psychodramatic role play that allows for clients to talk to the parts of themselves that they wish to connect with or others who were a part of their lives and impacted their development. The trauma Timeline can be done in one to one, functioning as a map from which empty chair work can be done and/or in a group moved from the “map” into a group, experiential process.

Program Information

Objectives

Investigate the use of the Trauma Timeline and how it is done on paper and how to move it into experiential work.
Defend how the Trauma Timeline can be a springboard for developmental, targeted psychodrama work.
Appraise how the Trauma Timeline can become a group process that is engaging and bonding.

Outline

How trauma creates a fragmented self
How people internalize relational trauma and how it leads to the creation of inner voices.
The key tasks of trauma treatment
Relational Trauma Repair Method
The Trauma Timeline Intervention

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/15/2020

How the Body Carries Racialized Trauma: A Therapeutic Pathway to Resilience & Healing

WE CAN’T HELP OURSELVES EVEN BEGIN TO HEAL RACIALIZED TRAUMA IF WE DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT EVEN EXISTS. Our society needs to break down systems and institutions that perpetuate the concept of white body supremacy and recognize how the myth of race and historical trauma is deeply ingrained into our culture.

Through a somatic-body approach that negotiates the common historical and perpetual myths that Black bodies, Native bodies, and other bodies of color are inherently deviant and that the white body is the standard of humanness, Resmaa helps build an understanding of racialized trauma so that we can move from our racialized lens to a cultural lens – and move further to a resourced energy lens of healing. Learn how to recognize trauma in the body, how to build a cultural container to heal, and how to begin practicing resourced resilience. These tools can help us recognize body trauma born out of racism and white body supremacy in our own body and our communities and to start to heal.

Program Information

Objectives

Determine the stress signs and symptoms of trauma.
Evaluate the basics of the HIPP theory (historical, inter-generational, persistent institutional, personal) of racialized trauma.
Assess the basics of at least one resourcing technique.
Investigate the many dimensions associated with how the body carries racialized trauma.

Outline

Racialized Trauma

Myth of race
Historical trauma
White body supremacy
HIPP theory (historical, inter-generational, persistent institutional, personal)

How the body carries racialized trauma

Recognizing trauma in the body

Resilience and community in healing

Building a container
Repetition, Consistency, Practice
Strategies for healing

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/15/2020

Addictive Behaviors as Self-Preservation: Key Insights from the Internal Family Systems Model

By looking at addictive behaviors – from drugs and alcohol to sex, technology, and binge eating -- as means of self-protection and a way of staving off deep personal pain, the IFS model provides a model of treatment that avoids power struggles, and feelings of shame and judgment that can often accompany treatment for trauma and addictions.

Watch IFS developer, Richard Schwartz, demonstrate how IFS therapy is used with addictive behaviors and see how the IFS model is a compassionate means to revisit trauma and initiate healing, and in turn, helps the individual to address the subsequent addictive behaviors often without the need for extended grounding techniques at the beginning of treatment.

Developed over the past four decades, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model offers both a conceptual umbrella under which a variety of practices and different approaches can be grounded and guided and provides a set of original techniques for creating safety and fostering Self-to-Self connection in traumatized clients.

This product is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the IFS Institute and does not qualify for IFS Institute credits or certification.

Program Information

Objectives

Determine how the Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) views addictive behaviors and recovery.
Apply IFS-specific grounding techniques that may help clients with addiction, recovery and trauma.
Apply three IFS-specific techniques for reducing addictive behaviors and symptoms of traumatic stress.

Outline

Multiplicity & the Self

Evolution of the IFS approach
Multiplicity of the mind
Stumbling on to the self

Internal Family System (IFS) with Trauma

IFS techniques:
- Honoring protectors
- Dealing with the overwhelm
- Witness and retrieve exiles
- Unburden trauma memories, beliefs and emotions

Keys to Working Safely with Addictions and Trauma

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

How our Unconscious Biases Toward Racial & Sexual Minorities are Affecting Clients & What to Do

Racial and sexual minorities experience barriers in accessing healthcare that may impact their overall health outcomes. This timely presentation will invite you to look at any implicit bias and behaviors that you bring into the clinical setting that could that negatively promote healthcare disparities.

You will learn how to self-evaluate and how to implement best practices to avoid and correct any biased treatment of your patients.

