Soul food for psychotherapists

We were pleased to feature Dr. Christoper Muran, Associate Dean and Full Professor at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, where he serves as training director for the doctoral program in clinical psychology.  He completed postdoctoral training in cognitive therapy (University of Toronto) and psychoanalysis (New York University). He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA Divisions 12 & 29), as well as past president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research and past editor of its journal Psychotherapy Research.  He serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology and Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice.  Since 1990, Dr. Muran has been Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Mount Sinai Beth Israel; and he is also on faculty at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  He currently sits on APA’s Advisory Steering Committee for Clinical Practice Guidelines. Dr. Muran has authored or edited nine books, including Therapist Performance under Pressure: Negotiating Emotion, Difference & Rupture (2020; with Catherine Eubanks), The Therapeutic Alliance: An Evidence Based Guide to Practice (2010; with Jacques Barber), ​Dialogues in Difference: Diversity Studies in the Therapeutic Relationship (2007), Self-Relations in the Psychotherapy Process (2001), and Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance: A Relational Treatment Guide (2000; with Jeremy Safran). He has also contributed Alliance Rupture Repair (2020; with Catherine Eubanks) to the APA Video Series.

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We are pleased to feature Dr. Patricia Coughlin, a Clinical Psychologist with over 40 years of experience; 30 of them as a practitioner and teacher of Intensive Short term Dynamic Psychotherapy.  In addition to her practice, Dr Coughlin has written a number of seminal books on the method, including Intensive Short term Dynamic Psychotherapy: Theory and Technique, Lives Transformed, and Maximizing Effectiveness in Dynamic Psychotherapy.  Her newest book, Working through toward Enduring Change will be published by Routledge in 2022.  Dr Coughlin has held faculty positions at Northwestern University School of Medicine, Albany Medical College, and Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine. Currently she is Visiting Faculty at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.  Dr Coughlin teaches and trains mental health professionals internationally and has won a number of teaching awards for her clarity and passion.

Catch her youtube videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu74E7N-5hknal1jfaE-MSA and visit her webiste, www.ISTDPNortheast.com

We were pleased to host Dr. Nancy McWilliams, who teaches at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and practices in Lambertville, New Jersey. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994, rev. ed. 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004) and Psychoanalytic Supervision (expected publication September 2021) and is associate editor of both editions of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006, 2017). A former president of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association, she has been featured in three APA videos of master clinicians. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center. Her books are available in 20 languages; she lectures widely both nationally and internationally. 

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We are pleased to feature Dr Sue Johnson. Sue  is a leading innovator in the fields of couple therapy and adult attachment. She is the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy (EFT), which has demonstrated its effectiveness in over 30 years of peer-reviewed clinical research. Sue’s received numerous awards acknowledging her development of EFT, including the APA’s “Family Psychologist of the Year” in 2016 and the Order of Canada in 2017.

Her best-selling book Hold Me Tight (2008) has taught countless couples how to enhance and repair their love relationships. The book has since been developed into an interactive relationship enhancement program, Hold Me Tight Online. Her newest book for clinicians, Attachment Theory in Practice (2019), delineates the promise of attachment science for understanding and repairing relationships and her seminal text, Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy — Creating Connection (3rd edition, 2019), is now in its third edition.

As the founding director of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), Sue trains counselors in EFT worldwide and provides guidance to over 70 affiliated centers. She consults for the U.S. and Canadian militaries and is a popular presenter and speaker for the general public. You can find out more about Sue and her work at www.iceeft.com and www.drsuejohnson.com. 

We are pleased to feature Dr. Bessel van der Kolk an internationally known trauma therapist, researcher, and author. Bessel van der Kolk MD spends his career studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences, and has translated emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of treatments for traumatic stress in children and adults.

In 1984, he set up one of the first clinical/research centers in the US dedicated to study and treatment of traumatic stress in civilian populations, which has trained numerous researchers and clinicians specializing in the study and treatment of traumatic stress, and which has been continually funded to research the impact of traumatic stress and effective treatment interventions. He did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD; was a member of the first neuroimaging team to investigate how trauma changes brain processes, and did the first research linking BPD and deliberate self-injury to trauma and neglect in early childhood.

Much of his research has focused on how trauma has a different impact at different stages of development, and that disruptions in care-giving systems have additional deleterious effects that need to be addressed for effective intervention. In order to promote a deeper understanding of the impact of childhood trauma and to foster the development and execution of effective treatment interventions, he initiated the process that led to the establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a Congressionally mandated initiative that now funds approximately 150 centers specializing in developing effective treatment interventions, and implementing them in a wide array of settings, from juvenile detention centers to tribal agencies, nationwide.

He has focused on studying treatments that stabilize physiology, increase executive functioning and help traumatized individuals to feel fully alert to the present. This has included an NIMH funded study on EMDR and NCCAM funded study of yoga, and, in recent years, the study of neurofeedback to investigate whether attentional and perceptual systems (and the neural tracks responsible for them) can be altered by changing EEG patterns.

