Today’s one-on-one between Ron Taffel and Rich Simon about the “New American Family” was fascinating for me especially as I’ve grown up as part of this new era. I completely related to everything Taffel described--the powerful influence of the peer group, the “second family”, the dwindling sense of hierarchy, and the lack of rituals.

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What an exciting opportunity to be able to hear Dan Siegel’s take on the much-discussed, drama-filled debate that spontaneously occurred between Siegel and renowned psychologist Jerome Kagan.

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Today’s conversation between Bessel van der Kolk and Rich Simon, regarding van der Kolk’s thoughts on trauma, was a really interesting follow-up to Mary Sykes Wylie’s article, “The Long Shadow of Trauma” in the March/April issue. See her article here. Read more

It’s finally here, the Symposium, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for….maybe some of you knew what to expect when you got here but as much as I’ve been warned, I wasn’t entirely prepared!

My name is Jordan and I am a soon-to-be-graduating senior at American University with a journalism major and psychology minor.

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It’s not often that I get the opportunity to imagine my life as a landscape.

This was just one free writing prompt during my Creativity Day workshop.

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Wow. Well, that was a wake-up call! I consider myself pretty savvy about environmental issues, and I know that many "green" products are mostly a marketing scam. But a resource like "goodguide.com" feels like a revelation.

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When Dan Siegel’s kids were teenagers, and they would whine, “I’m bored” as teens are apt to do, he would respond, “Why don’t you try a new firing pattern?”

It’s not that we don’t use most of our brains, he explained during his joint workshop with Natalie Goldberg, it’s that we don’t use many of our neuron firing patterns. Read more

What an amazing, moving presentation. Right from the start, those video clips were powerful. For me, the first news and movie clips were depicting events and time periods that I've only learned about - they happened before I was born.

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I feel so lucky because not only did I get to hear Natalie Goldberg speak, I got to hear her speak twice in one day.

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I have never been a “science person”. Science has always intimidated me; knowing that I won’t fully understand, terms like “neurons” usually make my eyes glaze over.

But, Dan Siegel’s presentation “The Neurobiology of We” was absolutely fascinating. Even though he threw a few of those scary science words at us, he added jokes and vivid examples to make his ideas significant and clear.

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What a unique opportunity I was given today, to be able to participate in William Doherty’s ethics workshop based on the popular TV show The Sopranos! Read more

My mind is reeling after Dr. Jerome Kagan's lunch presentation: "Human Nature and the Possibility of Change."

People are wired from birth to have certain dispositions, but are we condemned to these traits?  Kagan said, "Science is at an early age for understanding temperament," and that there is an extremely large number of possible temperaments.

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From the moment Barbara Ehrenreich stepped onto the stage for tonight’s dinner address, she had the audience cracking up. Her speech protesting positive psychology-well, it was positively striking. Read more

I can see why Tara Brach was chosen to lead us on the last leg of our Symposium experience. Her presentation about awareness and opening our hearts was very thought-provoking. Even her voice is soothing and even, as if she is perpetually leading meditation. Read more

As lively and energetic as it can be to have many people with diverse opinions, perspectives and backgrounds participating in a workshop, my experience Sunday was different because it was such an intimately small group.

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Wow. What a weekend. Rich was right, it was like a festival. I had such a phenomenal time since the moment I arrived Thursday morning. Read more

Maybe it was grand and public - a moment of unmatched eloquence from a keynote speaker. Or maybe it was small and mundane, but unexpectedly moving - or downright hysterical. What was YOUR most memorable moment at Symposium 2010?

Today was typical and atypical for a Wednesday. It usually starts with heavy breathing and lots of sweat but my personal trainer was out of commission, having undergone reconstructive knee surgery for the second time in 6 months because of basketball-related injuries (or should I say injuries due to delusions of immortality). So I slept in – and loved it. Yesterday had been a seven-client day and I had gone to bed exhausted from lugging projections from session to session. Sometimes you can leave it in the office and other times, it gets in you and stays in you. Even my yoga class the night before had been only mildly restorative. At times, the breath is no match for seven hours of potent and unsavory unconscious attributions. I was told once that the key to being a good therapist is finding a way, when you’re getting covered in shit during a session, to keep one eye open so you can see where the shit’s coming from. Certainly some days smell sweeter than others, but there does seem to be truth in that advice.
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