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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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October 30, 2019 By Admin

Core Elements in Clinical Supervision

Core Elements in Clinical Supervision

In addition to what supervisors bring into group supervision and clinical training, the list below will be used for discussion about YOUR supervisory role. The order of content below is generally random. The content noted applies to clinical supervision; it could also apply to doing effective therapy. The skills and knowledges here make up a toolbox for effective clinical supervision. That said, it cannot include everything.

  1. DO NO HARM in all supervision modalities (individual, group, education/training)!
  2. Know your code of ethics, especially sections relating to clinical supervision, education/training, clinical relationship, and the role of technology.
  3. Understand how the past becomes the present – your own attachment and developmental history and experience. Your own “dragons.”
  4. Know how to use strong empathy and therapeutic alliance/relationship skills.
  5. Face the reality of co-occurring conditions in clinical practice. Even if your role is dealing with “the walking well,” there are most likely co-occurring conditions if not diagnoses.
  6. Know how to use and supervise 2-3 evidence-based therapies ( BT, CT, CBT, CBT-M, Process-Based CBT, DBT, DBT-S, MBSR, MBCT, MBRP, ACT, Narrative and Solutions-Oriented approaches, etc.
  7. Recognize that the EBTXs are the science behind the art of therapy. Client and supervisee  progress require both art and science.
  8. Experiment with creativity – but do no harm.
  9. Know how to use restructuring and reframing.
  10. Understand the science behind client-matching variables. Recognize the impact of anxiety, depression, trauma, addictions, etc.
  11. Do your best to use a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. Pay attention to preferences of people you supervise. Never impose a narrow focus.
  12. Consider Quintiliani’s “neurotherapy” by using cognition, affect, behavior, sensory experiences (see, hear, feel,, etc.) as well as intuition, spirituality and relational variables and conditions.  Refer to the Attachment-CABS-VAKGO-IS-Rels model.
  13. Study more neuroscience and how it relates to cognitive and behavior change and the human mind-body system.
  14. Learn and use effective emotion regulation skills and practices.
  15. Focus on the impact of cognition (thoughts and deep structures), emotion, behavioral conditioning, social justice, marginalization, trauma (especially pre-verbal), addictions (include pesky cellphones), and mindfulness.
  16. Observe! Observe! Observe! (direct observation of the work) and Respect! Respect! Respect!
  17. Remain fully aware of possible transference and countertransference processes, especially projective identification.
  18. Know that context, personal aspiration, and personal values matter.
  19. Recognize parallel process from therapy to supervision and back again.
  20. Know that in most states the supervisor is 100% responsible for the actions of the people they supervise, even if those actions were not recommended or are unknown to you.
  21. Know how to use compassion in practical ways, especially with defensive ego-protective patterns in people.
  22. Never make identifications of the whole person as their clinical condition of diagnosis. In fact, add much more to the individualized interventions.
  23. As you observe and respect be a good mentor to motivate, but never forget client protection is the first priority. Their progress is a second priority.
  24. Know your roles: hire, fire, oversight, evaluate, train, support, organize, coordinate, and DOCUMENT. Know abut all HIPAA and 42 CFR Pt 2 requirements.
  25. Always use a written supervision contract/agreement, and recognize informed consent aspects as well as due process in it.
  26. In co-occurring work, seek a role for 12 Steps and/or peer recovery support.
  27. Keep strong BOUNDARIES in all aspect of this work.
  28. Pay attention to learning styles.
  29. Some of the work is a form of palliative care, in that counseling and therapy sometimes deal with life-or-death issues. It is a form of sacred work.
  30. Know about duty to warn and protect – and its various implications.
  31. Supervision (like therapy) needs to be structured but not rigid.
  32. Recognize that generic “talking” has very little empirical support for supporting change in serious co-occurring disorders.
  33. Be capable in dealing with conditions of potential suicide, self-harm, and harm to others.
  34. Supervision needs to be based on an agreement, a professional development plan, and change-oriented interventions, techniques, and processes. In the final analysis, the supervisor is in charge – final decision making re. competence of supervisees and protection of others.
  35. Look after your own self-development as lead clinicians and supervisors.
  36. All may fail if you do not attend to your own SELF-CARE and the self-care of the people you supervise.  Etc.!

