This engaging and interdisciplinary presentation explores the complex and often counterintuitive relationship between brain dysfunction and creative brilliance. Drawing on over 30 years of clinical experience as a neurologist, Dr. Sam Markind brings a rare depth of medical insight and humanistic perspective to this exploration of how neurological conditions can both enhance and inhibit creative expression.

Creativity remains one of the least understood yet most vital aspects of human brain function. For psychologists and mental health professionals, expanding our understanding of creativity’s neurological basis is essential—not only for conceptualizing pathology, but for appreciating the full spectrum of cognitive diversity in those we serve. This presentation helps fill an important educational gap by weaving together clinical neurology, cultural history, music, and psychological theory to illuminate the paradoxes of the creative brain.

Through two compelling case studies, Erik Satie (1866-1925) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Dr. Markind examines how neurodivergence and neurodegeneration reveal different facets of creativity. Satie, the eccentric French composer active in Montmartre’s bohemian circles, is presented as a historical example of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD). While undiagnosed in his lifetime, Satie’s personality traits and sensory sensitivities align with contemporary neuropsychological models of enhanced creativity associated with neurodivergence. His minimalist, anti-romantic musical style is examined both as personal expression and as a reflection of neurological difference.

In contrast, Maurice Ravel’s gradual loss of the ability to translate rich internal musical ideas into actual compositions reveals the essential role of motor function in creative output. Likely suffering from frontotemporal dementia or corticobasal degeneration, Ravel’s condition underscores a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of creativity: the motoric dimension. His case provides a powerful example of what Dr. Markind describes as expressive acreativity, the loss of creative expression not due to a deficit of ideas, but to the breakdown of the brain’s motor integration systems.

Dr. Sam Markind blends expert clinical commentary with live piano performances of selected compositions by both Satie and Ravel with. This program offers a unique and moving educational experience. Participants will leave with a deeper appreciation for the neurological underpinnings of creativity and how these insights can be applied in both diagnostic and therapeutic settings.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss the concept of sensory hypersensitivity and how it may enhance creativity in neurodivergent individuals.

2. Describe the cultural zeitgeist in which Satie and Ravel lived.

3. Explain how Ravel’s neurological decline illustrates the motoric dimension of creativity and how loss of motor function can impair creative expression.

4. List two musical works composed by Erik Satie and two by Maurice Ravel.

The concerns over environmental toxins and exposures are not new. Historically, substances like lead in paint and mercury in hat-making were commonly used and resulted in significant health impacts. Heavy metal poisoning from mercury, lead, and arsenic has long been linked to cognitive impairments, mood disorders, and mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and psychosis. In the past, many artists, especially during the Renaissance and Romantic periods, were exposed to these toxins, which may have affected their physical health and creativity. These exposures likely contributed to neurological symptoms that influenced both their behavior and artistic expression. Today, environmental medicine is vital for understanding the long-term effects of such toxins, food additives and chemicals on mental and physical health, highlighting the need to assess and mitigate exposures within daily lifestyles to better protect future generations.

 Imbalances in metabolic and mental health are becoming increasingly recognized as a fundamental challenge contributing to many chronic health issues in the U.S. These challenges often stem from dietary and lifestyle factors. This presentation aims to equip attendees with practical, actionable strategies for improving metabolic and mental health. By incorporating these concepts into their client support and treatment plans, attendees can identify ways to have a meaningful impact on overall health and well-being.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Identify two famous artists whose ‘toxic’ art supplies impacted their physical and mental health.

2. Discuss potential reasons for increases in rates of depression and anxiety.

3. Identify signs of metabolic imbalance.

This program introduces participants to Jungian concepts of the imaginal realm and the transformative potential of embodied active imagination. Drawing on Carl Jung’s personal and professional methods (as seen in The Black Books and The Red Book), this presentation explores how the unconscious, both personal and collective, serves as a wellspring of creativity and healing. Jung referred to the imaginal realm as a vital, living space where the psyche expresses itself through images, archetypes, and symbols.

Participants will also gain insight into Jung’s technique of embodied active imagination, a process of engaging with unconscious material through the body and imagination. This presentation draws from Sufi teachings on the mundus imaginalis, Jung’s analytical psychology, and contemporary neuroscience, particularly Iain McGilchrist’s findings on the right and left hemispheres of the brain. These interdisciplinary lenses shed light on how healing can occur when we honor the intuitive, embodied, and relational capacities of the right hemisphere, capacities too often overlooked in conventional therapies.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Compare the difference between the personal and the collective unconscious.

