Brain-Based Therapy & Practical Neuroscience: Attachment & Emotion Regulation

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Jennifer Sweeton, PsyD, MS, MA Related seminars and products

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Dr. Jennifer Sweeton is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and internationally-recognized expert on trauma, anxiety, and the neuroscience of mental health. Dr. Sweeton has been practicing EMDR for nearly a decade and has treated a variety of populations using EMDR and other memory reconsolidation approaches, including combat veterans, individuals with PTSD and complex trauma, and those suffering from treatment-resistant anxiety. She completed her doctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and the National Center for PTSD. Additionally, she holds a master’s degrees in affective neuroscience from Stanford University, and studied behavioral genetics at Harvard University.

Dr. Sweeton resides in the greater Kansas City area, where she owns a group private practice, Kansas City Mental Health Associates. She is a past president of the Oklahoma Psychological Association and holds adjunct faculty appointments at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She is the president of the Greater Kansas City Psychological Association. Dr. Sweeton offers psychological services to clients in Oklahoma, Kansas, and internationally, and is a sought-after trauma and neuroscience expert who has trained thousands of mental health professionals in her workshops.

 

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Jennifer Sweeton is in private practice. She has an employment relationship with the Oklahoma City VAMC. Dr. Sweeton receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.  She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.

Non-financial: Jennifer Sweeton has no relevant non-financial relationship to disclose.
 

Objectives

1. Communicate key nervous system structures, functions and pathways.

2. Predict brain alterations that occur from anxiety, trauma and stress, substance abuse, and depression.

3. Support how commonly applied treatments such as CBT, DBT, dynamic therapy, meditation and hypnosis can foster healthy brain change.

4. Break down neuroplasticity and types of experiences that elicit it.

5. Apply interventions that can be used to return the nervous system to natural balance using methods drawn from neural-feedback, psychodynamics, mindfulness, sensory awareness, hypnosis and bodywork.

6. Demonstrate specific techniques that enhance attention, interoception, affect regulation and sensory-motor awareness.

7. Practice six principles that guide you when including the brain during treatment.

Outline

Psychotherapy in the 21st Century

• The integrative approach—no more need for the “schools” of psychotherapy
• Variables in successful treatment
• Outcomes management
• BASE (Brain, Alliance, System and Evidence-Based Practices)

What Neuroscience Offers to Therapy

• Emotion: laterality and lobes
• The role of attention and affect regulation: prefrontal lobes
• How to change the brain in successful therapy: neuroplasticity
• New neurons in the brain: neurogenesis
• The social brain, empathy and attachment

Developmental Neurobiology Brain Development

• Deprived vs. enriched environments
• Temperament and attachment in therapy
• Durability of attachment schema into adolescence and adulthood
• The development of the adolescent brain
• The aging brain

The Role of Memory

• The fundamental role of memory in therapy
• Implicit and explicit memory and how they can become dysregulated
• Hippocampus and amygdala dynamics
• Memory improvement techniques

The Stress Response System

• Historical models and the current view
• A balanced perspective of stress: allostasis
• When stress breaks down the system: allostatic load
• Adverse childhood experiences and how they affect adulthood

Working with the Neurodynamics of Anxiety Disorders: Tame the Amygdala

• GAD
• Panic
• OCD
• PTSD

Working with the Neurodynamics of Depression

• Limitations of the neurotransmitter/medication models
• The role of labeling emotions: hemisphere laterality
• Cytokines—sickness behavior
• Activity reward system—behavior activation
• Mindfulness

Healthy Habits—Planting SEEDS

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

Target Audience

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