​His efforts resulted in the establishment of Trauma Center (now the Trauma Research Foundation) that consisted of a well-trained clinical team specializing in the treatment of children and adults with histories of child maltreatment, that applied treatment models that are widely taught and implemented nationwide, a research lab that studied the effects of neurofeedback and MDMA on behavior, mood, and executive functioning, and numerous trainings nationwide to a variety of mental health professional, educators, parent groups, policy makers, and law enforcement personn

We were pleased to host Dr. Leslie Greenberg, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at York University in Toronto and the primary developer of Emotion-focused therapy, along with guest host Christine Courtois. He has authored the original books on Emotion in Psychotherapy (1986), Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (1988).  More recent books include Emotion-focused Couples Therapy: The dynamics of emotion, love and power (2008), Therapeutic Presence (2012), Emotion-focused therapy: Theory and practice (2015), Case Formulation in Emotion-Focused Therapy (2015), Emotion -Focused Therapy of Generalized Anxiety (2017), and Emotion-focused Therapy of Forgiveness(2019). He has received the Distinguished Research Career award of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research as well as the Carl Rogers and the Distinguished Professional Contribution to Applied Research of the American Psychology Association. He also has received the Canadian Psychological Association Professional Award for distinguished contributions to Psychology as a profession. He is a past President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. He currently trains people internationally in emotion–focused approaches. 

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We were pleased to host Dr. Howard Liddle, Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, and Director of the Center for Treatment Research on Adolescent Drug Abuse at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. A board certified (family) psychologist, Dr. Liddle's research focus is on the development, testing, implementation, and dissemination of family-based treatment for adolescent substance abuse and delinquency. His research in this area has been funded by a variety of NIDA grants since 1985. Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) is the most researched family-based treatment in the adolescent substance abuse specialty, and MDFT studies and the clinical model are recognized nationally and internationally. Dr. Liddle’s work has been recognized with career research awards from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Family Therapy Association, the Hazelden Foundation, and the American Psychological Association.

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We were pleased to host Dr. Allan Abbass, Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and founding Director of the Centre for Emotions and Health at Dalhousie University in Canada. He completed Medicine at Dalhousie University and a residency in Family Medicine and has worked as a family physician and emergency physician. He completed a Psychiatry residency at the University of Toronto dedicating his career to teaching and researching in the impact of emotions on health. Over the past 25 years he has become a leading teacher and researcher in the area of Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy, having provided over 300 invited presentations and over 250 publications including his first 2 books Reaching Through Resistance: Advanced Psychotherapy Techniques and Hidden from View: clinician’s guide to psychophysiologic disorders.  He has been both a lead and co-investigator of research into Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy for Treatment Resistant Depression, Personality Disorders and somatic symptom disorders. He has received a number of awards including a national teaching award in Psychiatry. In 2018 he was named the David Malan visiting Professor of Psychotherapy at the Tavistock in London and is the current president of the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association.

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We were pleased to host Christine Courtois on April 22nd, 2021 to launch the first in our series "Eminent Psychotherapists Revealed". By popular request Christine will be returning for another EPR. Dr. Courtois is one of the leading trauma therapists in the world and has published ground breaking books on her approach to trauma-informed treatment. Christine served as Chair on the American Psychological Association's PTSD Clinical Treatment Guideline Work Group. She has published extensively and co-founded and served as the clinical and training director of The Center: Posttraumatic Disorders Program in Washington, DC, an intensive inpatient trauma treatment center for 16-years. She lectures and consults internationally on the treatment of trauma weaving together her many years of clinical experience and scholarly work. She is considered a master psychotherapist and teacher. Christine's work has emphasized the treatment of survivors of complex developmental trauma. Her newly revised edition, with Julian Ford,"Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Adults", with Guilford Press is a must read for all psychotherapists, and can be found at: www.guilford.com/p/ford2 and her forthcoming volume, "Sexual Boundary Violations in Psychotherapy" published by the American Psychological Association is due out May of 2021.

We gain access to a huge amount of information about others by looking at their faces. Self-Connection Psychotherapy gives us that same access to information about ourselves. We begin to better understand our minute-to-minute interactions with our patients. As their therapist, we begin to give them these same tools so they can improve their understanding of their emotions and become their own support system.

Mary Ainsworth is a pioneering researcher who collaborated with John Bowlby who's work in attachment changed the filed of child development and psychotherapy. Ainsworth who was a Ph.D. psychologist developed the Strange Situation research paradigm, which helped her understand the different types of attachment styles. She also developed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) still used in research.

The treatment of personality disorders is a challenging endeavor for any clinician. We should all possess a basic understanding and knowledge about these and how trauma influences and shapes our personality.

Innovations in Treating Personality Disorders 

TZK Seminars

Learning how to better treat personality dysfunction.

https://www.e-counseling.com/mental-health/personality-disorders-and-trauma/

Using Technology in Mental Health Practice

TZK Webinars 

Jeffrey J. Magnavita

Learn how to incorporate various technologies in your mental health practice.

We love listening to podcasts when we are working out, going for long rides in the car, and doing chores. There is a treasure trove of podcasts for psychotherapists that will inspire, educate , and inform you. We will curate the ones we think are really awesome and give you the links of the podcast of the week. Check out a list of the best.

The practice of psychotherapy can be a lonely endeavor. Reducing your isolation is critical to maintaining a healthy self.

One  key to successful practice is to achieve balance in your like. Are you taking care of yourself, attending to your emotional and spiritual needs? Do you have supportive and nurturing relationships?.

ECS has been shown effective for anxiety, depression and insomnia. Sometimes between patients and you have some time or while you are working it is easy to use products such as the Alpha Stim to calm yourself.

We are pleased to offer subscriptions to StratPsych an online learning platform for psychotherapists. As a subscription benefit you receive a discount on all TZK seminars. Use coupon code when you sign in to your StratPsych platform.

We should all take time to experience nature everyday. There is accumulating evidence that those who don't have access to the natural world on  a regular basis suffer from a higher incidence of emotional disturbances. For self-care talk a Walk Outside or go for a Swim in a lake or ocean. 

Taking time each day to engage in deliberate practice is a way to improve your clinical work. Try to think about a case and consider your approach. Check to see if you have any cognitive biases that might be at play or speak with a peer.