Be well and reduce suffering!

 

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Clinical Practice, Clinical Supervison, Featured, Quintiliani's Neurotherapy Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, CLINICAL SUPERVISION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, QUINTILIAN'S NEUROTHERAPY

October 2, 2019 By Admin

Essential Knowledge for Clinical Supervisors

Essential Knowledge for Clinical Supervisors

This post will include information and skills dealing with research on role induction practices, quality of clinical supervision, psychodynamics of alliance, and progress measurement.  Since the information and skills for all these topics is complex, I will do my best to keep it as clear as possible. This information aims to improve existing clinical supervision practices.

Reducing anxiety of less experienced supervisees by role induction strategies

  1. First of all clarify both supervisee and supervisor roles, expectations, behaviors, skills, rights, responsibilities, and clinical development.
  2. Support supervises via clear information on process and skills training about cognitive, behavioral and emotional processes, skills, and clinical expectations.
  3. Include lowering anxiety and improving competence as ongoing clinical supervision activities. Measure them!
  4. Work directly on supervisees self-awareness capacities.
  5. Clinical and psychological development issues may exist; adjust clinical supervision to fit these parameters.
  6. Improvement in supervisees clinical competence and psychological health are ongoing goals.
  7. Important variables that impact success or failure are supervisor competence and supervisee openness to growth and emotional regulation patterns.
  8. Keep the quality of supervision in mind, and participate in mutual evaluation and openness to feedback. For best results keep supervisee input about the supervisor as anonymous as possible. Otherwise, supervisee anxiety will increase.
  9. Recall that ethics requires that there be a reasonably detailed supervision contract.
  10. Effective clinical supervision often translates into effective psychotherapy, which leads to improved client progress, better job satisfaction and self-esteem.

The Importance of clinical, evidence-based and psychodynamic training

  1. Perhaps the single most important aspect of effective clinical supervision is the quality of the alliance. This is a parallel process with the therapy itself.
  2. With improved training in psychodynamic alliance-building skills comes client self-reports of experiencing a stronger therapeutic alliance in therapy. Keep in mind the training is cognitive, behavioral, and affective in nature. It is experienced!
  3. Research is mixed about the differences in alliance quality regarding psychodynamic training vs other training (CT, CBT, humanistic, interpersonal, etc.). The study noted suggests that improved emphasis on psychodynamics skills and processes ends with a better therapy alliance, which is consistent with better outcomes for clients. Although other studies refute this finding, it does appear to be logical that a training program specializing in psychodynamic therapy would produce better outcomes for psychodynamics, thus perhaps a better clinical alliance.
  4. Manualized psychodynamic therapy training also showed substantial improvement in the clinical alliance and the amount of psychodynamic skills being used in therapy.

Comparative quality of clinical supervision and its implications

  1. Research including over 300 clinicians concluded that 69-79% received inadequate clinical supervision.
  2. What is more concerning is that the same research noted that 25-40% of clinicians received harmful clinical supervision.
  3. At other measurement times 51-55% of clinicians noted that they received exceptionally helpful clinical supervision. Last I heard a 50% range is a grade of F. We need to work on improving this reality!
  4. Research also supports that there are great differences between supervisee perceptions vs objective criteria used effectively to measure comparative quality of clinical supervision. So the indication is to use both – supervisee anonymous evaluation and direct observation and measurement of clinical performance.
  5. 86-92% of clinicians did receive some form of clinical supervision but both the regularity and quality varied.

The reality of using progress monitoring measures for clinician development

  1. The use of clinical progress monitoring measures regarding client clinical change improves outcomes. However they are used rarely.
  2. Clinicians noted that the use of such measures in therapy required technical expertise, additional costs, time in the session,  some
  3. increased anxiety, and was sometimes accompanied by negative responses from clients, other clinicians, and managers.
  4. There were few differences in use and barriers between agency clinicians and private practice clinicians.
  5. Since the benefits of progress monitoring in clinical practice is well established and is often part of evidence-based endorsements for therapies, it is important to increase the use of progress monitoring.
  6. Furthermore, the lack of progress monitoring may have negative impacts on clients and third-party payments for therapy.

