Wise Counsel Podcasts

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Yulonda Brown on Surviving Abuse and Bipolar Disorder" Today's interview is with Yulonda Brown, an African-American woman who has successfully struggled with child abuse, depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). She is an author, publisher, mentor to young women of color, and mental health activist. Ms. Brown relates her story, describing her early experience of physical and verbal abuse by her mother, the subsequent effect of this abuse on her relationships, her experience of postpartum depression and suicide attempt, and her hospitalization, diagnosis and successful treatment.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Stefanie Goldstein, Ph.D. on Mindfulness-based Treatment for Addiction". Dr. Van Nuys interviews Stefanie Goldstein, Ph.D., a Los Angeles, CA based Clinical Psychologist specializing in providing mindfulness-based forms of psychotherapy to people dealing with substance abuse and addiction. Dr. Goldstein talks about her practical work helping addicted clients and the "broken pleasure system" that maintains their habits. In a simplified form, she reviews briefly the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine and its role in creating the experience of pleasure. Mindfulness and psychosynthesis techniques are helpful to addicted people becuase they help them to become more conscious and thus more capable of understanding when they are most vulnerable and of choosing to not continue drug use. Many actions in life are done on "autopilot"; in a semi- or unconscious state where people act but aren't really paying attention. Addictive behaviors get acted out without thought when they are triggered by unconscious impulses and feelings, and by mistaken interpretations of events. By learning to be more aware and conscious, it becomes easier for people to pay attention on a more consistent basis, and thus become more free to choose what they will do, rather than be led around by impulses and cravings.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Natalie Rogers on Expressive Arts Therapy". In this episode of Wise Counsel, Dr. Van Nuys talks with psychologist and psychotherapist Natalie Rogers, Ph.D., a leader in the field of Expressive Arts Therapy which is a form of psychotherapy integrating a variety of artistic and creative modalities and techniques including movement, sound, drawing, drama and language so as to encourage client's self-expression, insight and personal growth. Though individual art therapies have been around for many years, including music, art (painting and drawing), dance, and psychodrama therapies, Expressive Arts Therapy represents a newer effort to coherently integrate these various techniques. Art therapies are particularly useful for people who are feeling stuck, overwhelmed or otherwise unable to express themselves or move forward in their lives. Expressive arts therapy offers such clients multiple non-verbal, and experiential ways to come to understand what it is that is blocking their progress, which can lead to increased self-understanding and to better decision making.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Laurence Westreich, MD. on Helping Families Help Addicted Members", posted July 1, 2007. The traditional advice offered to family members has been to use "tough love" with addicted members. However, Dr. Westreich fears that too many families emphasize being "tough" over providing "love". He recommends that families use a combination of creative engagement and constructive cohersion to repeatedly and lovingly push addicted members into treatment. Threats and ultimatums are less helpful, he suggests, than are multiple caring confrontations that continually push the addicted family member towards obtaining treatment. At the same time, boundaries must be set to keep the addict from harming family members (physically, emotionally, financially, etc.) Dr. Westreich's recent book offers various dialogs that work though typical ways that such confrontations can be offered, typical ways that addicts respond, and good arguments family members can make back to help keep the addict on track towards treatment.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Myrna Weissman, Ph.D. on Interpersonal Psychotherapy", posted June 1, 2007. Dr. Weissman is one of the founders of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), one of only a few empirically validated (EV) and manualized forms of therapy existing today which has been designed for the treatment of depression. As the name suggests, IPT is based on the idea that depression symptoms exist as part of an interpersonal, relational context and cannot be understood independently of that context. In IPT, therapists help patients to talk about what was going on for them when their symptoms first appeared. They then assign the interpersonal context of the patients' depression to one of four categories: grief, conflicts and disagreements, life transitions or too-few attachments and help patients to identify ways to resolve those issues.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Anita Remig, Ed.D. on Child Development", posted May 15, 2007. Dr. Remig describes the process of attachment and attachment disorders in biological, relational and maturational terms. Recent neuroscience findings have tended to confirm what 1950s child development theorists like John Bowlby suspected - that the quality of a baby's early relationships strongly influences the development of that baby's brain, and therefore, the quality of that baby's ability to regulate emotions, form a coherent sense of self and other and enter into and effectively manage social relationships. Modern imaging techniques have localized some of the brain areas damaged by inadequate, abusive or neglectful early caregiving. The midbrain and orbital prefrontal cortex are involved as are diverse right hemisphere circuits involved with emotional regulation and judgement. In short: Child abuse interferes with brain development.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Timothy P. Kowalski, M.A.,C.C.C.-SLP on Asperger's Disorder", posted April 16, 2007. Mr. Kowalski discusses his work as a speech pathologist working with Asperger's Disordered patients. Asperger's Disorder is a pervasive developmental disorder of childhood characterized by communication and social deficits. It is often thought of as identical to high functioning Autism (another, more severe disorder), but Kowalski differentiates the two disorders on the basis of social desire (Autistic individuals lacking the desire and skills to socialize, vs. Asperger's individuals having the desire to socialize but lacking the skills). The pattern of social and emotional deficits characteristic of Asperger's is described, as are ways that these deficits are measured and assessed, and ways that compensatory coping stratagies can be taught.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Jeff Bernstein, Ph.D. on defiant children", posted May 1, 2007. Dr. Bernstein talks about how parents can better understand and manage defiant children's behavior so as to bring all family members closer together. Defiant children are often angry, frustrated, looking to externalize blame and operating under the assumption that they are equal in authority and wisdom to adults. Parents of defiant children too often "take the bait", become emotional, angry and authoritarian themselves and end up trying to manage the resulting conflicts with demands and threats. Dr. Bernstein suggests a more detached, mindful and judo-like approach that is calm, firm and non-controling. Parents who are able to show their defiant children through their actions that they are understood and respected (as well as loved) and at the same time, who are able to firmly set expectations and limits can defuse and avoid otherwise explosive situations and get to the results they want. By modeling the response they would like their children to emulate, parents are able to teach their children how to better self-sooth and interact.