Change You Choose

It’s tough to live your life, keep up with friends, hold down a job, take care of family, and achieve your dreams when you’re being run ragged by an anxiety that just won’t stop! What if there were simple, inexpensive (free!) practices that you could do that would make that anxiety just evaporate and disappear like a puddle on a hot summer day? This week’s episode is geared just to that! Anxiety expert, Dr. Margaret Wehrenberg, joined me to discuss her book, THE 10 BEST-EVER ANXIETY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES. My fave quote of the interview: "This may be unpleasant but it is not lethal." In our conversation we covered: What part of your brain overreacts and causes anxiety Two ways fear affects your body 3 Effective ways to manage anxiety How to utilize worry management By the end of this episode you’ll be ready to turn the tables on anxiety and take back peaceful control. MEET MY GUEST: Margaret Wehrenberg, Psy.D., is the Curriculum Development Director for Candeo Behavior Change’s online Depression and Anxiety Program, and is the author of four books: The Anxious Brain, The 10 Best Ever Anxiety Management Techniques, The 10 Best Ever Depression Management Techniques and The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques Workbook, all published by W.W. Norton. She earned her M.A. studying psychodrama and bioenergetics, and has years of experience as a certified drug and alcoholism counselor, especially working with adults who were traumatized as children, before earning her Psy.D. and beginning a private psychotherapy practice, in Naperville, IL, focusing on anxiety disorder treatment.  She blogs for Psychology Today, contributed a chapter to Clinical Pearls of Wisdom (Ed. M. Kerman), and is a frequent contributor of articles to The Psychotherapy Networker magazine.  She speaks internationally on topics of clinical psychotherapy and is noted for her down-to-earth, pragmatic teaching style. Visit her at  www.margaretwehrenberg.com.

In 2009 Roxann Abrams’ son, Randy, committed suicide due to PTSD after his 3rd tour in Iraq. What do you do with grief that enormous? How do you channel that sadness and move forward? Roxann leads the way with her inspiring story of founding a Veterans Services Nonprofit Organization that is “Committed to a Successful Transition for our Combat Veterans”. Roxann believes “The is best way to honor my son is to help his Brothers and Sisters”. Together we discussed the mission of Operation: I.V.org, plus how to handle grief, what it means to reconstruct your life and why doing something that makes a difference can be so healing. My guest this week was Roxann Abrams. Together, we discussed: The mission of Operation: I.V. Roxann's personal journey of overcoming trauma and PTSD Proof that alternative modalities aid in post-trauma recovery What needs to change in military culture, and how to get it done so that our veterans receive the help they need In our Professional Perspective interview this week, Dr. Marcia Nickow addressed how to construct a trauma narrative -- and the benefits you might experience when you do. MEET MY GUEST: Roxann Abrams is an entrepreneurial adviser who serves as CEO of Roxann Abrams, Inc. Ms. Abrams is an accomplished entrepreneur with a Juris Doctor from The Southern California Institute of Law, with an extensive background in creating new businesses. She has also branched into forming nonprofits. She founded her Los Angeles, California Strategic Business Consulting firm with a mission of empowering others to find success in their own businesses. With a broad range of experience in sales, marketing and maintaining a successful business, Ms. Abrams is dedicated to helping clients create or clarify their business goals. She is known for her ability to see the details within the big picture and for creating and implementing a vision to meet every client’s needs. Ms. Abrams is now a Gold Star Mother, having lost her son, Sgt. First Class Randy Abrams, to Military PTSD Suicide in 2009, after he returned from his 3rd tour in Iraq. In working to channel her profound grief she founded Operation: I.V.,Inc, in his memory. This is a Veterans Services Nonprofit Organization that is “Committed to a Successful Transition for our Combat Veterans” . Roxann believes “The is best way to honor her son is to help his Brothers and Sisters”.  