For more information refer to Ellis, M. V., Hutman, H., Chapin, J. (2015). Reducing supervisee anxiety…Journal of Counseling Psychology, 62, No. 4, 608-620. Hilsenroth, M. J., Kivlighan, D. M., Slavin-Mulford, J. (2015). Structured supervision of graduate clinicians in psychodynamic psychotherapy…Journal of Counseling Psychology, 62, No. 2, 173-183. Ellis, M. V., Creaner, M., Hutman, H., Timulak, L. A comparative study of clinical supervision… Journal of Counseling Psychology, 62,  No. 4, 621-631. Ionita, G., Fitzpatrick, M., Tomaro, J., Chen, V. V., Ovington, L. (2015). Challenges in using progress monitoring measures…Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63,  No. 2, 173-182.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Clinical Alliance, Clinical Practice, Clinical Supervison, Featured, Training Tagged With: CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT, CLINICAL SUPERVISION, EVIDENCED BASED

August 22, 2019 By Admin

Using Creativity in Clinical Supervision

Using Creativity in Clinical Supervision

Effective clinical supervision is a combination of hearable direction about clinical practice, gentle-direct leadership, clinical “Know-How,” evidence-based skills, complex psychodynamics, and the willingness to work with others on their developmental processes. There are risks involved. I have provided clinical supervision and consultation to other clinicians for 43 years without a legal or ethical issue. I do not think you should allow your creative spirit to run wild; there are many very serious ethical and legal implications in supervision.  These are not benign; most states hold clinical supervisors 100% accountable for the actions of their supervisees, whether those actions were known and recommended by the supervisor or not.

Here we will look at the work of Leonardo DaVinci, the genius in art, science, engineering, and humanities. He saw art as science and science as art – most clinicians recognize these combinations in their own clinical work. I will simply note a list of documented attitudes, values and behaviors that DaVinci mastered. Here is the list. Courage may be needed to move off your comfort-path.

 

  1. Practice intense curiosity and deep awareness about the specific details of your work. As you do this apply a sense of wonder about your observations and  different possible perspectives you encounter. Multiple realities of perspectives do exist. There may not be one absolutely correct response.
  2. Observe! Observe! Observe! Notice how your supervisees do their work, and how their idiosyncratic personalities and attitudes influence that work and your supervision. Be certain to pay close attention to the facts of reality, but better to procrastinate a bit before making big decisions. Be sure you have all the correct facts. You may need to test your hypothesis.
  3. Use your personal imagination more, and visualize the situations that cause you the greatest concerns. Remember: Do No Harm! In some situations it may actually be ok to use day dreaming and helpful fantasy for new perspectives for problem solving.
  4. Be sure to keep written lists of all the things you need to do. Also, write in your own “supervision development journal” about new things you learn and lessons you wish you already knew. Review selected parts of that journal with your own supervisor.
  5. It pays to be a little obsessive when dealing with supervisees and the welfare of their clients. Your growth also depends upon being a bit obsessive with learning new clinical processes and evidence-based interventions. However, remain creative and highly responsible in your role. Document everything you do in your role.
  6. For more see Isaacson, W. (2017). Leonardo DaVinci…New York: Simon & Schuster.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Clinical Practice, Clinical Supervison, Clinicians, Commentary, Featured, Learning, Training Tagged With: CLINICAL SUPERVISION, CLINICAL TRAINING, CREATIVITY, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, TRAINING

May 5, 2019 By Admin

Introducing Your Clients to Brief Meditations

Introducing Your Clients to Brief Meditations

Psychotherapists often ask  about ways to introduce mindfulness and meditation to clients.  There are other posts on this Blog that offer basic introductory information on both content and process. Here I will simply introduce you to four brief, basic meditations for clients suffering from anxiety and/or depression, along with pervasive cognitive “stuckness” on unhelpful thoughts and related emotions. Once our clients – and ourselves for that matter – get stuck on unhelpful cognitions and emotions from the past, we need to move to the present moment and be there in calmness and safety. Of course other interventions are required when psychosis, intoxication, or extreme emotional dysregulation occur; meditation is not the recommended response in these conditions. One of the best ways to introduce your clients to meditation is to simply allow a gentle focus on the breath, just as it is. Relaxation-focused manipulation of the deep breath, especially for client with untreated trauma and polyvagal complications, may lead to the opposite effect – stimulating anxiety. Once your client can focus gently on her/his breath and benefit from brief exposures, he/she may be ready for brief meditations.

