Wise Counsel Podcasts

Margaret Moore on Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. In this podcast, Margaret Moore talks about the book, Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life that she co-authored with Harvard psychiatrist Paul Hammerness. Coach Meg said that one of the simplest distinctions that she borrows from her colleague who is the director of our Institute of Coaching is that coaches follow the trail of dreams and therapists follow the trail of tears. Coaches are not in the business of healing. They are not there to fix problems, remedy pathology or really heal from a deep place. Coaches are all about where do I want to go that seems kind of challenging.

Paldrom Catharine Collins on Sexual Addiction. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. In this podcast, Dr. Van Nuys talks with author and counselor Paldrom Catherine Collins about her book A Couples Guide to Sexual Addiction: A Step-by-Step Plan to Rebuild Trust and Restore Intimacy. Paldrom Catherine Collins helps couples work through their sexually addicted relationships at Compulsion Solutions, an outpatient counseling service. Previously a Buddhist nun, she is married to coauthor and recovering sex addict George N. Collins, M.A., director of Compulsion Solutions and member of the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health.

George Lough, PhD on Somatic Experiencing. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Clinical psychologist Dr. George Lough talks about an approach to trauma known as Somatic Experiencing. Dr. Lough says that Somatic Experiencing is not therapy, as it is not really talk oriented. He explains that you do talk, but it is not story oriented, where you are telling the linear narrative of what happened to you in a particular experience and because you back off as soon as there are signs of emotional arousal, and to bring the client back into their body, back into their breath, and to let their nervous system calm down. There is a release of tension and the psychologist lets them have that experience.

David Remmert, Ph.D. on Forensic Psychology. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Gerti Schoen on The Gentle Self. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Peter Flom, Ph.D. on Nonverbal Learning Disorder. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Robert Santulli MD on The Alzheimers Family. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Gregory Murray, Ph.D. on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Brenda Knight on The Gratitude Power Workbook. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Dan Rhema on Trauma and Art. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Marjorie McKinnon on Incest and Childhood Sexual Abuse. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Joel Bakan on Childhood Under Siege. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Author, attorney, and filmmaker Joel Bakan talks about corporate marketing to children. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning book and film The Corporation, and also of the 2011 book Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children.

John Duffy, Psy.D. on The Available Parent. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Kenneth Anderson, M.A. on Alcohol Harm Reduction. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Kenneth Anderson, M.A., talks about the harm reduction approach to problem drinking. Mr. Anderson is the founder and CEO of the HAMS - Harm Reduction Network. Mr. Anderson explains that HAMS is an acronym and that the H stands for harm reduction. The A is for abstinence from alcohol or drugs, and the M is for moderation. The S is for support. This lay-led, free-of-charge group offers support for people who wish to make any positive change in their drinking habits - from safer drinking, to reduced drinking, to quitting altogether.

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Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. on Strategic Child-Focused Family Therapy. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist and author Dr. Marilyn Wedge is the originator of strategic child-focused family therapy, following in the family systems therapy tradition of Jay Haley. She strongly opposes the over-diagnosis of children with psychiatric disorders and the use of medication to treat childhood behavioral, emotional and social problems. A better approach, she believes, is the application of strategic family therapy which conceptualizes the childs problem in relationship to other problems occuring within the family. A frequent pattern is that a child will manifest a problem as a way to help draw parents attention away from their own problems. The therapist can then take on the role of helper within the system, relieving the child of that duty. As parental problems resolve or are isolated from the child, children tend to get better. Various systems techniques (such as the invariant question) and case histories are discussed.

Ellen Walker, Ph.D. on Living Child-Free. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Psychologist Ellen Walker, Ph.D. is the author of the book, Complete Without Kids: An Insiders Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance, written in reaction to her own decision to forgo having children and consequent awareness of many people who have made the same choice. Social pressure to have children cause this choice to be stigmatized unfairly. In response, she uses the term childfree rather than childless to emphasize that the choice to not have children can be a deliberate decision and not an absence. Childfree adults can be organized into three categories depending on their motivation to become childfree: deliberate choice, happenstance (where the person might have been happy to go either way) and circumstance (where the option to have children was blocked). Though there are many advantages to not having children (including the opportunity emphasize career and interests, to put more energy into maintaining marital happiness, and to save and spend money for/on ones self), there are also challenges, including a widespread perception that other people view childfree adults as selfish and concerns about retirement planning and legacy. Childfree orientated adults can have difficulties when in relationships with partners who have children due to competing expectation around who is the center of the parent partners attention.