I had the same recurring nightmare over and over after my trauma. Do you have that? Whether you do or not dreams can be a powerful tool in your post-trauma recovery. Created in the subconscious mind dreams let you know what your mind is struggling with, organizing, trying to synthesize or just plain stuck on. My guest this week, Dr. Bruce Dow, is an expert in helping survivors harness the power of dreams in recovery. We discussed: The role of dreaming in memory + how the system is overwhelmed by trauma How we do this in treatment Stories of success + the use of medication Why nightmares happen and how to interrupt and change them a dream revision technique can you do today And a whole lot more! Dr. Dow even worked with a caller to help him walk through the dream revision technique on the air. Many times you'll see a progression in your dreams. We covered how and why this happens as we answered questions posted on our fanpage. If you want to know how to begin taking back control over your REM sleep, this is definitely a show that will give you ideas. MEET MY GUEST: Bruce Dow, M.D. is a board-certified psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist with more than twenty years of experience in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2011 he was named a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Dow became interested in PTSD in 1991 during his psychiatry residency and fellowship training at the San Diego VA Medical Center. This was the period of the first Gulf War, and many Vietnam veterans with PTSD were appearing at VA hospitals seeking treatment. Dr. Dow utilized a technique for treating combat-related PTSD by changing Vietnam veterans’ nightmares in a group therapy setting. The results were dramatic. Recurrent nightmares that had been present for twenty five years (1968 to 1993) disappeared following a single group therapy session. Between 1994 and 2007 Dr. Dow was in private practice in the San Diego community, receiving referrals from the VA for outpatient treatment of combat-related PTSD, as well as referrals of police officers, prison guards, high school teachers, cashiers, construction workers, and others with PTSD from the civilian workplace. He was able to utilize the same dream revision techniques to treat both military and civilian PTSD, as he describes in a book currently in preparation. Dr. Dow was born and raised in the Boston area. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1960 and spent a year in Europe as a Fulbright Fellow. His interests in the humanities and sciences consolidated during his year abroad and led him to attend medical school at the University of Rochester with the goal of becoming a psychiatrist. After an internship in medicine at Johns Hopkins he fulfilled his Vietnam War era military service obligation as a researcher in neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He continued his neuroscience research from 1967 to 1989, ultimately becoming a tenured full professor at the State University of New York (Buffalo). He has published many articles on color vision and visual perception. In 1989 Dr. Dow finally entered psychiatry, which had by this time evolved from its psychoanalytic roots to encompass neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Armed with his strong neuroscience background, he completed residency and fellowship training in psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He spent a year (1993-1994) on the UCSD faculty, setting up an inpatient program in PTSD at the San Diego, VA Medical Center. In 1994-2007 Dr. Dow was in private practice in the San Diego community, where he maintained a subspecialty in treating individuals with PTSD. In 2007 Dr. Dow returned home to the Boston area, where he is employed as a community psychiatrist with a non-profit corporation (Vinfen), helping clients with significant mental illness, including PTSD, live independently in the community.

I'm always on the lookout for gentle, least triggering trauma recovery processes. I've found another one! We’re all hip to the fact that we hold trauma not only in our minds and psyches but also in our bodies. But once you know that, what do you do about? Traditional trauma treatment seeks to heal your emotional wounds and psychological fractures. Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) help to heal the impact of trauma on your body. The benefits are huge, including reduced symptoms of PTSD, increased energy, improved sleep, increased resiliency, decreased anxiety and a slew of others. On this week's show the founder of TRE, Dr. David Berceli, spoke about: his own traumatic past, and how he healed the difference between the neurological, physiological and psychological elements of healing how he developed TRE, how and why it works, plus how you could experience it why you don't have to talk about your trauma to heal what your body wants to do after trauma - and how you can help it two instinctual responses to trauma you can learn how to use in recovery Later in the show, I also interviewed Dr. Kim Dennis about the role of memory in recovery - why you can lose memories and how to heal if you have. MEET MY GUEST: David Berceli, Ph.D. is an international expert in the areas of trauma intervention and conflict resolution. He is also the energetic and creative founder and CEO of Trauma Recovery Services (1998). For the past 25 years he has lived and worked in more than 30 countries providing trauma relief workshops and designing recovery programs for individuals, corporations, social institutions and international organizations around the world. David brings a keen understanding of the intertwining dynamics of neurology, biology and physiology of trauma that underlies the cultural and religious expressions of trauma and post trauma symptoms. David’s academic training includes Social Work (PhD, MSW), Theology (MA), Arabic and Islamic Studies (MA), and certification in Bioenergetic Analysis (CBT), and Massage Therapy (MT).

