R102: Getting Comfortable with the Brain

How does knowing more about the brain actually help us become better therapists? This Reading Course is a fascinating introduction to this exciting therapeutic frontier. It brings you the work of a number of the leading clinicians building a bridge between neuroscience and clinical practice. Psychiatrist Dan Siegel explains the principles of interpersonal neurobiology and shows how therapy addresses the core self-regulatory processes underlying mental health. Brent Atkinson offers a range of interventions based on how the brain works, to help couples hold onto the changes they make in therapy. Babette Rothschild examines the implications of the fascinating new findings on mirror neurons for understanding both how the therapeutic relationship works and how to keep the therapist's brain from being rewired by the client.

Course Readings

Mindsight: Dan Siegel Offers Therapists a New Vision of the Brain by Mary Sykes Wylie

Altered States: Why Insight by Itself Isn’t Enough for Lasting Change by Brent Atkinson

Mirror Mirror: Emotion in the Consulting Room Is More Contagious than We Thought by Babette Rothschild

Discoveries from the Black Box: How the Neuroscience Revolution Can Change Your Practice by Mary Sykes Wylie

Brain to Brain: New Ways to Help Couples Avoid Relapse by Brent Atkinson

Learning Objectives

1. Tailor interventions to clients brain styles
2. Discuss ways that trauma results in disregulation of the body.
3. Plan interventions based on repetition
4. Explain role of mirror neurons in empathy