3-Day Intensive Neuroscience Training

Join some of the leading experts on applying neuroscience in clinical practice, including Linda Graham, Howard Schubiner, and Deb Dana to discover powerful treatment techniques that you can immediately apply to your own work.

**All credit information and individual webcast descriptions can be found under the individual sessions on the course tab.
 

Thursday, March 22, 2018
Part 1: 9:30 am – 12:00 pm Part 2: 1:00 – 4:00 pm (Eastern)
Brain Care: Applying the Neuroscience of Well-Being
Linda Graham. MFT
Even as we look to the latest brain research for techniques to apply in our therapeutic work, we too often neglect the damaging impacts of stress, poor lifestyle choices, and overstimulation from digital devices on our brains and bodies.

---

Friday, March 23, 2018
Part 1: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Part 2: 3:00 – 5:00 pm (Eastern)
Catalyzing Brain Change: Transforming Adversity into Learning and Growth
Linda Graham, MFT
Helping clients develop flexible and adaptive strategies for coping with both everyday disappointments and extraordinary disasters is at the heart of the therapeutic process. In this workshop, we’ll focus on showing clients how to harness their own brain’s capacity for rewiring negative coping patterns that block growth. We’ll also identify empirically validated tools to encode new, more flexible patterns of response.

---

Saturday, March 24, 2018
11:00 am – 1:00 pm (Eastern)
Helping Clients Unlearn Their Pain: The New Neuroscience of Pain
Howard Schubiner, MD
Nearly half of all clients in therapy have physical pain, yet for the majority of these individuals, their pain has no clear medical cause. This is particularly true for those with back and neck pain, headaches, fibromyalgia, and abdominal-pelvic pain. Neuroscientists now know that all pain is constructed by the brain’s alarm mechanism, which can be activated by either physical injury or perceived emotional threat.

---

Saturday, March 24, 2018
3:00 – 5:00 pm (Eastern)
Bringing a Polyvagal Perspective into Therapy: How to Safely Navigate Emotional Storms
Deb Dana, LCSW
When life—and therapy—brings scary moments, it’s the body’s autonomic nervous system that takes action. Polyvagal Theory has revolutionized our understanding of both how this system works, and how to create safety and connection. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to harness the healing potential of the autonomic nervous system to help your clients navigate the storms of fight, flight, and collapse.

Full Course Description

101 - Brain Care: Applying the Neuroscience of Well-Being

Even as we look to the latest brain research for techniques to apply in our therapeutic work, we too often neglect the damaging impacts of stress, poor lifestyle choices, and overstimulation from digital devices on our brains and bodies. To recharge ourselves and better serve our clients, you’ll explore how to:

• 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
• Use valuable resources in the latest findings about the brain and the mind-body connection

Program Information

Objectives

• Explore how to implement lifestyle choices that protect the physical brain as our clients age, and extend the “health span” portion of our lifespan
• Explore how to 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
• Explore how to 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
• Explore how to apply interventions that help prevent/reverse addiction to digital technology and recover capacities for focused attention and concentration, relational intimacy, introspection, and self-reflection
• Explore how to use valuable resources in the latest findings about the brain and the mind-body connections

Target Audience

Addiction Counselors, Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, Nurses, Physician, Psychologists, Social Workers, and other Mental Health Professionals

204 & 304 - Catalyzing Brain Change: Transforming Adversity into Learning and Growth

Helping clients develop flexible and adaptive strategies for coping with both everyday disappointments and extraordinary disasters is at the heart of the therapeutic process. In this workshop, we’ll focus on showing clients how to harness their own brain’s capacity for rewiring negative coping patterns that block growth. We’ll also identify empirically validated tools to encode new, more flexible patterns of response. You’ll 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
• Cultivate positive emotions to shift brain functioning from contracted survival responses to greater openness to change
• Use practices of mindfulness and self-compassion to recover the capacities of the prefrontal cortex for response flexibility and resilience
• Strengthen capacities for empathy and deepen skills of relational intelligence to foster more healthy relationships

Program Information

Outline

• Essentials of Brain and Behavior Shift
• Evolution, attachment conditioning, and development of human brain
• Neuroplasticity
• Four mechanisms of brain change
• Five conditions that accelerate brain change
• Recover Equilibrium When Experiencing Stress and Trauma
• Body-based tools to regulate the stressed-out/numbed our cycles of the nervous system
• Social engagement tools to antidote the brain’s innate negative bias
• Sensorimotor approaches to manage surges of emotions
• Manage Emotions Skillfully
• Shift out of the brain’s ruminative negative judgments
• Rewire memories of toxic shame
• Strengthen one’s sense of self and self-worth
• Skills of Relational Intelligence
• Mindful empathy
• Theory of mind
• Negotiating change; repairing ruptures
• Seeing Clearly; Choosing Wisely
• Monitoring and modifying perceptions and responses
• Re-frame meaning and consequences of challenges and catastrophes
• Finding the silver lining in difficulties and disasters
• Revisioning traumatizing events in coherent narrative