Is there a correlation between trauma and creativity? Can creativity actually help you overcome trauma? If you’re not a ‘creative person’, can you utilize elements of creativity in recovery? These are just some of the questions we be addressed in this that features creativity as both an innate skill you absolutely do possess, plus how you can use it to help transform your healing process. My first guest, Douglas Eby, shared an inside view to how creativity can release trauma, plus some very interesting stories and quotes about how celebrities you see in the news all the time have dealt with their traumas through creative means. [Hint: think, Lady Gaga, Halle Berry, Charlize Theron and Shia Laboef.] Then, Dr. Marlo Archer and I had so much fun talking about how much fun trauma recovery can be. Sound crazy? (Well, whoever said it had to be as awful as it usually is??) You'll be surprised by how having fun feelings can change your recovery experience, and actually help you make progress. MEET MY GUESTS: Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology, is a writer, researcher and online publisher on creativity and personal growth. He is creator of the Talent Development Resources series of sites and author of the books “Developing Multiple Talents: The personal side of creative expression” and “Being Highly Sensitive and Creative.” He has been exploring the personal side of creativity and creative people for over fifteen years, and has interviewed many dozens of actors, writers, directors, painters and other artists, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists who work with creative people. Dr. Marlo Archer, CP, PAT, is a co-founder of the Arizona Psychodrama Institute, a licensed psychologist, and a Practitioner Applicant for Trainer in psychodrama. Psychodrama students may receive up to 160 of their training hours from a PAT. Marlo Archer is an approved provider for NAADAC, NBCC, & NRCGP.  

On this week's show I spoke with Herb Cohen, a terrific clinician who has a very fantastic view about trauma, mental health labels, and recovery. Does PTSD exist? Cohen doesn't think so - but you have to hear why. I promise, you'll love it! In our conversation Cohen: discussed the relevance of the high prevalence of relapse in addiction recovery described how we adapt after trauma, and why we do explained the difference between the medical and psychological treatment models - and why mental health practitioners need to think more like physicians outlined a new model for treatment highlighted three developments that have happened in the past decade that pave the way for creating a necessary paradigm shift in recovery from emotional trauma. Plus, in our Professional Perspective interview Dr. Kim Dennis explained why dissociation happens and offered simple tips for making it stop. MEET MY GUEST: Herb Cohen is a Registered, Board Certified, and Licensed Creative Art Therapist. He is trained in EMDR and is a level II practitioner with certification pending. Currently Herb is the Director of Stepping Stones PROS Program in Huntington, for Family Service League and managing a part time private psychotherapy practice. Herb also Co-chairs the Long Island Committee on Sexual Abuse and Family Violence. Herb began studying T’ai Chi 25 years ago and became very involved with studying bioenergy, Chi Kung, Reiki and Tibetan and Zen Meditation practices. Herb began integrating T’ai Chi , Chi Kung and Meditation work with clinical treatment. He found applications of this work to be profound in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Herb continues to advance applications of EMDR and Creative Arts Therapy and developed ways to integrate these applications to maximize the therapeutic benefit. Herb has also studied Gestalt and Sensorimotor therapy approaches as well has a strong neurobiological foundation. Herb’s approach is gentle, supportive and person centered.