Chronic pain exacerbates depression, anxiety, and emotional instability due to the perceived stress that impacts the body on a physical and chemical level. Pain, such as low back pain, is a common problem. For example, in 2017, nearly 65 million Americans reported a recent episode of back pain and, as a result, were limited in certain everyday activities. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) offer an alternative for patients and therapists as an effective treatment for pain. Physical pain is unavoidable, but meditation practice can ease the…

Traumatic pathological relationships are relationships with a partner with Cluster B and/or psychopathic behavior. Pathological Relationships have long been undifferentiated from traditional domestic violence. Although we have had ‘battering typologies’ based on Cluster B/psychopathic behavior, they were not studied for the differences in relational dynamics, the survivor profiles, or the differences in a survivor’s resulting trauma. Consequently, these relationships and their survivors have been approached and treated as an extension of domestic violence. But should they be? Sandra L.…

Helen Fisher will be returning to WMHC to conduct our second case consultation. She will be providing feedback on a case that one of our members is presenting about a male client who has trouble finding a partner for a committed relationship. Helen Fisher’s website is: https://theanatomyoflove.com/ .

This event is approved for 1.5 CE contact hours (Lecture 10:00-11:00 am; Question & Answer 11:00-11:30 am) Can anxiety and worry be perpetuated like a habit? Anxiety levels are increasing individually and collectively in modern day. Faced with uncertainty, an overabundance of information (and misinformation), among other challenges, our minds struggle to keep up. Our brains default to old survival mechanisms to help us deal with anxiety, which can lead to the development of unhealthy coping habits and ironically feed anxiety as a habit itself. Drawing on his clinical work, neuroscience…

A WMHC member will present a transcript of work with a high conflict couple, and our guest speaker will give direction/feedback on the case. We will also take input from the live audience. If you are planning on attending and would like to participate, please review the case transcript and Treatment History on the Members Only events page. George Faller Prior to a career in the field of mental health, George Faller MS, LMFT spent 20 years as a NYC Firefighter and NYC Police Officer. His experience as a FDNY Peer Counselor, particularly following the events of…

There is an infinite amount of intuitive and empathic wisdom that we cannot access through logic alone. Many of us have felt it at least once. The linear mind plays an essential role in understanding the analytical knowledge specific to diagnosis and treatment in the healthcare profession. Now, we must invite our nonlinear, intuitive mind to create a complete picture of the person we are trying to help. Judith Orloff MD, a psychiatrist on the UCLA clinical faculty, empath, and New York Times bestselling author of The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People…

Speaker Bill Doherty, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Family Social Science at The University of Minnesota. He directs the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project, which developed “discernment counseling” for couples on the brink of divorce, and The Citizen Professional Center, which does community engagement projects on health care and divisive public issues. Following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, he co-founded Braver Angels. This citizen initiative uses couples therapy principles to bring conservatives and liberals together to counteract political polarization and restore…

This conversation will be about the neglected clinical population of adults with a history of the developmental trauma of childhood neglect. These people have truly been largely unseen and un-helped in our field. Although most of us by now have heard of the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experience Survey) conducted by Kaiser in 1995-1997, it took until quite recently for the larger psychotherapy field to even know of it. Neglect as an adverse experience has stayed hidden, at great detriment to the large numbers who have slipped through the cracks. Due to the larger ignorance,…

Helping people worldwide resolve their emotional difficulties and training mental health professionals, coaches, and educators on Emotional Resolution. The unique situation we are currently living in is unveiling hidden anxiety and fear and exacerbating old ones. Let’s use this strange time as an opportunity to resolve our fears, so our emotional responses can be congruent with our actual reality instead of reactions out of fear. Thanks to the work of scientists such as Lisa Feldman Barrett, Joseph LeDoux, or Antonio Damasio, we now better understand how the brain constructs recurring…

“ The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places ,” said Hemingway. Diana Fosha adds: “ There is no better way to capture the ethos of AEDP than to say that we try to help our patients--and ourselves—become stronger at the broken places . . . and to discover places that have always been strong and never were broken .” Until recently, the mental health field, focused on pathology, and lacked concepts to capture the motivational strivings for health. Drawing on neuroscience and developmental research, Accelerated Experiential-Dynamic…