Below I have noted four scripts for you to use or modify as needed. Follow the rule-of-third by introducing the meditation cognitively (explain it); then with your client’s due process permission, do the brief meditation (in the body); and, after five or less minutes stop and process the meditation cognitively (talk about it). Always allow your client to stop the meditations at any time if they desire to do so. Comfort and safety are key values of psychotherapy process and relationship. If you or your client have doubts about comfortably completing the meditations, your client may prefer to be phased into them. Do this minute-by-minute by breaking down the five minutes into shorter time periods. Complete one or two minutes (half the scripts) rather than the full five minutes. Since mindfulness and meditation have been proven in thousands of studies to be helpful in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and emotion regulation (trauma and addictions), the more comfortable your client feels, the more likely he/she will continue practicing. It is sometimes helpful to remind your client that if/when distraction occurs, that is the time to simply bring attention back to the task at hand. Return attention again.

  1. Five-Minute Meditation for Opening Up the Flow of Energy – Sit, relax, and breathe calmly with your eyes open. If you are comfortable with your eyes closed, that is fine. If you like your eyes open, you may want to glance gently downward toward the floor about three feet in front of you. Do your best to hold your head in a relaxed and level position. Now loosen your jaw and notice. Practice releasing any tension that you may be carrying in your throat. Let it go very gently, and open up your throat. Now bring attention to the area of your heart center, and imagine a warm, glowing, gentle inner light there.  Notice the feeling. Allow it to nurture you. To end simply be with your natural breath; after a few breaths, allow it to bring you to full attention. This meditation is over.
  2. Five-Minute Meditation on Not Judging – Sit, relax, and breath naturally with your eyes opened or closed. Be as quiet inside as you can, and practice non-judging. Simply notice what comes into awareness for you, but without judging or evaluating it. Simply allow yourself to be with it. If your eyes are open, please close them if comfortable. Notice what comes into awareness BUT without judging or evaluating. If your eyes are closed, please open them; simply note what comes into your awareness BUT without judging or evaluating it. Be as quiet inside as possible – enjoy the silence if it is there. Count five breaths and end this meditation.
  3. Five-Minute Meditation on Letting Go of Your Thoughts – Sit, relax, breathe calmly or naturally, and allow your eyes to remain opened or closed. Pay close attention to the thoughts (sometimes voices of others) in your head. If unhelpful thoughts arise, do your best not to react; instead simply notice without responding or reacting. Perhaps your thoughts are about people, places, things, images, body feeling, or personal experiences.  As consciousness presents you with each item, one by one, simply notice and LET IT GO. Do your best NOT to get entangled with them; do not engage with your thoughts, or carry on conversations in your mind. Thoughts are just thoughts! As each one come into awareness, just practice non-judging and LET IT GO. Allow each thought to arise and fall – just LET IT GO!   Yes, just let it go. Now complete a few in-out breaths, and end the meditation.
  4. Five-Minute Self-Acceptance Meditation – Sit, relax, breath naturally and have your eyes opened or closed (it is up to you). As you sit simply allow thoughts, images, feelings to arise and fall; just notice them without engagement – LET EACH ONE GO. Be the “watcher.” Try not to get hooked by them. Now repeat this statement to yourself: “May I accept and love myself just as I am, with imperfections.” You may note this statement in your mind and be more specific be replacing “imperfections” with another word. Repeat this statement several times without distractions. Now rub your hands together until you feel heat. When your hands feel hot, gently place them on your face – covering your eyelids, cheeks, etc. Just sit there in your warmth and notice. Be the warmth. Feel free to rub your hands again and repeat the process. Count to five and end this meditation.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, Clinical Practice, Featured, Meditation, MIndfulness, Psychotherapists Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, CLINICAL WORK, MEDITATIONS, PSYCHOTHERAPIST