Alistair McHarg is the author of the 2007 memoir of life with Bipolar Disorder, "Invisible Driving". Started as notes designed to record the experience of his third major manic episode, the book became a means of communicating the manic experience to people who otherwise could not relate. McHarg's family is predisposed to bipolar disorder with both his father and two half brothers sharing the diagnosis. The three major manic episodes of his life (interspersed with more low level hypomanias and depressions) have followed in the wake of severe stressors. in his twenties, an episode occured in response to his being arrested and jailed on drug related charges. Sixteen years later, a second major episode occurred in response to the sudden and unexpected event of his wife divorcing him. The third episode occurred in the wake of being laid off from his work. The title of the book "Invisible Driving" comes from a practice he invented while manic this third time in which he dangerously drove his car bent over onto the passenger seat so as to make it appear to other drivers that no one was behind the wheel. While acknowledging the strong biological underpinnings of mania, McHarg is keen to also communicate his sense that, at least in his case, his manias have represented a coping strategy of denial and flight; a way of psychologically escaping from stress which feels marvelous and which is quite irresistable during its ascent.

Dr. Grof, a psychiatrist, transpersonal theorist and noted researcher of psychedelic experience, first encountered LSD as a young doctor working in Prague when the Sandoz company asked him to see if the compound had any psychiatric utility. Personal and research experience with LSD and its effects (including visual hallucinations, pre-natal and transpersonal memory and expansive, disembodied consciousness) profoundly changed his worldview away from the mainstream mechanistic view to a vision of the universe as essentially conscious. He began to recognize the reality of perinatal and prenatal memories and the transpersonal/archetypal realm (as first identified by Jung). He researched the use of psychedelic drugs as therapeutic tools and yielded positive results with reports of long lasting pain remission across varied populations. Later, when psychedelic research became outlawed, he developed alternative techniques for accessing transpersonal experiences including holotropic breathwork. In his understanding, the transpersonal is not a fantasy brought on by a feverish mind but rather a reality which is normally not accessible to ordinary consciousness due to defensive mechanisms which can be bypassed in a variety of ways including but not limited to the use of psychedelics. He believes that naturally occuring forms of transpersonal experience, including some aspects of psychosis, are not pathological but rather represent the emergence of the transpersonal into the realm of the ordinary.

Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D., a Clinical Psychologist and REBT therapist is a protogee of Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the key founders of the modern cognitive behavioral therapy movement. Though today largely overshadowed by Dr. Aaron Beck, Ellis described the basic ideas that continue to inform cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) years before Beck started down that path. Dr. Edelstein's book Three Minute Therapist is a restatement of Ellis' important ideas for non-therapists who are interested in using these techniques as a mode of self-help. The REBT scheme is often described as the ABC theory, where A stands for an activating event, B for an irrational belief brought to mind by the event, and C for the undesirable emotional and behavioral consequences that stem from the irrational belief. The application of REBT (and all cognitive therapies) is designed to help people identify their irrational beliefs and then scrutinize and dispute them to see if they are based on anything substantial. As irrational beliefs are identified as faulty, their power to motivate sadness and anxiety lessens and people start to feel better. Regular practice of the ABC technique can help people to overcome their mood issues. In addition to clearly describing the REBT disputing process, Dr. Edelstein also uses the interview to discuss the demanding, global and polarizing nature of irrational beliefs (things must be all good or they are all bad), and the trap of high self-esteem. A critic of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Edelstein helps coordinate SMART Recovery, an alternative self-help program for alcoholics based on rational principles.