Program Information

Objectives

Differentiate at least 3 types of common provider bias, including microaggressions and overt discrimination toward patients.
Utilize tools to evaluate your personal bias.
Integrate best practices to prevent and/or correct biased treatment of patients.

Outline

Historical and contemporary examples of provider bias

Bias as a contributor to health disparities
The occurrence of trauma because of bias

Types of Common Provider Bias

Microaggressions
Overt discrimination

Tools and Best Practices

Self-assessment tools to uncover bias that could impact your practice
How to implement best practices to correct and prevent biased treatment in practice

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

Healing Developmental Trauma in Therapy: The Science of Restoring Self-Regulation

Childhood maltreatment can profoundly influence human development, resulting in a variety of mental, emotional, and social challenges – including addictive disorders. Attachment theory is a useful framework for understanding how early relational experiences can have far-reaching effects. Developmental trauma and attachment disturbances can lead to deficits in nervous system regulation. Addictive behaviors can be seen as an attempt at short-term regulation, with long-term consequences.

This presentation will explore the scientific linkages between trauma, attachment, and addiction, and will offer ideas on how to help clients restore the capacity to self-regulate in healthy ways.

Program Information

Objectives

Evaluate one of the structures in the brain that is impacted by childhood trauma.
Conclude at least one brain chemical/neurotransmitter that is involved in attachment and addiction.
Appraise the two primary dimensions of attachment insecurity.

Outline

Discover the neurobiological connections between trauma, attachment, and addiction
Understand how attachment style relates to cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal patterns
Learn practical techniques involving mindfulness and self-compassion to help people heal trauma- and attachment-related wounds

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

How Diet is Connected to Mental Health, Trauma & Addiction: A Practical Roadmap for Recovery

The connection between what we eat, and how we feel, has been documented for over a decade in studies. Yet, few organizations dealing with mental health and addiction have incorporated this concept into their treatment protocols. Kristin Kirkpatrick will discuss the major dietary factors that impact depression, anxiety, and addiction. She will also detail why dietary intervention is essential to successful recovery as well.  Finally, Kristin will discuss the groundbreaking new program at the Meadows that is addressing these factors in an effort to better serve our patients, visitors and staff.

Program Information

Objectives

Participants will be able to identify the major dietary factors associated with mood.
Participants will be able to discuss the Meadows Fuel Well program to their patients.
Participants will understand the major studies associated with food, mood and recovery.

Outline

Fuel well

Discussion on the role that diet plays in mental health and recovery
Navigating a dietary discussion in a behavioral health practice

MIND diet

Components of the mind diet and studies showing the impact on brain health

Omega 3 fatty acid and Vitamin D studies

Data from three studies will be discussed
Best ways to increase sources of Omega 3 and Vitamin D

MTHFR deficiency

The role that MTHFR has on folate and depression levels
How to test for MTHFR

Gut health research

Discussion on the mind brain axis
Components that impact gut health

The impact that processed food / sugar / fast food has on mental health outcomes

Data on immune function and inflammation

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

The Not-So-Hidden Epidemic of Sexually Compulsive Behaviors & Pornography Addiction: The Trauma Connection and Treatment

Sexually compulsive and addictive behavior has become a common presenting problem for today's clinician, whether it emerges in the form of pornography addiction, use of "hook up" apps, or emerges as part of marital conflict. 

Dr. Carnes will discuss the current state of the field of compulsive sexual behavior and pornography addiction, including the most up to date research and information on diagnosis, etiology, and treatment.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise new research on the diagnosis of sexually compulsive and addictive behavior.
Assess the role of trauma and attachment disruption as etiological factors in the development of compulsive sexual behavior.
Investigate the key differences between treating sex addiction and sex offending and other sexual disorders.

Outline

What is Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder?
Criteria
Differential Diagnosis
Etiology

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

Reverberations of Trauma in the Addictive Family: A 7-Step Process of Recovery

The majority of people who experience trauma will experience a chronic form that exists within their own family. Beginning with a genogram, Claudia will give a portrait of addiction in the family, offering an overlay of how adverse childhood experiences, emotional and physical abandonment are the foundation of emotional dysregulation fueling traumatic responses. She concludes the presentation offering a 7-step process for healing.

Program Information

Objectives

Assess the trauma responses of flight, fight and freeze being acted out in families impacted by addiction.
Utilize genograms for understanding treatment implications for clients with addictions and the impacts on their family systems.
Evaluate a seven-step process for addressing trauma generated by addictive family systems.

