Practical Applications of the New Neuroscience in Mental Health Practice

NASW-GA is presenting a four-day conference, comprised of up to 20 core CE hours of learning, to provide mental health professionals with a powerful learning experience in affective neuroscience. Clinicians will learn about and apply the latest knowledge and skills from recent research and practice in affective neuroscience. This conference will increase each attendee’s  knowledge of  key scientists and clinicians in this area of practice. The attendee will learn how to apply their key concepts in an easy-to-follow, practical way to improve client outcomes.

Leaders in the field of mental health acknowledge that we are now in the affective neuroscience era, and we all need to be up to date in order to operate with best practices.  We can make this material easy to understand, easy to digest, and easy to apply in powerful ways to improve your practice.

This course will provide detailed handouts covering many of the most important neuroscientists of the past 40 years, their work, and applications of their work to actual clinical practice. Handouts will also include a detailed guide to the major concepts that should be part of the vocabulary of any 21st Century clinician.

Objectives for this Course:

1. Comprehend how our neurological systems operate in readily understandable ways that can enhance your clinical skills and be directly applied to more effective psychoeducation for clients
2. Learn the practical vocabulary and concepts of affective neuroscience for more effective emotional clarification work, skill building in the use of emotions, and strengthening emotional control skills (emotional granularity)
3. Know the different interacting components of a person’s executive function skills (XFS), how they develop, what can go wrong, and what interaction strategies can be used to support XFS development and repair XFS impairments
4. Incorporate knowledge on the inborn neurological and temperamental differences that people present in ways that allow for more accurate client assessment, diagnosis and treatment, better parent education, and building motivation for treatment
5. Learn about the current leading voices bridging the world of neuroscience and the world of clinical practice: who they are, their important contributions, and the practical applications for work with trauma, anxiety, depression and other common precipitants for mental health intervention
6. Understand how to integrate this emerging knowledge into best practice, evidence-based models of treatment in an ethically appropriate manner: cognitive, psychodynamic, systems, solution-focused, addiction, applying Code of Ethics principles.
7. Apply the new knowledge base through experiential learning and scenario analysis to consolidate the learning experience into practical take-aways to improve your practice.

Day One of the Program: Five core hours providing an introduction to affective neuroscience and its relationship to attachment theory and object relations theory, with an examination of direct applications to clinical practice. Day one will introduce the attendee to some of the most important researchers and clinicians in the field, and how their work is reshaping how clinical practice is undertaken. As information is introduced, day one will explore the direct applications of the material to the real-world work of each clinician.

Day Two of the Program: Five core hours providing further knowledge building on affective neuroscience and the key researchers and clinicians providing guidance on how to apply this emerging knowledge to improve client outcomes.

Day Three of the Program: Five core hours providing further knowledge building on affective neuroscience and the key researchers and clinicians providing guidance on how to apply this emerging knowledge to improve client outcomes. Day three will focus on integration of day one and day two material into the major modes of practice (CBT, psychodynamic, systems, and post-modern) and further integrate learning into applicable clinical skills that may be utilized by mental health clinicians in their practice.

Day Four of the Program: Day four will focus on top-down components of our affective-cognitive equipment and implications for top-down modes of clinical work, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Day four will include key information on the formation of Executive Function Skills (XFS) and the important role played by these important frontal lobe functions in the regulation and control of behaviors and emotions and the subsequent development of our critical higher order cognitive functions: organization, self-directed motivation, and self-understanding. Day four will also address the issue of cognitive bias and its implications for complex decision-making.