Katherine Ellison on ADHD. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Ms. Ellison, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, is an adult with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD, and the mother of a son who also is diagnosed with ADHD. She has written a book, Buzz, about her experiences living with and coming to terms with ADHD in herself and her son. Ms. Ellison reports she has always been a restless and easily bored person. She gravitated towards journalism in part because it offered her an opportunity to work in a highly stimulating, rapidly changing environment which fit her need for constant novelty. Though decorated for the quality of her work (for her 1980s era coverage of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines) she was also prone to make mistakes and several times was nearly sued for inaccurate reportage. As a younger person she was skeptical about the validity of ADHD and critical of parents who allowed their children to be medicated for ADHD. However, as she became a parent of a child with ADHD symptoms and grappled with parenting issues made more difficult by her own tendency towards distraction she came around. Her son was medicated for a period of one year and showed dramatic improvement in terms of his ability to concentrate and to make friends and a decrease in oppositional behaviors. After being diagnosed herself she came to understand and appreciate the role this condition has played in the lives of multiple generations of her family.

Dr. Bryan discusses his suicide prevention research which has been shaped by his experience as an Air Force clinical psychologist in Iraq working with active duty soldiers. Dr. Bryan recommends training soldiers in problem solving techniques as an effective means of suicide prevention. Though soldiers typically reject efforts to talk about mental health issues, they are generally open to learning more efficient means of coping and problem solving. This is often best delivered as leadership training so that military commanders can be the ones to teach effective problem solving skills. Leader's ability to identify problems before they become crises and to show respect for soldiers morale also emerges as important protective factors.

Former CEO of the Autism Treatment Center of America Raun Kaufman was the first recipient of the Son-Rise program, developed by his parents in response to his childhood diagnosis of severe autism. Though his diagnosis was presented by doctors as incurable, the Kaufmans, who had recently engaged with the 1970s human potential movement, remained hopeful with the understanding that if they decided the situation was hopeless, it would become so. They engaged intensively with their son, joining in and participating with his autistic repetative behaviors (against medical advice), seeking to create rapport. As Mr. Kaufman began attending to and engaging with his parents, they then used that hook to challenge him and teach necessary interpersonal and communication skills. Today the son-rise program offers an alternative to the dominant applied behavior analysis model which seeks to treat autism by first addressing the autistic child's difficulty forming relationships rather than their odd behaviors. The Center offers intensive parent training in the son-rise intervention model (as parents - not professionals - deliver this care) from their Massachusetts campus. Having been developed by non-scientists outside the university, the efficacy of the son-rise program has not been established with clinical trials. However, Mr. Kaufman suggests that recently resarch has been occuring which will shortly be published.

Liana Lowenstein, MSW on Play Therapy. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Adult-oriented psychotherapy is talk-focused, making it inappropriate for children who are for developmental reasons less able or inclined to be able to talk about emotional difficulties. Play therapy involves a therapists systematic use of structured games and play activities to bond with, assess and treat children's psychosocial issues. Play activities allow children to approach their issues indirectly and (often) in a physical, primarily non-verbal manner. Play activities are orchestrated by the therapist according to one or more clinical play therapy models (e.g., this is not simply play but instead real therapy). Lowenstein describes several named therapeutic play activities variously designed to elicit discussion of feelings, elicit a ranked list of worries, or to enable children to act out their issues using the sand-tray or dollhouses. The entire family is frequently included in therapy so as to assess family dynamics that may be interfering with healing (such as when children feel the need to protect their parents), and to help parents become more aware of children's issues so that they can act on the information to alter their behavior.

Dr. Ceren has devoted her clinical career to developing a systematic program for providing effective premarital counseling, a niche that presented itself after working with troubled couples and recognizing the need for a prophylactic approach to identifying and addressing likely causes of incompatibility prior to marriage as a method of improving marital satisfaction and reducing the need for divorce. Currently, premarital counseling is emphasized in pastoral counseling settings such as the Catholic Church. Dr. Ceren would like to see an expansion of such counseling, however, such that marriage licenses could not be issued without participation. She has developed a 10 session program wherein partners individually fill out personality and relationship questionnaires and then share findings so as to identify and address areas of incompatibility. Though opposites attract, couples with similarities fare better in marriage according to Dr. Ceren. Conflict is not an issue, although the couple's ability to achieve compromise is vital. Apart from compatible styles with regard to big issues including sex, money and religion, it is also vital to identify partners with personality disorders (rigid personality styles) which will prevent compromise from being achieved (because one or both partners lacks the flexibility to achieve that compromise).