Outline

Addictive behaviors through the lens of the family
Utilizing the genogram in clinical work
7-step process for recovery

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

The Seven Myths of Addiction

For twelve years Dr. Maté was the staff physician at a clinic for drug-addicted people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where he worked with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness, and HIV, including at Vancouver Supervised Injection Site.

In his recent bestselling book In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts, he draws on cutting-edge science to illuminate where and how addictions originate and what they have in common. Contrary to what is often claimed, the source of addictions is not to be found in genes, but in the early childhood environment where the neurobiology of the brain’s reward pathways develops and where the emotional patterns that lead to addiction are wired into the unconscious. Stress, both then and later in life, creates the predisposition for addictions, whether to drugs, alcohol, nicotine or to behavioral addictions such as shopping or sex. Helping the addicted individual requires that we appreciate the function of the addiction in his or her life.

Once we recognize the roots of addiction and the lack it strives (in vain) to fill, we can develop a compassionate approach toward the addict, one that stands the best chance of restoring him or her to wholeness and health.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise the economics, cultural, psychological and neurobiological roots of addiction and addictive behaviors.
Evaluate 7 common myths surrounding addiction and addictive behaviors.
Investigate the role of “choice” in the development of addiction.

Outline

What is the source of addictions?
What happens chemically and physiologically in the brains of people with substance dependency or behaviour addiction?
The false “blessings” of addiction as experienced by the addict (e.g., as emotional anaesthetic, as personality booster, as social lubricant)
The development of the addicted mind: how early childhood experiences shape the brain
The social basis of addiction in economic, cultural and political dislocation and disempowerment
How much choice does the addict really have, and how much responsibility?

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 10/16/2020

Addicted to Exercise: When Movement Takes a Dangerous Turn

Whether on its own or in collision with another mental health problem, pathological exercise is a serious and debilitating condition. Similar to substance use disorder, compulsive exercise can serve as a maladaptive coping strategy in response to increased arousal, hypervigilance, cognitive ruminations, and other trauma-related symptoms. Yet, in a society that glorifies more as better, movement that takes a turn to compulsive—and dangerous—is far too often missed and dismissed. Further, the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of pathological movement—a process addiction—can be complicated by the fact that balanced exercise provides clear health and healing benefits. From both a professional and patient perspective, this presentation discusses the intersection of exercise, trauma, substance use disorders, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicide.

Utilizing neuroscience findings, the personality and temperament traits that increase an individual’s risk of developing compulsive exercise in response to trauma will be described. This unique presentation discusses evidence-based as well as alternative treatment approaches.

Program Information

Outline

Introductions

Professional Perspective

Setting the Stage: How trauma can change the brain and how exercise, other process addictions, and substance use can become maladaptive coping strategies.
Define compulsive exercise; address underlying temperament and history traits that make it more likely that someone will develop compulsive exercise.
Discuss diagnostic criteria for compulsive exercise, including screening questions and specific assessment tools.
Describe neuroscience findings: trauma effects reward and habit circuitry that may contribute to compulsive exercise and other addictive disorders.
Discuss the increased risk of suicide with both addictive disorders and compulsive exercise.
Describe treatment approaches for compulsive exercise.

Patient Perspective

Share personal story of seeking treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder after recovering from anorexia nervosa (binge/purge type)—complicated by pathological exercise.
Explain the positive and negative experiences of treatment with a succession of providers and modalities.
Identify practical skills for developing a balanced relationship with exercise within the realm of both eating disorder and PTSD recovery.

Questions and Answers

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Physicians
Addiction Counselors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Case Managers
Other Mental Health Professionals

Objectives

Distinguish the brain changes associated with trauma that increase an individual’s risk for developing substance use disorders and pathological exercise.
Assess the personality traits and temperaments that increase an individual’s risk for developing pathological exercise in response to trauma.
Evaluate the association between the aberrant emotional regulation that often occurs in posttraumatic stress disorder, pathological exercise, and substance use disorder.
Investigate the association between pathological exercise, substance use disorders, and the increased risk of suicidal behaviors.
Distinguish both evidence-based and alternative treatment approaches for individuals impacted by trauma-related disorders and pathological exercise.

