Search Results for: Polyvagal Theory

Understanding and Effectively Treating Violence

    In this Webinar: This Webinar will summarize a theory of the causes and prevention of violent behavior, meaning the infliction of injury, especially lethal or life-threatening injury, on a person by a person. The topics discussed will include the evaluation and treatment of individuals who are actually or potentially violent. It will be organized around the concept that violence is caused or prevented by the interaction between biological, ps…

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Are You Giving Up on Love?

…ne, that aims to explain people’s resistance to love. When I introduce the theory surrounding fear of intimacy to people, they often say, “That sounds exactly like my husband!” or “My girlfriend totally has that issue.” It’s a concept people have trouble recognizing in themselves at first, because most people think they want love and don’t consciously feel afraid. Instead, they go along happily in their relationships for a time, then slowly, witho…

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What Happens When You Give Up Your Phone for 3 Days?

…uted it to lack of connection or control, but in hindsight (and to go into theory for a moment) the act of looking at my phone to see if I had a missed call or text is similar to RRG. This is the same as the spike of dopamine one gets when gambling (essentially a random result induces this hit of dopamine). So, without the ability to refresh my emails and checking my phone, I felt at a loss. I couldn’t receive that warming hit of dopamine I was so…

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Video: Dr. John Norcross on writing Changeology

…e self-help into what they’re doing to give additional detail, to show the theory and rationale, to help with homework assignments. Sometimes self-help is used when someone’s on a waiting list. Or, it’s used on the other end to engender maintenance and generalization of change, secure the treatment. Still, other people have access to only quite brief psychotherapy and they, of course, are living like the rest of us in all of life’s vicissitudes. S…

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How Negative Thoughts Are Ruining Your Life

…concept I’m often introducing to new audiences. It’s the cornerstone of a theory and therapy technique developed by my father psychologist and author Dr. Robert Firestone. It is the basis of a book we co-authored titled Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice and the subject of many of my lectures, Webinars and my upcoming six-week eCourse “Overcome Your Inner Critic.” Why I have invested so much of my time and work into this subject is because what I…

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VIDEO: Dr. Allan Schore on the Role of Shame in Suicide

…e probably – Silvan Tompkins, the famous psychologist studying personality theory used to say that although terror strikes, shame strikes much more deeply into the body and into the heart of man. And what happens to us in these overwhelming shame states – now these individuals are literally living in massive shame states over the entire course of their life span. And they are extremely susceptible to it. They have no way to auto regulate out of it…

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VIDEO: Dr. Allan Schore on the Physiological Impact of Dissociation

…we’re looking at therefore is a situation whereby development, attachment theory, the neurobiology, incidentally this used to be called psychic structure, now we’re understanding psychic structure. Why these elements really can give a much more powerful model of psycho-pathogenesis. And that model of psycho-pathogenesis now will be critical now to the treatment model that will follow of the other side of it, etc. so we’re now looking, in my own w…

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Compassion and the Art of Having Fun

…t happiness is really all in our minds, and starts with our self-view. The theory is that when we can feel a deep sense of gratitude toward ourselves, appreciating our basic good nature, when we feel self-love, self-worth and self-compassion, we are more capable of meeting life’s challenges with success and grace, minimizing a lot of anxiety and depression. There’s simply no possibility of having fun in life — enjoying the precious experience that…

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VIDEO: Dr. Kirk Schneider on Psychological and Cultural Polarization

…ism, fascism, polarization from economic points of view, from evolutionary theory, from biological determinism. It seems to me existential, basic existential conflicts have not been in the conversation nearly enough. And I have a sense that they’re, if they’re not the core, they’re at the core of the problem, that the ultimate substrates of that kind of extremism, that fixation, is a sense of insignificance, it’s a sense of cosmic helplessness. An…

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Webinar Resources: Understanding Trauma from "Simple" to "Complex"

…and Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse: A Workshop Model (1993). Dr. Courtois has published numerous articles and chapters on related topics. She is a Founding Associate Editor of the new APA Division 56 journal, Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, & Policy. She is Co-Founder (in 1990, with Joan Turkus, MD) of The CENTER: Posttraumatic Disorders Program, Washington, DC where she served as Clinical and Training Director for 16 year…

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