Joseph E. LeDoux, Ph.D. on the Synaptic Self and Memory Reconsolidation. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Entering psychology by way of marketing, Dr. LeDoux chose to study animal brain mechanisms of fear after becoming disenchanted with the overly broad concept of the limbic system and frustrated by the difficulties associated with the study of human brains in that era (e.g., modern brain imaging techniques did not yet exist). He applied an information processing approach to this work (wherein mental processes like memory and attention are attended to; not emotion or other subjective mental contents). He became well known after demonstrating that auditory signals indicating danger were independently transmitted by the thalamus (a sub-cortical switch of sorts) in parallel to both the auditory cortex and the amygdala. Because the route to the amygdala is physically shorter, animals are thus able to respond to danger signals before becoming consciously aware of the danger. Dr. LeDoux's more recent contributions include authoring several excellent books such as Synaptic Self, which introduce lay people to neuroscience concepts in accessible language, and conducting important work in memory reconsolidation, a recent advance in the understanding of the nature of how memory functions, which has enormous promise as a therapy for PTSD and other conditions which revolve around problems involving emotion and memory. The interview winds up with discussion of Dr. LeDoux's rock/pop band the Amygdaloids which has recently put out a new CD, Theory of My Mind

Procrastination, defined by putting things off, falling behind, and then feeling badly, is a normal behavior but one that can cause real problems when taken to extremes. It can present as a symptom of depression or anxiety or perfectionism. it's remediation can help create a sense of relief or respite from these other conditions. A first step in addressing problematic procrastination is to raise awareness that procrastination is occurring so that it becomes more of a conscious choice rather than a simple reflex. Next, it is helpful to understand the motivations that cause the behavior, which vary across different people. Some people procrastinate as a simple short-term means of avoiding having to do tasks they find aversive. Others avoid due to social evaluation fears or self-doubt. Others procrastinate due to poor organizational skills and difficulty accurately estimating the time it will take to accomplish a goal. Procrastination can also occur as a practical means of social manipulation (such as when delay in cleaning one's room will cause another to do it for you), or as a result of existential paralysis over not being able to complete tasks with a (self-imposed) required level of skill or quality. Its important to pick a single instance of procrastination to address rather than try to stop the pattern globally. Keeping change goals small and manageable makes it possible to maintain motivation to change and to measure change as it occurs.

John Doe Transformed in Prison. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. His first years in prison were a continuation of his earlier experience; he continued to use drugs, later giving them up for exercise as a means of self-protection. He met a woman visiting the prison and formed a platonic friendship with her. When she became pregnant (by another man) he formed a relationship with her child. This experience helped him to realize that the purpose of life is found in relationships. About ten years into his sentence, he shifted from a motivation to "do something crazy" so as to secure his "lifer" status within the prison (apparently something experienced as comforting by prisoners) to wanting a life outside the prison. Also about this time he was tricked into participating in a substance abuse treatment program involving a good deal of psychotherapy which he found very valuable. He dealt with chronic neck pain with intensive meditation which ultimately produced in him a feeling of great contentment and peace despite continuing pain. At this moment he realized that his purpose was to be helpful to others.

Long-term PTSD often co-occurs with independently diagnosable and treatable sleep disorders including insomnia and apnea. Dr. Krakows research suggests that many chronic insomnia patients also have undiagnosed apnea like conditions they are not aware of. He frequently prescribes an imagery technique for treatment of nightmares called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy or IRT. In IRT, patients are taught that nightmares are habitual learned behaviors and therefore modifiable. Patient are then instructed to change their nightmares however they wish and to practice this between sessions. The technique is associated with symptom relief. IRT has no exposure therapy component, but Dr. Krakow does think incorporating one might be helpful. Other sleep disorders are treated using appropriate techniques including use of breathing assistance machines such as adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV), which PTSD patients more readily tolerate than CPAP. Imagery techniques are taught as distraction devices to help patients cope with the discomfort associated with breathing machines. Addressing co-occurring sleep disorders helps PTSD patients rally and cope better during waking hours.