May 25, 2017 By Admin

Using Cognitive Defusion in Mindfulness Psychotherapy

Cognitive Defusion in Mindfulness Psychotherapy

A well-meaning therapist might ask: What is cognitive defusion. Well this practice, as used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is beyond cognitive restructuring of cognitive distortions and automatic negative thoughts ( I call “Red Ants”). The practice concretely de-literalizes the personal truth and meaning of unhelpful, repetitive thoughts and words. As The Buddha warned: We probably should NOT believe the distinctions of thoughts in our heads. Our strong thoughts may be our best friends or our worst enemies. In neuroscience the fact that more negative than positive thoughts occur in humans implies we are more attached to limbic reactivity and fear than to positive thoughts and emotions. When we get stuck in negative cycles of thinking, feeling and doing our right brain and limbic area dominate. A very old mindfulness belief is that you are not your thoughts, your emotions, or your behaviors; these parts of you are simply associated with your life experiences. When a client learns to defuse a though it means they have changed its linguistic structure and removed it from being cemented into their CABs, or cognition-affect-behavior cycles. In all good therapies, especially Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and various mindfulness therapies (MBCR, DBT, MBCT, MBRP, ACT), helpers often work on truth-analysis of unhelpful, repetitive, negative thoughts patterns – especially those embedded into CABs cycles of ineffective experiences. Self-medication, isolation, and avoidance are commonly associated with these realities. Sometimes this work includes meta-cognitive analysis regarding your thoughts about your thoughts or the patterns of your thoughts. The clear logic is that the words we often tell ourselves in times of stress or fear are NOT often true. Of course, if indeed you are seriously endangered best to allow your limbic brain area to save your life. The list below will note various approaches used to defuse thoughts from our experience of being, our CABs cycles.

  1. Stay the thoughts out loud and mindfully notice the sensations, images, emotions, and associated CABs cycles that arise. Now say the words over and over again for at least half a minute. Note any changes that follow.
  2. Use scrambling of the phrase to change it grammatical brain-connections. Your brain should react a different way to the “scrambled” message. It is like changing the code of the phrase. For example: try saying “am person a bad” or “person I a bad am” instead of “I am a bad person.”  Notice what your brain-mind does now.
  3. Speed up and then slow down the rate of inner and outer speech. Try all four options; notice any relief you have obtained.
  4. Reduce then intensify your energy level when saying the phrase. Notice, again.
  5. Elongate the sounds of the key words in your phrase.  Keep elongating and notice what happens. Elongate and slow as far as you can.
  6. I like this approach. Change the most important one or two words in your phrase.  Now say the phrase out loud with one or two slightly less harsh words.  You will need to repeat this technique for effects. For example: “I am so worthless” helps solidify your brain plasticity about personal meanings and images. Try this: “Sometimes I feel worthless” or “When really bad things happen, I can feel worthless”  or “My unpleasant feeling can relate to feeling less worthwhile.”
  7. Change the language code of your key word/s. For example: change “I am a terrible person” to “I am a spanty person.” Spanty being Czech for terrible or bad.  Notice how the brain/mind/body responds to this simple change.
  8. You could also sing your statement, or say it in a foolish voice tone.
  9. I have used defusion and added body movements to the process. Here are four examples.

A) Find a spot on the floor where you try to project all your bad feelings about your repetitive phrase. You are consciously projecting the bad feeling into the spot on the floor. Now stand in it and notice how your mind body reacts. Slowly, but with some bodily energetic force, step out of the spot on the floor.  Notice the effects.

B) Stand in the same spot, and pretend you are taking off a pair of pants – BUT when you are out of the imaginary pants, immediately step aside. Notice.

C) Find a pleasant place to go for a brief walk. Enjoy the environment, but say your statement to yourself. Split your attention in two: attention to the beauty of the walk (and watch your step), and attention to repeating your phrase. Notice any changes and shifts that occur.

D) This one is out-there but fun. Energize yourself (if healthy enough) into a rapid skipping movement. At the same time say your phrase, and pay attention to where you are skipping. Your body will respond by contrasting the negative statement against the body-memory of good-old skipping. For most adults, skipping was a fun thing to do. Notice the effects.

