It’s Monday afternoon, and hopefully all of you who attended the 2011 Symposium are back in your homes and resting after such a full weekend—and what a wonderful weekend it was! Between all of our inspirational—and hilarious!—keynote speakers, the thought-provoking presentations, and interesting workshops, it seemed as if everyone at the conference was constantly buzzing about what they’d learned and what it meant to them. As always, the Omni Shoreham was filled with people from all over the world (participants hailed from 25 different countries!). The hotel spilled over with the energy of people excited to be there, some for the first time, and some returning after dozens of Symposiums, marking the start of spring in their lives.

We’re really interested to hear what was most special for you during the conference. If you were a first-timer, what was your experience like; if you attended after many years, what was different about this year than others? Who was your favorite keynote speaker or workshop presenter, and why? What did you learn or do that inspired you and that’s most relevant in your life?

If you were able to postpone traveling back to your hometown until Sunday afternoon, what were your favorite workshop moments? Please take a few moments to comment about what stood out to you most during your last day of Symposium 2011. Feel free to leave comments below on the Comment Board, on other Sunday post, or on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Thank you so much for all of your participation—we believe it helps create a sense of cohesion and community, even when we’re not all in the same Omni Shoreham ballroom

“Do you trust me?” What a question to propose to a significant other or a friend. Maybe they’ll respond with “Yes, of course,” but when it really comes down a situation that requires absolute trust, they won’t. John Gottman’s keynote speech, based on research published in his most recent book The Science of Trust, covered the scientific data behind trusting one another—something that’s vital to the success of a romantic relationship, and that impacts so much else in daily life.

“Trust is the number one issue with struggling couples,” Gottman said, “And trustworthiness is the number one most desirable trait.”

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It was an honor to attend Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Eugene Robinson’s dinner presentation on race diversity in today’s America. His speech explored the research and insights that contributed to the creation of his recently published book Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America.

Robinson reflected on how he felt on the 2008 election night: “I knew it was happening, but like many other African-Americans, I didn’t really believe it was going to happen.” Once President Obama was elected, he said he called his parents to let them know that they’d lived to see the election of the first African-American president. So much had happened, he said, since he grew up, on the “tail end of the Jim Crowe era in South Carolina.”

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What were some moments from today that stood out for you the most? We invite you to take a few minutes to reflect on your favorite workshops from today and share what was most interesting or new today. You can comment below on the Comment Board, on other Saturday blog posts, or on our Facebook and Twitter pages. As always, we encourage you to include your name and hometown to continue creating a sense of community that we strive to create particularly at the Symposium each year.

Is gender a social construction, caused when parents dress infant daughters in pink and paint sons’ walls blue? Or when they encourage sons to try out for sports and their daughters to try ballet? I always thought that there are minimal biological differences between men and women—until I heard Louann Brizendine’s presentation today, “The Gendered Brain.” Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist who wrote the pathbreaking books The Female Brain and The Male Brain, took us on a tour of the male and female brains during each life stage, and pointed out the differences and similarities.

“The brains are more alike than different,” she said, “After all, we are the same species!” But from her extensive studies, it seems there are differences in the brains that really do make a difference. Some of it does have to do with society and culture, but some of it is biologically based.

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The Symposium is a conference filled with many learning opportunities, events and programs that are fun, educational, thought-provoking, inspirational. . . and a little bit exhausting, too! On both Friday and Saturday night, psychologist and coach Lynda Klau is facilitating an event called Open Space, a method in which she is also trained, which will provide participants with whatever they want or need.

Klau said that typically, at conferences, the richest and most powerful times are actually at coffee breaks, or any unstructured times when people get together and share their various perspectives and understandings. So Open Space is a time when anyone who wants to gather can come and participate in activities—or not.

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What a treat it was to be able to experience such a noteworthy and charismatic man as Dick Cavett in his area of specialty—an interview. Friday night’s dinner event featured Dick Cavett, the host of the Dick Cavett Show, in which he regularly interviewed stars such as Katharine Hepburn, Betty Davis, Groucho Marx, and innumerable others on the top of Hollywood and history’s “favorites” list.