Hanno Kirk on End of Life Care. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Hanno Kirk, LICSW, Ph.D. had a successful Army and political policy career before deciding to retrain as a social worker and focus his career on end-of-life care. In the United States, the dying process has become highly medicalized such that some 80% of people die in hospitals (contrasted to 80% of people dying at home 50 years ago). Death has become more hidden and taboo than in the past, and younger people have little experience with it. Several consequences of this shift in how people die are that people put off planning for their own dying process, failing to set up advanced directives, and that dying people are offered more interventions designed to prolong their lives, often without careful thought as to how these interventions will affect the quality of life remaining. Life extension is a fine goal for otherwise healthy people, but when body systems approach becoming irreversibly damaged, especially during the terminal drop phase of dying, such efforts are counter-indicated as they will cause more harm than good. Efforts to promote advanced directives, provision of realistic end-of-life education and education regarding hospice services end up producing dramatic health care savings, as people then willingly avoid costly life extension efforts as an affront to their dignity. Dr. Kirk suggests that end of life should be a spiritual and sacred time during which families can share, reconcile and grieve, rather than a series of stressful crisis interventions.

Sharon Rivkin, a Marriage and Family Therapist and author of Breaking the Argument Cycle, argues that in most cases, repetitive conflict within a relationship occurs when partners' deep-seated family-of-origin issues cause them to misinterpret one another's behavior as more of a personal attack than it really is. Ms. Rivkin's central insight is that a couple's first argument, usually still vividly remembered but distant enough in time to be objective about, is a fertile laboratory for unpacking and identifying what the core issues driving conflict are. To break out of a repetitive argument cycle, partners must become aware of their individual root issues underlying their arguments and then use this knowledge to become more compassionate towards themselves and their partner.

Dr. Strunk, a cognitive-behavioral therapy researcher, describes results of his recent psychotherapy research. Specifically, he has examined the contributions of two aspects of the psychotherapy process, rapport (or the quality of the relationship between therapist and client) and technique (or the consistency with which the therapist sticks to teaching core cognitive therapy principles within therapy sessions, and found that, given a pool of reasonably competent therapists (some masters and some journeymen), there is a direct relationship between the consistent teaching of cognitive techniques and early symptom remission, but not really a relationship between how well therapists and clients think of each other and symptom remission. Dr. Strunk is quick to point out that rapport would likely have become more important if therapists taking part in the research had been seriously lacking in rapport building skills. He emphasizes that both cognitive therapy for depression and medication therapy for depression have been shown to be effective treatments for depression, and that since the majority of depressed people go untreated, the most important thing is that people who are suffering get themselves into an effective treatment of some kind.

Joshua B. Lerner on the History of Object Relations Theory. Object Relations Theory is an important development of psychoanalysis which is widely supported today within the psychoanalytic community. The term object is really a stand-in word for people, as the theory really speaks to the importance of how a person's early relationships, particularly with caregivers, strongly influence their psychological development. The importance Object Relations Theory applies to early relationships is in contrast to Freud's original conception of child development which was understood to be more biologically or instinctually driven. In this Wise Counsel interview, Joshua Lerner, a social worker and psychoanalyst, talks about the historical development of Object Relations Theory; its origins with analysts like Melanie Klein, and how it developed over time under the influence of other analysts including Winnicott, Balint, Fairbairn, and Bowlby.

Secure attachment helps people survive temporary bouts of pain, discomfort, doubts and distress, and helps them reestablish hope, optimism, and emotional equanimity. Securely attached parents are able to protect children from parental grief (by keeping it private between parents), and to offer children their freedom but in a manner that conveys support rather than indifference or anxiety. Insecurely attached parents tend to polarize in terms of their coping, becoming either more indifferent and detached or to deny the importance of the bond, or conversely, more hyper-vigilant, worried and anxious in such a way as to magnify the importance of the bond overly, conveying dependence and a message that separation is harmful to the parent. Parents' secure attachment allows them to both support and to let their children go simultaneously, whereas their insecure attachment ends up burdening children, either by conveying their unimportance to the parent, or their over-importance.

