Retraining the Knee-Jerk Brain
Brent Atkinson • 5/18/2018
By Brent Atkinson - Conscious understanding and effort aren’t the mighty forces we assume they are. Our automatic urges and inclinations are much stronger than most of us ever imagined. Even so, there's something we can do to retrain the emotional brain.
Daily Blog
How Brain Science Can Teach Couples Emotional Literacy
Brent Atkinson • 10/5/2017
By Brent Atkinson - Even among couples who do make progress in therapy, a disheartening chunk relapse. Why? A lack of emotional literacy. Good clinicians help couples effectively calm their anger and fear circuits as well as stimulate the more vulnerable, connection-generating states. The therapist acts as a kind of neural chiropractor, making regular, finely tuned adjustments to each partner's out-of-sync brain.
Daily Blog
Using Brain Science to Spark Behavioral Change
Brent Atkinson • 6/2/2016
By Brent Atkinson - Throughout history, we’ve been operating under a great deception—we tend to believe that our thoughts and actions result largely from our conscious intentions. In fact, while our rational mind has a degree of veto power, the inclinations that fuel our perceptions, interpretations, and actions primarily come from neural processes that operate beneath the level of awareness. The emotional brain plays a crucial role in the machinery of rationality: the brain generates quick, gut-level emotional reactions that collectively serve as a guidance system for reasoning.
Daily Blog
Using Brain Science in Therapy to Alter Mood States
Brent Atkinson • 2/26/2015
When clients become upset, they're in the grip of one of seven major body-brain mood states, also referred to as "executive operating systems." These are more than just passing moods. They're complex neurochemical cascades, in which hormones race through the body and brain and electrical impulses fly over familiar neural synapses, shaping what we feel, do, and think. This hormonal cascade can be lifesaving in the appropriate situation---in the face of a dangerous driver, say, or a possible mugger or rapist. But in intimate relationships, it's often toxic. In my work as a couples therapist, I train my clients to reactivate the neocortex---the inner switchmaster---in the face of strong emotion.
Daily Blog
Learning to Strengthen Brain Circuits
Brent Atkinson • 7/16/2014
In his recent Networker article “The Great Deception,” psychologist Brent Atkinson, author of Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy: Advances from Neurobiology and the Science of Intimate Relationships, explains the power of mental rehearsal and what this means for your clients.
Daily Blog
A Mindful Approach With Couples
Brent Atkinson • 4/24/2014
Over the years, I’ve come to recognize that there’s no one-shot, magic-bullet approach to retraining the human brain. Instead, I’ve developed a process that systematically combines what we know about the power of the emotional brain, the particular strengths of the rational mind, the mechanics of mindfulness meditation, and the brain’s impressive flexibility to help clients learn to calm their nervous systems and navigate their lives more effectively.
Daily Blog
Our Conscious Behaviors May Not Be So Conscious After All
Brent Atkinson • 1/28/2014
I’d emerged from my doctoral studies utterly dissatisfied with existing answers to the question of why people continue to behave in self-defeating, irrational ways despite clear evidence that their methods aren’t working.
Daily Blog
We’re Less in Control Than We Think
Brent Atkinson • 1/8/2014
Most of us put much too much faith in the power of our conscious minds to bring about lasting change. Instead of looking up the higher branches of consciousness, we should be looking down into the nervous system settings that generate impulses and inclinations.
Magazine Article
Authors:
BABETTE ROTHSCHILD, MSW, LCSW
SEBERN FISHER, MA, BCN
BRENT ATKINSON, PHD
KATY BUTLER, MA
MARY SYKES WYLIE, PHD
Authors:
BABETTE ROTHSCHILD, MSW, LCSW
SEBERN FISHER, MA, BCN
BRENT ATKINSON, PHD
KATY BUTLER, MA
MARY SYKES WYLIE, PHD
Authors:
RICK HANSON, PH.D.
RON POTTER-EFRON, PHD, LICSW, CADCII
STEVE ANDREAS, MA, NLP
BRENT ATKINSON, PHD
BRUCE ECKER, MA, LMFT
MARY SYKES WYLIE, PHD
LAUREL HULLEY, MA
Authors:
RICK HANSON, PH.D.
RON POTTER-EFRON, PHD, LICSW, CADCII
STEVE ANDREAS, MA, NLP
BRENT ATKINSON, PHD
BRUCE ECKER, MA, LMFT
MARY SYKES WYLIE, PHD
LAUREL HULLEY, MA