In the classic talk show format, Cavett sat on stage across from Psychotherapy Networker Editor Rich Simon, in which the two went back and forth reminiscing about Cavett’s favorite times behind the camera, and Simon’s favorite times watching him on the screen.

Select clips from his talk show were played, to the audience’s delight. Some remembered seeing these interviews live so many years ago, and some enjoyed these scenes of celebrity interviews for the first time. Whether or not we grew up avidly watching Cavett’s show, the event was entertaining and enjoyable for everyone present.

Welcome to the 2011 Symposium! Although some have been in the conference mindset since Wednesday, Friday is the first day of clinical workshops. Today began with Sherry Turkle’s intriguing morning keynote about technology and human relationships, and of course, Rich Simon’s unforgettable musical rendition of “Don’t Stop Believin’!”

What were your favorite workshop experiences today? What was most striking or interesting or new? We invite your comments here on the Comment Boards, on other Friday blog posts, or, if you’re unfamiliar with social networking, we welcome you to “brave new worlds” and explore our Facebook and Twitter pages! What as the best part of today for you?

Today’s lunch with Don Meichenbaum, Ph.D., the renowned founder of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and current Research Director at the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment, was the perfect complement to Sherry Turkle’s morning’s keynote. This morning, Turkle spoke about how our relationships with technology may be harmful to our relationships with each other. Meichenbaum’s presentation, “Technology and the Future of Psychotherapy,” told the other side of the story: how our digital gadgets can be extremely helpful as part of therapy.

Throughout his presentation, he gave us examples of how, through his specific work and through future possibilities, technology can be a key to improving mental health. His work on the Melissa Institute is all available on their website for free, for any mental health professional, educator—or anybody at all—to learn from and use.

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This morning’s keynote, “Cyber Intimacy and Cyber Solitude” with Sherry Turkle, perfectly fit the theme of this year’s Symposium, “Braving New Worlds”—and Rich Simon’s musical production of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” also appropriately fit the theme of exploration. Turkle, the director of MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self and a clinical psychologist, spoke about the evolution of our relationships with technology, as illustrated by her extensive studies, as well as her own, changed perspectives and understanding of our beloved electronics.

In the 1970s, she was hired by MIT to teach sociology, but was so struck by the “love affair” she reported students having with computers that she decided to change her role at MIT to instead study and track these shifting relationships.

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Welcome to the Symposium! Some of you have already been in the spirit of this annual gathering since Wednesday with the start of the Hero’s Journey, some of you have arrived today from all over the world, and some will be arriving tomorrow.

Did you participate in Part 2 of the Hero’s Journey? What was it like to conclude that 2-day experience? If you participated in other Creativity Day workshops, what were your experiences like?

Read about others’ experiences here on the Comment Boards, or on the other Thursday blog posts highlighting this morning's Kickoff event and the Creativity Day Workshops, or go up to our Facebook and Twitter pages and join in the conversation there! In any case, we invite you to include your name and hometown with your comments.

Creativity Day is a rare opportunity for those of us stuck in the grind of day-to-day sameness and seemingly endless to-do lists. This particularly special day of the conference affords us an opportunity to try something new, to explore a passion we don’t get to pursue in our careers, or to discover creative techniques that can be incorporated into our daily personal and professional lives.

Each year, a host of talented and inspirational leaders inspire us in different arenas, offering us the chance to engage in creative adventures like dancing, yoga, photography, and qigong. Whether we’re seasoned singers or tone deaf, it’s a unique and revitalizing experience to try new things or engage in something you know you already love.
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Welcome to Creativity Day! Richard Gonzalez led our Creativity Day Kickoff in Afro-Caribbean dance and song, awakening our minds and bodies from early-morning sleepiness, and signaling the beginning of a different kind of day: a day intended to spark inspiration in ourselves and others.

Check back later for some photos of this energetic event; maybe you’ll see yourself or your friends. If you attended the Creativity Day Kickoff—particularly if you’re a first-timer—what did you think?  

“All of us work with people—we help people help themselves—but rarely do we take time for ourselves,” said Robert Dilts at the start of the Hero’s Journey, “Over the next two days, we’ll get time to regenerate.”