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Jeffrey Young, Ph.D. on Schema Therapy", posted February 22, 2007. For years, psychotherapy has been split into various camps or schools, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy and person-centered or humanistic therapy. Each therapy school has different ideas for what therapy should accomplish, and how to go about doing therapy. Faced with this complexity, many working therapists have become eclectic, meaning they try to use techniques from multiple schools at once. Eclecticism can become very confusing and muddy for therapists and patients, however, when it is done inexpertly. Originally trained as a cognitive-behaviorist, Dr. Jeffrey Young is the founder of Schema Therapy, which represents an effort to systematically and coherently integrate techniques from the various therapy approaches. Though a general purpose therapy, Schema Therapy has been designed with the goal of helping personality disordered and otherwise treatment-resistant patients find relief.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Marsha Temlock on Adult Child Divorce", posted March 6, 2007. When a marriage ends, lots of folks are hurt. The divorcing couple, of course, and their children are usually the center of attention. Little attention gets paid to the parents of the divorcees, who may themselves be hurt by the divorce process. Temlock's examination of this sensitive topic offers parents of divorcing children a friendly guidebook packed with helpful information and suggestions from other parents who've "been there." She offers a five-stage model of the divorce process as experienced by parents of divorcing children will can help readers to stay grounded through the emotional upheavals they'll share with their children and grandchildren. This practical manual puts an arm around the shoulder of parents of divorcing adults and supports them through the difficult days of the divorce process and its aftermath.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Steven Levenkron, MS. on Childhood Sexual Abuse of Women", posted August 15, 2007. Levenkron defines sexual abuse broadly as sexualized contact between an adult and a female child between 1 and 13 years old. Girls who have been abused experience pain and terror. They come to believe that "no one will ever protect me again" and come to act accordingly. Attachment and behavioral disorders may follow, as well as depression, social withdrawal, obsessional symptoms, and trememdous self-blame and self-hatred. The longer abuse remains a secret, the more opportunity occurs for these symptoms to become institutionalized in identity. More severe cases of abuse may result in dissociation, and dissociation-related psychosis (not schizophrenia-style psychosis). Clinically, abuse victims may present with eating disorders, a tendancy towards self-mutilization (e.g., cutting and burning one's self), presumably personality disorders (although these are not described), and precocious addiction and/or sexuality. Victims may also avoid sexuality entirely, and go so far as to make themselves physically and emotionally unattractive (e.g., by becoming obese, by dressing poorly, etc.). Victims may slide into further victimizing relationships, as abuse has become normalized, or may act out pseudo-abusive relationships with others through sexual domination activities.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Steven Shaps on Anger Management", posted June 15, 2007. Anger is a normal human emotion, but also one that can become destructive to self and others. Mr. Shaps describes his approach to working with client's anger concerns both on an individual basis and with couples. His approach promotes insight and awareness of emotions underlying anger and encourages a "notice and transcend" approach to managing it rather than one consisting of venting (which reinforces anger feelings rather than helping them to disolve).

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Joanie Gillispie, Ph.D. on Cyber Rules", posted September 1, 2007. Dr. Van Nuys interviews psychologist Joanie Gillispie who, together with colleague Jayne Gackenbach, has written a book titled "Cyber.Rules" which is aimed at helping educate parents about how modern pervasive modern digital media are affecting children and adolescents. This is a complex topic that might pull for a simplistic analysis and prescriptive approach. However, this book apparently offers a more thoughtful and educative approach that Dr. Van Nuys finds refreshing and valuable. Dr. Gillispie's contention is that parents, teachers and clinicians need to become more aware of the ways that the connected world is affecting children so that they can help educate and guide children to avoid the worse outcomes while still benefiting from what is useful and good. Her simple metaphore for how parents, who may be playing catch-up and feeling insecure about how to present themselves as knowledgable, is to deal with the internet in the same way that one would deal with teaching children how to cross a street. This is to say, children need to be protected in developmentally appropriate ways from the worse of the net when they are too young to appreciate its dangers, and they need to be offered the graduated freedom (again in developmentally appropriate ways) to explore the net as it becomes appropriate for them to do so.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "John C. Fleming, MD on Preventing Addiction", posted July 15, 2007. Dr. Fleming is a strong advocate for parents taking strict but loving steps to restrict and limit childrens' opportunities for becoming addicted. He suggests that parents do not model drinking in front of children, indoctrinate children against substance abuse in the same way that they would teach children to not run into the street, to not allow children to have long periods of unsupervised time, to lock medications and alcohol away from children, and to use breathalizer and other drug tests on at-risk children to disincentivize them from using or experimenting. So as not to shock children with a sudden change of the rules, these measures should be implemented from birth and be applied consistantly.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "John Clarkin, Ph.D. on Transference-Focused Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder", posted August 1, 2007. John Clarkin, Ph.D., a clinicial psychologist, is a proponant of Transference-Focused Therapy (TFT), a form of therapy that updates older transference based psychodynamic psychotherapy ideas. TFT is a semi-manualized therapy, meaning that its principles are written down in a book, but session-by-session therapist directions are not provided. TFT is highly 'here-and-now' focused, using the relationship that forms between patient and therapist as a laboratory environment in which the patient's interpersonal problems will play out. TFT therapists help patients to understand and become aware of their maladaptive interpersonal patterns so that they can start to alter them. TFT therapists encourage patients, many of whom are disabled, to get out and work, even if that work is only on a volunteer basis. Conflicts that occur in the work environment are discussed in therapy