For more information refer to: Blackledge, J. T. (2015). Cognitive Defusion in Practice: A Clinician’s Guide… Oakland, CA: Context Press/New Harbinger, pp. 3-42, 87-109, 159-162.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Clinical Practice, Clinicians, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Featured, Ideas & Practices, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Mindfulness Training, Psychotherapy, Therapy, Therapy Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, COGNITIVE DEFUSION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, MINDFULNESS

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Core Elements in Clinical Supervision In addition to what supervisors bring into group supervision and clinical training, the list below will be used for discussion about YOUR supervisory role. The order of content below is generally random. The content noted applies to clinical supervision; it could also apply to doing effective therapy. The skills and […]

Trauma: Object Relations Therapy Object relations therapists, D. W. Winnicott especially, have presented a logical analysis on how to provide object-relations-oriented therapy to people suffering from the effects of psychological trauma. Such attachment-based trauma therapy provides support and healing from trauma, loss and long-term trauma-effects.  The interventions below combine the best of object relations therapy, […]

Inner Workings of Self-Medication Process   To continue our discussion about the self-medication process we will first turn to the human brain.  The human brain is the most complex system known to science.  Here, my comments will be basic.  Self-medication often has roots in the quality of our earliest childhood experiences (attachment and object relations with […]

Anahata – Heart Chakra Meditation Practice Rumi noted that to reach the sky we must use our hearts. The Heart Chakra is a very popular focus of meditation practice.  Here we will simply review some characteristics and then move on to a meditation practice. Specific characteristics: Green color, YAM sound (say at least three times […]

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Practicing Interoceptive Meditations Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The mindfulness-based process and intervention of interoception (also called neuroception) has slowly moved from meditation practice into clinical practice, now being part of the recommended MBSR, ACT, and more current CBT-based therapies. The three brief meditations below are presented to expand the use of interoceptive processes in […]

Grief, Mourning, and Traditional Chinese Medicine Based on the Buddhist reality of impermanence – we all will someday die; it is also quite true that we all will suffer from loss, grief, and mourning when others we care about die.  The typical stages in this process are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There are […]

Use of Breathing Techniques – Do a Polyvagal Test First Polyvagal Test The polyvagal theory (S.Porges) and polyvagal functions are complex, highly important, evolutional processes with powerful influences on human survival, overall physical health, and emotion regulation.  The tenth cranial nerve (from scull base to anus) functions in various ways, the most important of which […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering.  Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever).  I feel weak and miserable.  Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]

Crisis Resilience Skills  – Mindful Happiness Below I will list various interventions that have proven effective in reducing the level of personal crisis. The sources for many of these skills came from Burns (1980), Ellis (1995), Seligman (1988), Linehan (1993, 2015)), Hayes (2018), and Thich Nhat Hanh (various publications). The skills noted are for immediate […]

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Very “SAD” Facts about the Addictions Field A recent issue of the Addictions Professional presented very disturbing news about how clinicians in the field are doing.  NOT WELL! Addictions clinicians treat people with addictions but mainly people with co-occurring disorders – addictions with trauma, depression, anxiety and/or eating disorders.  Often there is also a co-occurring medical […]

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Tips on Practice During These Troubling Times Some people are religious, and I am sure turn to those sources for support and hope. Others are spiritual, and I hope also pursue those sources for emotional stability and closeness to the “their” divine. Other people may  be Agnostic or Atheist; I am certain such people also […]

Improving Your Self-Esteem – An Action Contemplation The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute’s surveys and V. Mamgain’s ideas about neoclassical economics of happiness help provide a means to deconstruct improved learning in higher education and also personal happiness in the process. According to the UCLA research surveys, higher education students want more spirituality and personal […]

Wise Mind and the Neuroscience of Mindfulness Practice What is wise mind? Marsha M. Linehan developed this clinical process in her work on dialectical behavior therapy. Wise mind is the middle way between rational/reasonable mind and emotional mind; it allows us to live with balanced reason and emotion in daily interactions. When practiced regularly, it […]

Plasticity – The Amazing Human Brain We humans are very fortunate in that our brain is one of the most complex entities in our known universe. Natural selection, genetic modifications, and use-related neuroplasticity have blessed us with a brain quite capable of some of the most complicated tasks imaginable. Some of these tasks (medical miracles, […]

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