This first day of the mystical-sounding Hero’s Journey delved into what, exactly, is the Hero’s Journey, and then we explored our inner lives through cognitive and movement exercises.
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This year, for the first time, an extra day was added to the Symposium, to make room for a special 2-day retreat—“The Hero’s Journey”—led by Robert and Deborah Bacon Dilts. What was your experience like on this first day of the Hero’s Journey? What was something that stood out to you—a specific moment, exercise, or idea?

As always, we invite you to include your name and hometown with your comment, so we all get even more of a sense of community.

Over the years, one important source of this sense of discovery has been the remarkable roster of speakers who have addressed the meeting, a group that over the years has included important figures like Maya Angelou, Elie Wiesel, Mario Cuomo, and Gloria Steinem. The group of featured speakers who will be presenting at the 2011 Symposium will hardly disappoint.

Opening this year’s Symposium will be MIT professor Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and anthropologist who’s spent the past 30 years studying the pervasive psychological impact of digital communications technologies on our lives. For a taste of her illuminating insights, click here to read an interview with her from the January issue of the Networker. You can also watch a video featuring Turkle on the process by which “we make our objects and our objects make us,” as she’s said.

On Saturday morning, poet David Whyte, a mesmerizing speaker and story-teller, will bring his unique powers of expression and vision to the task of describing the courage and creativity needed for “Crossing the Unknown Sea” into the uncertain future this year’s Symposium will explore. If you’re not familiar with David, just click here for a Networker profile of him and his work. You can also watch a brief excerpt from his unforgettable 2009 Symposium presentation to see him in action.

Finally, Sunday begins with an address by renowned therapist John Gottman on “The New Science of Trust.” At a time when the fabric of society seems to be irreversibly fraying, he’ll describe the crucial therapeutic significance of his latest research on enhancing human trust and connection. For an overview of John’s crucial contribution to the couples therapy field, check out this Networker article featuring him and his work or take a sneak peek at John in action here.

This blog will continue to give you a close-up view of the people and events coming up at this year’s Symposium that we think deserve your special attention, whether or not you decide to attend. Stay tuned on Fridays for more of our Symposium Countdown.

Rich Simon,
Editor, Psychotherapy Networker

More than 1,200 attendees have already signed up--our largest registration ever! So this is a good time to see which Symposium topics are inspiring therapists the most.

Here are the five most popular sessions so far, in reverse order:

5. Paper Tiger Paranoia:  Transforming the Fearful Brain: Rick Hanson will demonstrate that, while evolution may have hard-wired us to overestimate threat--favoring chronic anxiety--we can use our own neuroplasticity to override this evolutionary heritage. Read more.

4. Treating PTSD and Complex PTSD: 101 Ways to Bolster Resilience: Amidst all the competing claims of different approaches, Donald Meichenbaum, one of the founders of psychotherapy’s “cognitive revolution,” will separate myth from reality in  the treatment of trauma. Read more.

3. The Therapist Under the Microscope: “In Treatment” and the Ethical Challenge of Practice: William Doherty will use clips from the popular HBO series to illustrate the ethical complexities of modern therapeutic practice. Read more.

2. The Attuned Couple: John Gottman, famous for his groundbreaking research on everyday couples interactions, will provide a practical roadmap through even the most densely overgrown marital jungle. Read more.

1. Creating a Beautiful Mind: Symposium keynoter and poet David Whyte will lead a journey through the uncharted challenges of 21st-century life. Read more.

Another workshop in particular that’s worth noting is the new The Hero’s Journey: A Special Two-Day Transformation Retreat. Come to the Symposium a day early for this newly created, two-day session. This popular workshop is filling up fast, as it'll be an unforgettable enrichment to your personal growth. Read more.

Of course, as more registrations come in, these Fabulous Five could find their stars eclipsed by yet newer wonders--after all, the Symposium season is young and we have 175 different events and workshops to choose from. Just click here to explore what workshops are likeliest to float your boat.

Let us know what inspires you the most about the upcoming Symposium.

Sincerely,

Rich Simon
Editor, Psychotherapy Networker