Technosexual: The Improvements, Intrusions, Complexities, and Compulsions That Technology Brings to Modern Sexuality

Understanding the latest in technology is an ever moving target, and a rapid one at that! Digital natives integrate the use of new technologies seamlessly into every aspect of their lives, including their sexual identities, expressions, courtship behaviors, and relationship formation. However, it can sometimes be hard for therapists to help when things go awry, because we may not speak this new and modern language. Older generations of therapists may have very different views on what constitutes healthy use of tech in one's sexual life where therapists who are digital natives themselves may find that the ability to keep their private and professional selves separate in a blurry digital landscape becomes a never ending question of what is right and what is right now? This session provides a basic overview of some of the sexual technology currently out in the world, what may be on the horizon and the joys and challenges new technology may bring to an already complex part of our lives.

Program Information

Outline

Technology has a broader definition than we tend to credit and impacts sexuality in a much broader spectrum.
Beyond personal choice, there are therapeutic, medical, legal, and ethical implications to every major technological growth in the sexuality arena
Technological change is so rapid that we do not have the internal adaptations to understand the long term implications of new technologies, leading to the rise of phenomenon such as internet addiction and sexual addiction.
Regular updates are needed to our intake and screening processes, including suggestions on how to update sexual and technological questions during intake and initial assessment to help uncover issues early on in treatment.

Target Audience

Psychologists
Social Workers
Counselors
Marriage and Family Therapists
Sex Educators and Therapists
Addiction Professionals
Nurses

Objectives

Catalogue 3 areas beyond pornography where technology has impacted modern sexuality.
Evaluate the concept of technostress and how that applies to technology and sexuality.
Utilize at least 3 new assessment questions related to sexuality and technology that they made add to the assessment process in their therapeutic practice.

Transforming Trauma: The Roots of Addiction

Trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder but is rather an injury caused by paralyzing fright, helplessness, and loss. Addiction is often used as an excuse for destructive behavior when it is actually a failed attempt to self-regulate and soothe deep emotional wounds. It is a maladaptive way of dealing with difficult emotions such as shame, anger, sadness, and fear. It is also a way of avoiding or dissociating from the person’s traumas and their accumulation of adverse life experiences; for these reasons, effective treatment needs to be holistic in helping these individuals deal with the underlying roots which propel addiction and reduce the likelihood of relapse. By grounding energetic experiences through the containment of bodily sensations, while engaging our innate capacity to self-regulate states of arousal and intense emotions, we can facilitate the transformation of trauma and the integration of healthy experiences.

In this program, we will look at how underlying traumas often trigger and support addiction-based behavior and how the roots of addiction lie in unresolved trauma, insecure attachment, lack of support, overindulgence, and habitual childhood frustration. 

Program Information

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Addiction Counselors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Case Managers
Other Mental Health Professionals

Objectives

Differentiate between top-down and bottom-up processing.
Assess how trauma-based perceptions remain fundamentally unchanged until the internal experience of the body changes.  
Appraise the theory that the trauma response is a set of defensive bodily reactions.
Theorize about the biopsychosocial links between addictive behaviors and traumatic stress

Addiction and Recovery Update 2020: The Latest Clinical Takeaways from Neuroscience Research

Research in neuroscience provides an evidence-based and comprehensive understanding of addiction that fits well with the experiences of people needing, seeking, and in recovery. There are several insightful and well-articulated arguments challenging the disease conceptualization of addiction, but two important areas of research – epigenetics and psychoneuroimmunology – greatly advance awareness of how environmental stress creates vulnerability to addiction.

This lecture reviews the most up-to-date science of addiction, the current arguments for and against addiction’s conceptualization as a disease, and how the principles of recovery management counter the pathophysiology of addiction and improve a recovering person’s chances of achieving long-term recovery.

Program Information

Outline

I. Addiction: a disorder of reward learning, decision-making and self-awareness

Definitions of Addiction
- The American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Definition of Addiction
- The DSM-5 Symptomology of Addiction (Substance Use Disorder)
The Five Current, Leading Neuroscientific Explanations of Addiction
- Genetic Vulnerability (Blum)
- Incentive-Sensitization (Robinson and Berridge)
- Pathology of Memory and Learning (Kalivas)
- Stress-induced Allostasis (Koob and LeMoal)
- Pathology of Motivation and Choice (Volkow, Goldstein)
The Debate about Addiction’s Definition as a Disease

II. Recent Advances in the Pathophysiology of Addiction

Epigenetics: a new understanding of heritability of addiction & recovery
- The Overkalix Study and transgenerational trauma transmission
- Nicotine primes cocaine use (Kandel and Kandel)
Psychoneuroimmunology: the Gut-Brain-Immune Loop
- Inflammation and Psychiatric Disorders
- The Role of Microglia in brain disease and repair
Implications for the Disease Argument

