Body-Mind Therapy: Toward Psychotherapy Integration with John Arden, PhD

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

John B Arden, PhD Related seminars and products

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John Arden, PhD, served as Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Regional Director of Training where he developed one of the largest mental health training programs in the United States. In this capacity, he oversaw more than 150 interns and postdoctoral psychology residents in 24 medical centers. Prior to this, he served as Chief Psychologist for KP.
 

Dr. Arden believes that the evolution of psychotherapy in the 21st Century demands integration. Instead of choosing from the blizzard of modalities and schools of the past, therapists must move toward finding common denominators among them. Similarly, today’s psychotherapy necessitates the integration of the mind and body, not the past practice of compartmentalization of mental health and physical health. John’s study of neuropsychology has inspired him to integrate neuroscience and psychotherapy, synthesizing the biological and psychological into a new vision for psychotherapy: Brain-Based Therapy. His work incorporates what is currently known about the brain and its capacities, including neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, with psychotherapy research, mindfulness, nutritional neuroscience and social intelligence. He conducts seminars on Brain-Based Therapy throughout the United States and the world.
 

John is the author of 15 books including his newest book, Mind-Brain-Gene (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019). John is lead author along with Lloyd Linford of the books Brain-Based Therapy with Adults (Wiley, 2008) and Brain-Based Therapy with Children and Adolescents (Wiley, 2008). His first book, Consciousness, Dreams, and Self (Psychosocial Pr, 1996), was awarded the 1997 Outstanding Academic Book Award by Choice, a publication of the American Library Association. An international panel of jurists nominated his second book, Science, Theology, and Consciousness (Praeger, 1998), for the CTS award funded by the Templeton Foundation. His book America’s Meltdowns: Creating the Lowest Common Denominator Society (Praeger, 2003) explored the degradation of the fabric of American society.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: John Arden receives compensation as a national speaker. He receives royalties as a published author. He receives a speaking honorarium, book royalties, and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: John Arden has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Objectives

1. Evaluate the role that attachment plays in gene expression, the development of affect regulation and mood disorders with your clients.
2. Defend why effective clinical treatment necessitates a dynamic understanding of the brain and immune system.
3. Propose a treatment plan that emphases the relationship between diet and mental health that may improve treatment outcomes.
4. Differentiate between implicit and explicit memory and their roles in conducting effective clinical therapy sessions.
5. Theorize how mindfulness meditation affects the brain and its application in the treatment of anxiety disorders and depression.
6. Determine how the fast and slow tracks to the amygdala play a role in anxiety disorders and therapy techniques with people with anxiety disorders.

Outline

“Self”-Organization

• How does the feeling of individuality emerge?
• How do body sensations, emotion, and cognition interact to self-organize into the emergence of self?
• The mind’s operating systems; The Salient, Executive, and Default Mode networks
• The interactions and dysregulations of implicit and explicit memory
• The social self
• How we thrive
• Kindling the social brain networks in psychotherapy
• The mind’s operating networks

Behaviour-Gene Interactions

• The health and mental health ramifications of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study
• The rapidly evolving field of epigenetics reveals: how the gene-environment interaction brings about the expression or suppression of the genes

Body-Mind

• The interface between the immune system, mind, and the brain
• Inflammation from adversity and the several dimensions of the interface between mind, brain, and body
• Inflammation’s contribution to a bidirectional causal relationship with anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairment

Self-Maintenance

• Healthy habits—Planting SEEDS
• Sleep hygiene
• Exercise—BDNF—miracle grow
• Education—cognitive
• Diet—amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins
• Social medicine
• Mindfulness

Autostress Disorders

• Allostasis and Allostatic Load: resiliency and adaptability (Allostasis) breakdown and dysfunction (Allostatic Load) & mental health
• The dysregulation in the neuroendocrine system and client health
• Hypocortisolism: systemic deficits to the central nervous system

The Trauma Spectrum

• The range of trauma-induced responses and therapeutic approaches
• Transcend the “brand names” - and theoretical cul-de-sacs
• From so-called “simple” to complex trauma in etiology and from hypervigilance to disassociation in response
• Therapeutic approaches and how to address the nature of the dysregulation of memory systems

Transcending Rigidity

• Significant links between depression, inflammation, ACEs, and early life deprivation
• Therapy that involves activation of the effort-driven reward system
• Life style and its role in the alleviation of depression
• Mind in Time
• The placebo effect: one of the most provocative phenomena in psychotherapy and overall healthcare
• Positive psychology research on forgiveness, compassion, and gratitude
• Mindfulness in the mainstream
• “Third Wave” therapies such as ACT, DBT, and MBSR

Risks, Limitations and the Nature of the Evidence

Target Audience

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