A Vision of Integrative Mental Health

This morning’s keynote speaker, Andrew Weil, is the world’s leading proponent of integrative medicine—healthcare that ties together conventional and alternative medicine—and his work and ideas fit well into the theme of this year’s Symposium: “Creating a New Wisdom: The Art and Science of Optimal Well-Being.” 

Energizing, Inspiring, and Revitalizing

Creativity Day provides a wide variety of options to fit a range of interests—dancing, singing, writing, mindfulness training, and so much more. What a way to start off a professional, clinical conference! Whatever your goal is during Creativity Day—energize for the days (or year) ahead, try something new, get your creative juices flowing, take a day to just enjoy and take care of yourself—I hope you were able to meet your goals and more.
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The Creativity Day Kickoff

Welcome to Symposium 2012! Here in Washington, DC, spring has arrived just in time for the annual Symposium, and it all feels just right: the cherry blossoms are thriving outside, and the spirit and energy inside the Omni Shoreham is already palpable as everyone is beginning to arrive.

Of course, I think many (myself included) were a little bit bleary-eyed as we greeted each other sleepily among the coffee and Danish at this early hour, some after arduous travels to get here in the first place. But as usual, Richard Gonzalez’s invigorating Creativity Day Kickoff was even better than caffeine to wake us up and get us excited about the day ahead and the conference in its entirety.

Although I knew what to expect in general from this welcoming event, it didn’t cease to astonish me, once again, how good it felt to get up from our seats and dance and move altogether—especially on a Thursday morning, when I’d usually be sitting in my desk at my office, working and sipping coffee. It made me feel like, yes, the Symposium has begun! And this is the start of an entirely different kind of day.

If you were able to participate, how did this Welcoming Event make you feel? Whether it’s your first time attending or your 35th, we want to know what you think about this first part of the conference and as we move through the conference experience together.

The Symposium promises to be very full of activity, learning, inspiration, and fun. Please just take a few minutes to let us know what you’re thinking and experiencing, here on the blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter, and just check out our Symposium Live page so you can constantly stay updated with what’s going on at the conference as it happens. We want to hear from you so we can all share our different experiences.

In this Bonus Session with Francine Shapiro, the originator of EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), she’ll show how this revolutionary treatment can be used to address challenging cases and shorten treatment time.

After this presentation, please take a few minutes to reflect on what was striking to you about this particular session, how it fits in with the series in its entirety, and what you’re thinking after participating in this course and hearing a wide variety of perspectives on trauma treatment today. What was most interesting to you? What questions remain for you? Do you have any relevant experiences to share?

We encourage you to comment on this session and about the series as a whole, as this kind of deeper engagement is key to learning and understanding. Thank you for your participation, and we hope you come away from this course with a clearer understanding of 21st-century trauma treatment.

Dear Colleagues,

In celebration of the Networker’s 30th anniversary, we’ve been taking some time to reflect on the past three decades: what have we been doing as a magazine? As a community? As a field? Where are we going?

Back in January, we asked subscribers to contribute their personal stories about how the magazine has influenced their development as therapists and as people. We wanted to know if there were any specific issues or articles that had a significant impact, led to an interesting experience, or really, anything that readers wanted us to know.

We were so honored by the responses that came pouring in, and would like to post some of these responses (many in an abridged format) here. We’d love to hear more, too. If you’re a subscriber of the magazine, we’d love to provide you with another opportunity for response and comments here.

If you’re not a magazine subscriber but still a part of the Networker community—a webcast participant, a Symposium attendee, or just a fan in general—we want to hear from you, too. How has the Networker community impacted you? And an even larger question, if you’ve gotten a chance to read our March/April issue on “Is Therapy Getting Better?”—what do you think? Where do you think this community, and the wider community of mental health professionals, is headed?

-Rich Simon

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We’re less than 2 weeks away from Symposium 2012 and in the frenzy of last-minute conference planning—honing my introductory speeches, rehearsing my Opening Night song and dance, checking and double-checking to-do lists, and more. Read more

During this session of “Handling Today’s Hidden Ethical Dilemmas,” you’ll have the opportunity to hear from Steven Frankel, who’s a certified clinical and forensic psychologist as well as an attorney at law. Frankel will discuss the best ways to deliberately avoid the most common ethical dilemmas in order to protect your clients and yourself.

After the session, please take a few minutes to engage in the Comment Board and share your reflections with the presenter and other participants. What was most striking to you about this presentation? Do you have any questions related to this material? We invite you to share your thoughts, questions, and ideas, as well as including your name and hometown with your comments. If you ever have any technical questions, please feel free to contact support@psychotherapynetworker.org. Thanks for your participation.

