The process of contracting for change in the initial session will be described and discussed. Methods of targeting goals will be compared and contrasted.
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is the most common mood disorder on earth and earlier this year was ranked as the number one cause of suffering and disability worldwide by the World Health Organization (WHO). Depression is a complex, multi-faceted disorder and many different theories have been formulated to describe its etiology and course. In this joint presentation, Drs. Amen and Yapko will compare and contrast their viewpoints about depression, addressing such topics as the merits of neuroimaging in depression, causes and types of depression, antidepressant medications, the role of diet and use of diet supplements in treatment, and why not all psychotherapies are equally effective in promoting recovery.
There is a professionally familiar dichotomy between the experience of an actual person to person relationship, on the one hand, and the transpersonal expansion. The latter is often given a special place in the therapeutic repertoire but, in actuality, they are overlapping experiences, Drs. Houston and Polster will each tell how these perspectives enter into their work, with an accompanying discussion.
Generative processes are those that promote innovation, evolution and growth. To “generate” means to create something new. Thus, the core focus in of generative change is creativity: How do you create a successful and meaningful work life? How do you create great personal relationships? How do you develop a great relationship with yourself—your body, your past, your future, your wounds and your gifts? These are the basic challenges in leading an extraordinary life, and the processes of generative change offer a way to succeed at them.
We will debate the Promise of attachment science as a guide to the practice of individual couple and family therapy in the 21st century including what this science tells us about how to understand mental health issues and the most direct pathways to positive change, health and resilience.
Strategic therapy and present centered therapy have often received attention as discretely different phenomena. Cloe Madanes will present her views of strategic therapy and its relevance for present centered therapy. Erving Polster will do the same, showing the disparity and commonality of the two. Their individual views will animate a conversation with each other.
The application of culturally-informed practices taking into account socio-cultural and historical contexts and intersecting identity factors is essential to ethical practice. In this presentation cultural-centered frameworks are reviewed as tools to recognize unconscious biases and to enhance respectful and inclusive engagements with individuals, groups, and communities. This presentation is informed by the APA Multicultural Guidelines and the Multicultural Counseling Competencies (Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992). Examples from clinical and organizational practice will be introduced.
Racial, gender, and LGBTQ micro aggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights to targets. They are often reflections of implicit bias that are outside the level of conscious awareness of well-intentioned individuals. Nevertheless, they have been found to cause lowered subjective well-being in the lives of marginalized group members and may lead to mental health problems. Research indicates that clinicians and supervisors are often perpetrators of micro aggressions.
As advances are made in better understanding the power of focus in shaping one’s subjective perceptions and even physiology, the field of hypnosis has played an especially important role in this ongoing process of discovery. Despite too many clinicians’ terribly misinformed dismissal of hypnosis as little more than a gimmick, in fact hypnosis has evolved a strong scientific basis for its insights into neuroscience, cognition, suggestive language and information processing, placebo and nocebo responses, the therapeutic alliance, and more. Some of these insights and their clinical implications will be discussed.
An Introduction to the facts and fallacies of how the Quantum World View could facilitate the Evolution of Psychotherapy by integrating the best insights of the arts, humanities and sciences to support people, cultures and nations to become the best they can be.