Every few years a seemingly new psychotherapeutic approach surges in popularity, only to fade away later as a distant memory. Recently a wide variety of interactive factors underlying many health and mental health problems have been identified. This seminar synthesizes the substantial literature on psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics, combining it with the neuroscience of emotional, interpersonal, cognitive, dynamics, with psychotherapeutic approaches to offer an integrated vision of psychotherapy. The integrative model promotes a conceptual shift in how we understand mental health problems and their solutions. We can now understand how the immune system, diet, brain structure, and even gut bacteria effect mental health. Psychotherapists in the 21st Century will by necessity become more like healthcare workers to address and resolve adverse mind-body-brain interactions.
Mind-Brain-Gene explores a wide variety of factors having multidirectional causal relationships between stress, depression, anxiety, the immune system, and gene expression. The interaction between all these factors has been by illuminated by studies examining the effects of life style factors on the incidence of health and psychological problems. There are significant relationships between immune system function, stress, insecure attachment, anxiety, depression, poor nutrition, bad quality sleep, physical inactivity, and neurophysiological dysregulation. For example, insecure attachment, deprivation, and child abuse contribute to anxiety and depression as well as immune system dysregulation in far more extensive ways then was believed. This complex range of health conditions effects millions of people who seek psychotherapy.
Just as the field of medicine has been recently transformed by Functional and Integrative Medicine, psychotherapy by necessity is moving toward integration. Given that psychotherapy will increasingly address health factors, with epigenetics and psychoneuroimmunology at the forefront, this integration brings those fields of research that had previously been compartmentalized into a robust vision of psychotherapy. Mind-Brain-Gene applies this approach to psychological problems and evidence-based practices tailed to ameliorating anxiety and depression.
Live Event
This is a live online event.
It will be conducted via Zoom Webinar.