An Interview with Wilma Bucci, Ph.D. on Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Science. Bucci views the fundamental nature of the mind to be revealed in the partial interaction of the various brain systems. Another way to say this to note that the most fundamental thing about consciousness is dissociation, which can be adaptive or dysfunctional, depending on its causes and how it plays out. Adaptive dissociation occurs when we are having a peak experience that we cannot put into words (stuff that poets try to capture), or when we are driving a car and able to operate the stick shift. If we try to narrate what we need to do to ourselves (e.g., to understand the motor memory in verbal terms), we are likely to mess up our ability to function on this subsymbolic level. Dysfunctional dissociation happens when the various parts of the brain which should be talking to one another so as to support our ability to function become, for whatever reason unable to talk to one another, resulting in emotional dysfunction and avoidance.

Meg Hutchinson on making Music and Bipolar Disorder. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Van Nuys interviews accomplished singer-songwriter Meg Hutchinson about her music and her life with Bipolar Disorder. Ms. Hutchinson experienced her first substantial depression at age 19. While bipolar is normally associated with swings between depressive and manic mood episodes, Ms. Hutchinson experienced mostly depressive states until her late 20's in the aftermath of her beloved grandmother's death at which point she had her first experience of mania, then profound depression, then a mixed state, then depression again, this time severe enough that hospitalization was required. It was at this point that her condition was officially diagnosed. In the years before her diagnosis she was fairly secretive and defensive about her episodes, viewing them as par for the course for an artist, or due to some physical condition. It took some months for the meaning of the diagnosis to sink in, but when it did, she felt more at peace with herself, recognizing finally that her condition was not her fault, and that she was not a weak person for accepting treatment. She was helped to this understanding through therapy and a supportive network of family and friends. Today she recognizes the importance of carefully balancing her ambition and desire to take on many musical committments with the practical demands of maintaining her emotional balance.

Dr. Zylowska, a UCLA-affiliated psychiatrist with a private practice in West Los Angeles, discusses mindfulness practice as a clinical intervention for adult ADHD. She describes mindfulness as the cultivation of heightened awareness, and points out that this can occur for anyone as a spontaneous state of mind, but that it can also be cultivated through regular practice of various forms of meditation so that a person's experience of mindfulness becomes more frequent and trait-like. She describes the history of mindfulness practice as a psychotherapy intervention, noting that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program was the first application, followed on by Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Both intervention protcols involve an eight week training period. In her own pilot research she has adapted mindfulness practices from the MBSR model for use treating adults and teens diagnosed with ADHD. Modifications including making practice sessions shorter, and encouraging walking meditation as opposed to sitting meditation. Her results, published in the Journal of Attention Disorders in 2007, showed that patients generally liked the intervention and that their ability to sustain attention under distracting circumstances was improved at the conclusion of mindfulness training. Together with Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., she has co-authored a CD of mindfulness practices for ADHD. The summary of the exercises used in the research study is available for download from her website.

An Interview with Holli Kenley, MA on Surviving Betrayal. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Ms. Kenley became highly attuned to the idea of betrayal after noting it as a common theme in multiple clients and dealing with it in her own life. Her efforts to understand what people refer to when they say "betrayed" resulted in her identification of three common experiences or states of being: confusion, worthlessness, and powerlessness, which she describes as stages that occur in that order, respectively. The difficulty a person will have in processing a betrayal and moving through these stages is affected by multiple factors, including one's personality or ego strength, the degree to which the betrayal affects identity investments in particular social roles, and the chronicity of the betrayal (whether it is a single event or a recurring theme). People who have experienced multiple and chronic betrayals may find that they are dealing with a pool of residual betrayal, in that they have come to identify themselves as a victim and self-effiacy is low. Such stored or institutionalized betrayal must be addressed and worked through in therapy or the client's progress may stall. An important componant of this work involves helping the client move from a passive/victim core sense of self to a more active and empowered persona capable of self-authorship and able to right herself. This shift from passive victim identity to a self-authoring identity opens up the possibility of anger and blame, which must also be worked through so as not to become the new basis for the client's identity, as this is also a trap.

