Mind-Brain-Gene

This day-long seminar will discuss the sea change occurring in therapy and how we conceptualise mental health problems and their solutions. Just as the field of health has undergone a transformation towards Integrative Medicine, the treatment of psychological distress is also moving toward integration. Practice in the 21st Century demands and requires an understanding of the latest discoveries relating to the interaction between mind and body systems. Thanks to contemporary science we now understand the significant ‘feedback loops’ that exist between emotional health and a range of physical factors and body systems such as the immune system, metabolism, genes, diet and sleep, brain structure and even gut bacteria. Understanding the role these systems play and the interconnectivity that exists within and between them opens new therapeutic avenues for professionals to utilise in their quest to help clients recover. In this cutting-edge workshop, dynamic US Psychologist Dr John Arden will explore a wide variety of factors having multi-directional causal relationships between stress, depression, anxiety, the immune system, and gene expression. He will discuss contemporary research on integrated psychotherapeutic approaches with particular attention to their application to the clinical assessment and treatment of depression, anxiety and trauma.

Some of the key topics John will discuss include:

- Fascinating new discoveries relating to the relationship between the body’s systems and mental health, with specific attention on brain dynamics, metabolism, genes, and the immune system
- Making sense of the multi-directional feedback loops between the stress systems and the dysregulation of the immune system that lead to these conditions.
- Successful interventions that seek to modify feedback loops among the body’s self-maintenance systems to promote mental wellbeing.
- How insecure attachment, deprivation, and child abuse contribute to anxiety and depression in far more extensive ways then we realised.
- Practical evidence-based ideas to promote the re-regulation of immune system function, stress systems, nutrition, physical inactivity, sleep, affect regulation and cognition.
- How to distinguish between various health conditions and psychological disorders and where they overlap.
- Why by necessity 21st-century therapists need to become more like integrated healthcare professionals to more effectively address and resolve adverse mind-body-brain interaction.

John Arden Ph.D., is a Psychologist, author and International Speaker. He was formerly the Director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California where he developed one of the largest mental health training programs in the US. His current work incorporates the latest research about the capabilities of the brain and the body, with psychotherapy research to create an integrated vision for contemporary best practice. John is an award-winning author and has written 15 books, including “Mind-Brain-Gene Toward the Integration of Psychotherapy” and “Rewire Your Brain”.