2–Day Intensive Neuroscience for Clinicians Course: Bring the Brain into Therapy – Carol Kershaw, Bill Wade

Outline

Motivate and Engage Your Clients with Neuroscience

• Simple explanations on brain structure and function
• The neurobiology of specific disorders
• You can change – neuroplasticity and the potential for transformation

Teach Clients About Brain Health

• Sleep quality and mood
• Nutrition
• The habit of exercise
• The value of social support
• Detrimental impacts of stress

How the Neurobiology of Attachment and Relationships Informs Your Clinical Practice

• Neurobiological basis of attachment
• How relationships impact our brains
• Mirror neurons, empathy and connecting with others
• Oxytocin and the individual self
• How attachment style impacts your clients’ relationships
• Attachment and attunement in the therapeutic relationship

Trauma: Connect the Neurobiology of Trauma to Treatment

• Childhood trauma and the trajectory of brain development
• The fight/flight/freeze response
• Implicit memory and the limbic system
• Clinical techniques:
  • Trigger identification
  • Exposure
  • Guided imagery
  • Grounding strategies

Anxiety and Stress: Regulate Emotion and Interrupt Anxious Rumination

• How the brain is organized – and how it organizes
• Homeostasis, stress pathways and stress responses
• The resting state – the parasympathetic nervous system and mental health
• Emotional and thinking circuits, and perception of control – and why this matters to therapy
• Clinical techniques:
  • Mindful awareness of emotions – labeling emotions
  • Interventions that shift focus away from anxious rumination
  • Interrupt worry patterns with physical exercise
  • Diaphragmatic breathing exercises to regulate emotion
  • Resiliency – susceptibility to stress-based damage

Depression: Techniques to Intervene in the Downward Spiral

• The limitations of medication-based treatment
• Brain circuits involved in positive and negative emotion
• The brain’s negativity bias and depression risk
• The amygdala in the depressed brain
• The downward spiral
• Reconstructed memories
• Clinical techniques:
  • Behavioral Activation – get out of your head and into your life
  • Cognitive therapy tools – problem solving skills in the treatment plan
  • The psychology of obtainable goals
  • Self-compassion as a buffer to depressive symptoms

Neurocognitive Health Checkup

• Test of Variable Attention (TOVA)
• Mood evaluation
• Biochemical dysfunction and depression
• Measuring memory
• Brain injury
• Neurofeedback

Simple Biofeedback Tools for Regulating Physiological Responses

• Physiological control and psychology
• Biofeedback games
• Controlled breathing
• Heart Rate Variability
• EEG biofeedback training

Distractibility and the Brain: Cognitive Costs in the Land of Information Overload

• The myth of multitasking – Multitasking vs. task switching
• Synaptic pathways, mental states, memory and learning
• The pre-frontal cortex and flexible goal directed behavior
• Teach clients coping strategies that can:
  • Reshape detrimental behavioral patterns
  • Decrease distractions
  • Build organizational and time management skills

The Neuroscience of Positive Psychology

• The science behind gratitude
  • Overcome barriers to practicing gratitude
  • Easy-to-use gratitude exercises
• The neuroanatomy of forgiveness
• Strengths-based interventions
• Flow states
  • Merge action with awareness
  • Flow, the prefrontal cortex, and the inner critic
• Research limitations of positive psychology approaches

The Limitations of Neuroscientific Research and Potential Risks

• fMRI imaging
• Things to keep in mind regarding animal studies
• Simple explanations for complicated processes
• Research limitations, and treatment risks