Learn from veteran therapist William Doherty as he’ll delve into complicated ethical situations by showing video clips from the popular HBO series, “The Sopranos” and “In Treatment” to lead discussions on useful and unbeneficial ways to bring up terminations when clients are no longer benefiting from therapy. Doherty will explain the most common scenarios when termination is—or should be broached—and will go over strategies for initiating termination topic at the right time and in the right way.

After the session, please take a few minutes to let us know what you think. What did Doherty discuss that was new to you? What was most interesting or relevant? We invite you to share your thoughts, questions, and revelations, as well as including your name and hometown with your comments.
If you have any technical questions, please feel free to contact support@psychotherapynetworker.org. Thanks for your participation.

Explore the distinctive challenges of working with dissociated clients with Christine Courtois, the cofounder of The CENTER: Post-Traumatic Disorders Program in Washington, DC. In this session, you’ll learn practical methods for helping clients with dissociative disorders move beyond their patterns of avoidance so they can process their experiences of trauma, abuse, or loss.

Afterward, please let us know what you think. Do you have any questions for the presenter? What was most interesting or relevant to you? We encourage you to include your name and hometown with your comment, and to take a few minutes to read and response to other participants’ comments. As always, if you have any technical questions or issues, please feel free to email support@psychotherapynetworker.org.

Join Clifton Mitchell for a practical discussion on the latest legal developments on therapists’ responsibility to handle self-injurious behavior in clients, report abuse or rape, and handle right-to-die issues. Mitchell will delve into significant legal and ethical situations and discuss practical case studies that’ll help you better understand the best ways to deal with these important issues—ethically and legally speaking—in the consulting room.

After the session, please take a few minutes to engage in the Comment Board and let us know what you think. What did Mitchell discuss that was new to you? Do you have any specific questions for the presenter or your peers? We invite you to share your thoughts, questions, and revelations, as well as including your name and hometown with your comments. If you have any technical questions, please feel free to contact support@psychotherapynetworker.org. Thanks for your participation.

How has digital technology changed the ethical challenges practitioners face in the consulting room? Join psychologist Ofer Zur in this practical discussion of the new ethical trials that exist due to new technologies such as email, social media platforms, the Internet, cell phones, and more. Zur will break down the new issues and provide suggestions as to what therapists should do in order to best handle these ethical quandaries.

After the session, please take a few minutes to engage in the Comment Board and let us know what you thought. What did Zur bring up that was new to you? Do you think there are any other ethical dilemmas brought up by new technologies that weren’t mentioned in this presentation? Do you have any specific questions for Zur or for your peers? We invite you to share your thoughts, questions, and revelations, as well as including your name and hometown with your comments. If you have any technical questions, please feel free to contact support@psychotherapynetworker.org. Thanks for your participation.

Welcome to New Perspectives on Practice: Handling Today’s Hidden Ethical Dilemmas. This practical and thought-provoking series with leading experts on ethical practice will explore current ethical guidelines for therapists. The first session with Mary Jo Barrett will delve into how to reconcile boundary maintenance and will cover why peer supervision and consultation are vital to ethical therapy, plus many issues that are consistently confusing for clinicians.

After each session, there will be Comment Boards available as a way for participants to share what was most interesting or relevant from the sessions, and to ask questions of the presenters and of each other. We invite you to utilize these Comment Boards as a forum for thought and discussion after each session and after completing the course.

What was most striking about this session with Mary Jo Barrett? Do you have any similar, relevant experiences? Did this bring up any questions for you? Thanks so much for your participation, and welcome to this important and lively series! If you have any technical questions or issues, please feel free to email support@psychotherapynetworker.org.

A Pathway to the Ultimate Experience.

The 2012 Networker Symposium will be my third time attending, and I can’t help but think back to my first conference experience. At the time, I was a student intern at the Networker, working part-time while finishing up my undergraduate career. Read more

This lively Bonus Session, a dialogue between Ron Siegel, an assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, and noted hypotherapist Michael Yapko, will offer contrasting perspectives on the impact of mindfulness practices on therapy today. Siegel will explore the ways in which Eastern mindfulness practices are being integrated into Western psychotherapy, and how this union is affecting both. Yapko will discuss how understanding the role of suggestion can enhance mindfulness as a clinical tool.

After this presentation, please take a few minutes to reflect on what was striking to you about this particular session, how it fits in with the series in its entirety, and what you’re thinking after participating in this course and hearing such a wide variety of perspectives on a variety of applicable topics. What do you think—is mindfulness enough? What do you think was most interesting or made the most sense to your practice? What questions remain for you? Do you have any relevant experiences to share?

We encourage you to comment on this session and about the series as a whole, as this kind of deeper engagement is key to learning and understanding. Thank you for your participation, and we hope you come away from this course with a clearer vision of how we can effectively integrate mindfulness practices and psychotherapy to benefit ourselves and our clients.