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 greater 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 for empathy and deepen skills of relational intelligence to foster more healthy relationships

Target Audience

Addiction Counselors, Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, Nurses, Physician, Psychologists, Social Workers, and other Mental Health Professionals

422 - Helping Clients Unlearn Their Pain: The New Neuroscience of Pain

Nearly half of all clients in therapy have physical pain, yet for the majority of these individuals, their pain has no clear medical cause. This is particularly true for those with back and neck pain, headaches, fibromyalgia, and abdominal-pelvic pain. Neuroscientists now know that all pain is constructed by the brain’s alarm mechanism, which can be activated by either physical injury or perceived emotional threat. This workshop will provide tools and step-by-step techniques to help therapists simultaneously address physical and emotional pain. You’ll discover:

• An approach to distinguishing clients with psychophysiologic pain from those with more structurally caused pain
• How to help clients understand the psychophysiological process for pain in ways that encourage their commitment to positive action
• How to use mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral techniques to address psychophysiologic pain in clients

Program Information

Outline

• Knowledge about Psychophysiologic Disorders (PPD)
  • How is pain produced and processed in the conscious and subconscious brain
  • What are some of the common manifestations of PPD
  • Relationship between stressful life events and PPD
  • Overview of treatment of PPD
• How to assess if someone has PPD, including examination skills if appropriate (Medical assessment)
  • Medical history
  • Review of records and imaging studies
  • The search for discrepancies
  • Review of symptoms checklist lifetime
  • Medical examination or review of medical examinations
• How to determine the psychological cause of PPD
  • Early childhood history—priming events
  • Teen and early adult history—triggering events
  • Later life history, search for themes and patterns
  • Connection between onset and exacerbation of symptoms and stressful life events
• How to educate patients and personalize information about PPD
  • Explaining PPD 101—the information
  • Review themes and relate life events to onset and exacerbation of PPD symptoms
  • Obtain feedback and answer questions
• How to implement the basic cognitive and behavioral elements of treatment
  • Education as a basis of treatment
  • Understanding the concepts and applying them personally
  • Believing in them and self-confidence to allay doubts
  • Developing self-confidence for successful recovery
  • Affirmations for recovery
  • Challenging symptoms
  • Conditioned responses and outcome independence
• Description of expressive writing exercises, handouts only
  • List of writing techniques (Lists)
    • Free writing
    • Unsent letters
    • Dialogues
    • Gratitude
    • Forgiveness
    • Barriers to recovery
    • Responding to life situations
    • Writing a new life narrative
• Description of the role of meditative exercises, handouts only
  • Mindfulness practices
    • Attending to emotional states
    • Decreasing self-induced suffering
    • Tolerating symptoms as transient events
  • Guided meditations
• How to guide a PPD patient in emotional awareness and expression exercises
  • Basic principles
  • Description of steps in the process
  • Demonstration of the process
• Conclusions, Questions and Answers

Objectives

• Discover an approach to distinguishing clients with psychophysiologic pain from those with more structurally caused pain
• Discover how to help clients understand the psychophysiological process for pain in ways that encourage their commitment to positive action
• Discover how to use mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral techniques to address psychophysiologic pain in clients

Target Audience

Addiction Counselors, Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, Nurses, Physician, Psychologists, Social Workers, and other Mental Health Professionals

517 - Bringing a Polyvagal Perspective into Therapy: How to Safely Navigate Emotional Storms

When life—and therapy—brings scary moments, it’s the body’s autonomic nervous system that takes action. Polyvagal Theory has revolutionized our understanding of both how this system works, and how to create safety and connection. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to harness the healing potential of the autonomic nervous system to help your clients navigate the storms of fight, flight, and collapse. You’ll discover how to:

• Use your own autonomic nervous system to create an environment of safety for your clients
• Develop the expressive range of your eyes, voice, breath, and body to enrich your nonverbal attunement skills
• Help your clients listen to their internal state and let go of their problem story
• Reliably guide your clients from state to state and enhance their capacity for self-regulation

Program Information

Outline

• The evolution of the autonomic nervous system
  • Understanding the autonomic hierarchy
  • Tracking autonomic state and state shifts
• The physiology of the Social Engagement System
  • How Cranial Nerves V, VII, IX, X, and XI influence experiences of safety
  • Ways to actively engage eyes, voice, breath, body movement to increase autonomic regulation and resilience
• The effect of physiological state on psychological story
  • Emergent properties of autonomic states
  • How to guide clients safely from dysregulation back into regulation

Objectives

• Discover how to use your own autonomic nervous system to create an environment of safety for your clients
• Discover how to develop the expressive range of your eyes, voice, breath, and body to enrich your nonverbal attunement skills
• Discover how to help your clients listen to their internal state and let go of their problem story
• Discover how to reliably guide your clients from state to state and enhance their capacity for self-regulations

Target Audience

Addiction Counselors, Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, Nurses, Physician, Psychologists, Social Workers, and other Mental Health Professionals