Psychiatry, Psychology & Brain Studies

Biography

Abstract

Contemplative meditation reveals a latent capacity for personal integration that enhances mental health through relational and transcendent ordering. The role played by the brain and nervous system in assisting personal integration, however, is neglected in modern philosophy of science models of the nervous system. These models thereby introduce serious challenges to ethical practice that diminish the personal meaning of the human being. Personalist approaches to ethics and discoveries in empirical neuroscience, however, are together beginning to offer a synergistic view of integration that may help in revising these models and reinstating a more positive anthropological meaning of the individual as well as an improved understanding of existential psychotherapy. Psychotherapeutic analyses, historical reviews, and institutional experience, for example, all testify to a positive and direct relation between personal spirituality and the liberation and meaning endowed by it to mental health. In recognition of the significance of contemplative discipline for consolidating the neural architecture, the neural events facilitating enhanced mental well being have been extensively investigated. In the case of mindfulness meditation numerous studies have been conducted that reveal substantive effects on brain anatomy and function, leading the British Parliament in 2015 to issue its landmark report, A Mindful Nation. These show significant anatomical - major nerve tracts, for example, such as the corpus callosum, are significantly increased in size and myelination  and physiological variation, these latter accompanied by distinct neural activity changes that are correlated with the duration and frequency of meditative practice. The extended intentional focus of contemplative meditation that has been acquired from the Christian legacy, and then evolved in its later development, implicates an even greater breadth of neural deployment that assists personal integration. They suggest, thereby, a scope of disciplinary consolidation that exceeds that of mindfulness and so likely activates a broader and corresponding range of integrative processes, that are, therefore, latent for implementation when exercised. This paper, accordingly, will emphasize these integrative and physical features of the neural architecture and their contribution to mental health.

Biography

Marek J Celinski has been a Rehabilitation Psychologist(Ph.d.,) and a provider of neuropsychological services in his private practice focusing on rehabilitation and assessment of head injury since 1977. Previously he was the Senior Psychologist and Consultant to the Head Injury Program at the Downs view Rehabilitation Centre (WCB) until its closure. Presently, he remains as a part-time Consultant with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. He  also studied under Alexander Luria in Moscow and Prof. Egon Weigl in Berlin. He has presented at national and international conferences, and has published more than 50 papers and book chapters on the subjects of clinical psychology, rehabilitation, neuropsychology and hypnosis. He is the author, co-author of a number of clinical and rehabilitation tests and materials at various stages of publication and development with RREES. These activities include his having co-authored (with Dr. Salmon) “the Rehabilitation Survey of Problems and Coping”, “the Rehabilitation”, “Neuropsychological and Health Status Inventory”, and the “Headache and Dizziness components of the Rehabilitation Education and Coping Series”. He is Specialist in Neuropsychology and is a Registered Psychologist in the Province of Ontario. He is affiliated with the Ontario, Canadian and American Psychological Associations, the Canadian Register of Health Services Providers in Psychology and the Canadian Academy of Psychologists in Disability Assessment.

Abstract

The Challenge-Resilience, a resourcefulness model was inspired by the Western philosophical and cultural traditions, and observation how people cope with life adversities. In reference to clinical practice, the thesis is that any successful coping and psychotherapeutic interventions including cognitive and emotional processes that mobilize clients to face courageously life problems (which refer to Challenge-Resilience constructs) and to seek resources that would enable engagement in sustained, value oriented activities on a chosen level of efficacy. Support for such an approach is found in the ego state therapy, Eriksonian concept of utilization, Antonovsky's sense of coherence and in positive psychology, especially Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources Theory and Frederikson’s broaden and built theory referring to positive emotions. Data from new assessment measures will be described based on research utilizing Resilience to Trauma Scale (Research Edition) and Resourcefulness for Recovery Inventory (Research Edition) that was conducted by clinics and research facilities in Canada, Poland and in Russian Federation. Psychometric properties of these two measures will be reviewed along with their relationships with pathological manifestations. Specifically, it will be described what resilience to trauma represents clinically, what are people’s personal resources and how resources modify the post traumatic pathology, change the clinical course and predict outcome from therapy, both in psychotraumatic and serious physical conditions. The relationships between the subjectively assessed sense of good health of parents and their offspring’s based on acknowledged resourcefulness will also be described. The model and the described measures will be presented as the clinical tools for diagnostic and treatment purposes, and as a practical and universal way of successful dealing with life adversities. 

Biography

James McCarthy is the Director of Field Training and Associate Professor of Psychology, Pace University, Doctor of Psychology program in School-Clinical Child Psychology in New York City and Clinical Professor of Psychology, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. His interests include severe psychopathology in children and adults, trauma studies, cognition and training in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and he has published widely in the professional literature. He is the author and editor of a number of books. His current book “Psychosis in Childhood and Adolescence” is published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis.

Abstract

Psychosis represents an anxiety laden state of inner psychological experience that is manifested symptomatically. Psychotic symptoms may or may not be associated with a psychotic disorder while psychotic disorders are frequently accompanied by impairments in social, cognitive and psychological functioning throughout the lifespan. In spite of the increased knowledge about the underlying neurobiological factors, the genetic vulnerabilities and the contributory environmental influences on psychosis in childhood, there are unanswered questions about the nature of the developmental trajectories of psychotic disorders in children and adolescents. Studies of high risk populations have led to a more comprehensive understanding of trauma induced psychotic symptoms in youth as well as the course of severe pediatric mood disorders, such as Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder in children. However, few investigations of the long-term longitudinal outcome of the treatment of first episode psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorders include both children and adolescents.

Questions also remain about which protective factors and which psychotherapeutic interventions may facilitate the most positive outcomes in spite of the associated structural and functional brain abnormalities that may be present with the emergence of psychotic disorders in childhood.  While pediatric psychotic disorders need to be understood as the outgrowth of interacting, multidimensional risk factors, their treatment requires comprehensive, multimodal interventions that incorporate supportive family treatment and individual psychotherapy as well as the judicious use of psychotropic medication. Longitudinal outcomes studies of psychotic disorders in children and adolescents likewise seldom examine associated co-occurring psychiatric disorders,  cognitive weaknesses, cultural and racial differences or the impact of co-occurring trauma on the continuance of psychotic features in childhood psychiatric disorders.

Biography

Abstract