An Interview with Leslie Greenberg, Ph.D. on Emotion-Focused Therapy. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Van Nuys interviews Leslie Greenberg, Ph.D. with regard to Dr. Greenberg's Emotion-Focused Psychotherapy. Dr. Greenberg is not so interested in promoting yet another name brand psychotherapy but has felt complelled to package his work in this fashion so as to get it out there, in the face of the dominant cognitive-behavioral mode of therapy which deemphasizes the importance of what he wants to talk about. His therapy is focused squarely on helping patients to experience and comprehend their emotional process through the communication of an intellectual framework for understanding emotion, and the direct experience of emotion in the therapy. It is the conceptual framework and the large base of research it sits upon that differentiates this therapy from older emotion-focused therapies such as gestalt therapy, Rogerian client centered therapy, and (shudder) Janov's primal scream. The approach recognizes emotions as action-tendencies motivating behavior, and as people's most fundamental synthesis of their understanding of their situation. It seeks to put people back in touch with avoided fundamental emotions as without awareness of avoided emotions, people are rudderless and disoriented. Multiple research studies of this Emotion-Focused therapy have been conducted, resulting in firm support for the efficacy of the approach.

An Interview with Steven Richfield, Psy.D. on Parents as Coaches. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Drs. Van Nuys and Richfield discuss Richfield's coaching cards, a deck of cards designed to be used by pre-teen children and parents so as to help children understand, in a concrete and developmentally approprite manner, methods for coping that might otherwise be just above their understanding. For instance, the cantaloupe skin card shows the image of a child putting on a cantaloupe skin. This is a concrete representation of the idea that some people have thin skins (e.g., are sensitive and vulnerable) while others have thicker skins, and that thinner skinned children have the option to metaphorically choose to put on a thicker skin by focusing their minds on success experiences which help shore up their fragile self-concepts. The cards offer key concepts to children that enable them to cope better, helping to advance their development of social maturity. Richfield sees this approach as offering parents a way to fundamentally better understand what their children are going through and therefore respond in a developmentally sensitive manner promoting maturation (in the manner of an athletic coach) rather than as simple rule setters and enforcers.

Interview: Bruce Ecker, MA, LMFT on Memory Reconsolidation and Psychotherapy Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. In this episode of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Bruce Ecker describes the core treatment method of Coherence Therapy. Ecker relates this method to emerging neuropsychological research on memory reconsolidation, a naturally occurring phenomena through which emotional memories can be dissolved and erased. Reconsolidation studies by brain scientists have shown that under special circumstances, the physical storage of emotional memories is unlocked by reactivation of the stored knowledge and is then reconsolidated back into a stable condition after a few hours. During that window, it is possible for new learnings to revise and even erase the existing emotional knowledge and the behavioral responses that it drives. Ecker maintains that the same reconsolidation process demonstrated in contemporary neuroscience research seems to be at work in coherence therapy and accounts for clinical observations of profound change and lasting relief from longstanding symptoms of many kinds.

An Interview with Ari Tuckman, Psy.D., MBA on Adult ADHD. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Tuckman, a psychologist in private practice in West Chester, PA specializes in the treatment of adult ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), characterized in children by hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention. Most people outgrow the hyperactivity component of this disorder, but impulsivity and inattention problems may linger into adulthood, resulting in lost opportunities and poor educational, occupational and social functioning. The diagnosis is often missed in adults who are instead regarded as lazy or selfish. Functional problems associated with ADHD appear to be neurological by nature, manifesting as executive function disturbance. Aspects of executive dysfunction include impairments of prospective memory, sense of time and poor response inhibitution secondary to an impaired ability to efficiently appreciate the consequences of behavior; all types of meta-awareness which normally serve to keep people oriented regarding the responsibilities they are expected to meet. Dr. Tuckman's Integrative Treatment for Adult ADHD is comprised of four treatment componants: 1) education about the nature of deficits associated with ADHD, 2) medication (usually a stimulant) to boost executive functioning, 3) coaching (e.g., identifying distractions and removing them, and using external supports like clocks, alarms and signs to prompt behavior and stimulate awareness), and 4) psychotherapy to boost self-esteem and motivation and address mood and anxiety problems.