III. Recovery Management: a Safety-based approach to sobriety

Altering Health Disparities by Improving the Social Determinants of Health
Professional Health Programs: What Makes a Good Aftercare Plan
- Treatment and “Recovery Literacy”
- Recovery Management Check-Ups
  - Active Linkage to Recovery-Oriented System of Care (ROSC)
- Recovery Residences
- Peer-based Sobriety Support (Kelly, Kaskutas)
- Relapse Safety Planning
- Urine Drug Testing (Monitoring)
- Vocational Rehabilitation and The Collegiate Recovery Movement
- Addiction Medicine Specialists
- How Recovery Management informs Medication-Assisted Treatment
- “Hedonic Rehabilitation”

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Addiction Counselors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Case Managers
Other Mental Health Professionals

Objectives

Appraise the latest neuroscientific explanations of substance use disorder pathophysiology and interpret Substance Use Disorder symptomology in light of this research.
Investigate and analyze the arguments for and against the conceptualization of addiction as a brain disease.
Analyze elements and evaluate examples of Recovery Management, post-treatment support/aftercare, and Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care.
Utilize the principles of Safety Culture and Chronic Disease Management to solve common problems in early sobriety

The Gathering Storm: The Future of Trauma Treatment

With the emerging knowledge of the nature of addiction and compulsion in their many forms, evidence from many quarters is foreshadowing our next great epidemic. Already addiction ranks as our number one public health problem dramatically outdistancing in financial costs compared to other illnesses such as cancer and diabetes. Unfortunately, deep public prejudice against mental health and addiction professionals as inept or even fraudulent is a steep barrier to the changes we need to make.

The good news is that other countries have pioneered models for changing cultural attitudes. Further, catalytic combinations from genetics, trauma research, neuroscience, emotional regulation, and addiction treatment have cleared a path of hope via effective, core strategies that all clinicians and their patients can access. The real questions are, do we have the resolve and do we have time?

Program Information

Outline

Understanding the field of trauma and addiction treatment

The connection between compulsions and addictions

Resilience-based strategies

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Addiction Counselors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Case Managers
Other Mental Health Professionals

Objectives

Apply three evidence-based teachable resilience-based interventions for traumatized clients.
Appraise how addictions occur in those that are not genetically predisposed to addiction.
Evaluate the relationship between compulsive behaviors and addictive behavior.

The Myth of Normal in an Insane Culture

In this address, Gabor Mate will discuss how in our hyper-stressed, materialistic society, physical and mental illness are not aberrations but natural outcomes of a way of life inimical to genuine human needs.

Treatment, therefore, must go beyond a focus on symptoms and diagnoses to address the causes of dysfunction from a bio-psycho-social perspective.

Program Information

Objectives

Evaluate the current model of behaviorally focused parenting by highlighting how the failure to promote attachment results in an interference of the development of children's brains.
Investigate how the impact of early childhood adaptability impacts adulthood, leading to adults with greater mental health, medical, and substance abuse problems.
Defend the importance of having a trauma-informed understanding when treating clients and the ability to recognize that trauma underlies many of the problems clients present with in psychotherapy and medical treatment.
Appraise how physical and mental illness are natural outcomes of a way of life inimical to genuine human needs, and the ways in which treatment must go beyond a focus on symptoms to address the causes of dysfunction from a bio-psycho-social perspective.

Outline

Limitations of the Medical Model

Societal Increase of Drug Overdose, Diseases, Mental Health Issues
Mind & Body as Separate
Individuals as Separate from One Another
Individuals as Separate from Environment
Medical Model=Individual Biology
Addictions as Personal Choices or Genetic Pre-Disposition

Interpersonal Biology

Biopsychosocial Model
The Societal Epidemic of Loneliness
A Society that Engenders Isolation & Loneliness
Human Needs & Stressors

Societal Denial of Human Needs

Behavioral-Focused Parenting
Failure to Meet Attachment Needs

Brain Development

Impact of Environment on Brain Development
Impact of Early Childhood Adaptations on Adulthood
Quality of Parental Interaction on Psychological & Brain Development

Trauma

Recognizing Childhood Trauma
Trauma-Informed Care

Target Audience

Psychologists
Physicians
Addiction Counselors
Counselors
Social Workers
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Other Behavioral Health Professionals