An Interview with Robert Fancher, Ph.D. on Cultures of Healing. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Fancher is known for his 1995 book, Cultures of Healing, which is notable for its criticism of the cognitive-behavioral school within clinical psychology, which he understands to be based on a provincial vision of the scientific enterprise; one more concerned with engineering outcomes than with understanding the natural world. Dr. Fancher finds that many psychological scientists and therapists simply swallow, unquestioningly, cultural traditions about the nature of the world and the best ways to study it that they are taught in school, and go on to simply repeat these understandings, believing them to be Facts, rather than a particular and biased understanding of the true and ultimately unknowable underlying world. Therapists embeddedness and lack of ability to criticise their own undersandings blinds them to the fact that they have worldviews (one among many), and that these worldviews both have ethical ramifications that need to be explored, and also bias their interpretations. Many therpists do not attend to their role as moral agents with values and agendas that necessarily influence their clients. Therapists are taught to be value-neutral towards their clients, but this is both an impossible and absurd stance, and also sometimes a damaging one (e.g., when therapists do not take an ethical position towards their clients unethical behavior).

An Interview with George Bonanno, Ph.D. on Bereavement, Grief and Resilience. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Bonanno describes lessons learned from his 30 year research career studying bereavement (grief in response to the death of a significant other). His findings debunk many grief myths that are widely held, including the notion that grief is always a drawn out process, and that it proceeds as a predictable series of stages. In reality, many people get over their losses fairly quickly. Rather than stages, the typical experience is more like periods of sadness that gradually get less intense. It is also the case that people normally experience intense happy emotions during bereavement as well as sad ones, moving back and forth between the two, with both emotions tending to be intensely felt but brief in duration. The more that people smile early on during bereavement, the faster they tend to recover their equilibrium. In many ways distraction and avoidance end up being better ways of managing intense grief than involved grief-focused conversations. Distressed people can become sensitized by such conversations and end up having a worse outcome than they otherwise would. Involved grief-focused discussion can be useful as a componant of psychotherapy for people displaying complicated (non-remitting) grief. Formal therapy is generally not indicated for normal grief. However, it can very useful for grieving people to have the opportunity to talk with an understanding and caring family member or friend if they desire it.

An Interview with Kirk Schneider, Ph.D. on Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Drs. Van Nuys and Schneider discuss recent developments of Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy, an approach founded by Rollo May and developed by May and James and Elizabeth Bugental. Dr. Schneider has become a champion of the approach since the passing of the founders, and notes it has opened up to embrace the use of techniques drawn from other schools while retaining its intense focus on the existential anxieties (e.g., the fear of death and the various ways that symptoms develop to ward off awareness of death) and the development of clients' sense of here-and-now presence and freedom through the therapists' careful, client-focused empathic attention, genuineness and ability to create a safe environment.

An Interview with Mary Forsberg Weiland on Modeling, Addiction and Bipolar Disorder. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Ms. Weiland, formerly a successful fashion model and wife of rock star Scott Weiland (singer for the popular 1990s rock band Stone Temple Pilots), recounts her life growing up in in San Diego in a chaotic family environment featuring povery, frequent moves, divorce and remarriage, depression, and delinquency; her early and sudden success as a fashion model; more depression; her very intense and volitile marriage to Scott Weiland; their drug addiction problems; and her very public manic episode in which she burned her husband's clothes and damaged a hotel room. Though embarrassing, this episode resulted in her acceptance of treatment for bipolar disorder, an action which she credits with completely transforming her life and reducing her misery. Through her book, she hopes to share her experience with others so as to reduce the shame and stigma associated with addiction and bipolar disorder diagnosis and treatment.

An Interview with Nancy Rappaport, MD. on Coming to Terms With A Parent's Suicide. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Rappaport, a Child Psychiatrist, talks with Dr. Van Nuys about her process of coming to terms with her mother's suicide (an event that occurred when Dr. Rappaport was 4 years old). This process started in earnest when she became a mother and concludes 18 years later in the form of a book. She started out writing letters to her absent parent, and later started digging for information to fill out her very incomplete knowledge, incorporating material from her mother's papers and the recollections of her mother's friends, family and associates. She describes how her understanding of the suicide evolved over time from an initial 'magical thinking' position of believing she had helped to cause it to occur, to her later appreciation of her mother from an adult perspective, and her suspicion that her mother may have had Bipolar Disorder.