2. Explain the importance of working creatively with the unconscious in therapy.

3. Describe Jung’s method of embodied active imagination.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including early loss and attachment disruption, are well-documented contributors to long-term emotional and psychological functioning. However, many healthcare professionals lack opportunities to explore how early developmental trauma may manifest across the lifespan in relational patterns, professional identity, and creative expression. Without this developmental and psychodynamic lens, clinicians may overlook the ways unresolved childhood loss influences adult behavior, attachment choices, and emotional regulation, both in historical figures and in contemporary clinical populations. This presentation addresses the need for deeper clinical understanding of how early emotional trauma can shape adult relationships and life trajectories, enhancing clinicians’ capacity for empathic assessment and informed therapeutic intervention.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the psychological impact of childhood loss and grief on emotional and relational development, using Giacomo Puccini’s early life experiences as a case example.

2. Explain the relationship between early attachment disruption and later patterns of romantic relationships and marital difficulties.

3. Discuss how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) may contribute to maladaptive choices and interpersonal challenges in adulthood.

4. Evaluate how clinicians’ own personal histories and developmental experiences may influence clinical perception, countertransference, and therapeutic decision-making.

Trauma is a nearly universal human experience, and while many individuals recover over time, others develop persistent psychological and physiological effects. This program explores the intersection of trauma, memory, and the body, focusing on how traumatic experiences are encoded not only in the brain but throughout the body at a cellular level.

Participants will examine current research from neuroscience, epigenetics, and psychobiology to understand how trauma can influence memory storage and retrieval in both the central nervous system and peripheral cellular systems. The program explores how intrusive memories, emotional flashbacks, and somatic symptoms may be linked to cellular mechanisms of memory encoding.

Drawing from interdisciplinary sources, including studies on bacteria, flatworms, butterflies, and plants, this course illuminates the evolutionary roots and biological substrates of memory. These comparisons help participants understand how non-human organisms store information about stress, threat, and survival, offering novel insights into how trauma may persist in human physiology even after the external threat has passed.

Through this program, clinicians will deepen their understanding of trauma’s impact on the body and learn to conceptualize symptomology from a somatic and cellular perspective. Emphasis is placed on integrating this knowledge into trauma-informed care and psychotherapeutic practices.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. List three key processes involved in the formation and retrieval of memory.

2. Describe cellular mechanisms that contribute to memory encoding and storage.

3. Discuss how bacteria, flatworms, butterflies, and plants store memories. 

As technology continues to shape how people connect and communicate globally; clinicians must understand its profound influence—especially on children and adolescents. Social media and digital interaction now play central roles in shaping identity, relationships, and mental health.

This presentation examines how individuals of all ages interact with technology and social media, providing practical guidance for clinicians aiming to promote healthier digital habits in their patients—and themselves. Participants will learn to recognize both the benefits and risks of technology use, assess its impact on emotional and physical well-being, and facilitate honest, productive conversations about digital life in clinical practice.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

• Identify at least three positive and three negative effects of social media engagement.

• Use the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) to assess suicidal ideation and risk.

• Apply the ACE (Acknowledge, Care, Encourage) model in clinical interactions.

• Discuss common ways children and teens bypass parental controls or device restrictions.

In just a single generation, the societal view of aging has undergone a profound transformation. As advancements in healthcare and longevity have extended the average lifespan, and have allowed for meaningful productivity, a growing number of individuals are entering the second half of life with vitality, creativity, and a desire for continued growth and new adventures. This course explores how aging can be reframed not as a period of decline, being marginalized, rather a time of expansive psychological development and renewed purpose.

Drawing on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Gene Cohen, this presentation examines the Awakening the Human Potential model, which expands upon Erik Erikson’s final developmental stage. Cohen's research highlights the interplay between age, brain plasticity, and life experience, and proposes a framework for understanding how creativity, purpose, and emotional resilience can flourish in later adulthood. His work is supported by Mary Catherine Bateson who spent significant time working with Erik Erikson and found meaning to the expansion of Erikson's Stage of Integrity vs. Despair.

This program will also explore the evolving identity and mental health needs of today’s aging population, with an emphasis on supporting older adults through clinical interventions that validate their continued capacity for insight, contribution, and meaning making. Participants will gain practical tools to help clients in midlife and beyond navigate transitions with optimism, curiosity, and psychological flexibility.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Identify how Dr. Gene Cohen expanded upon Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development in older adulthood.

2. Describe the key components of Dr. Cohen’s Awakening the Human Potential model for the second half of life.

3. Identify Mary Catherine Bateson's input supporting Cohen's work

4. Discuss strategies for fostering resilience, creativity, and continued personal development in aging clients.

In this presentation, Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Barbara Mainguy, MA, draw on decades of clinical and cross-cultural experience to introduce a paradigm that emphasizes interconnectedness, narrative identity, and community-based healing, inviting participants to reimagine psychological practice through the lens of Indigenous worldviews.

Instead of locating problems solely within the individual, Indigenous approaches understand suffering as arising from disruptions in relationship, with self, others, land, spirit, and community. In this framework, people are seen as embedded in a living system, not isolated objects of diagnosis. This shift is supported by replacing static nouns with dynamic verbs and seeing identity as emergent and fluid rather than fixed and pathological.

Participants will explore foundational Indigenous concepts such as nagi (soul or vital essence), Nagila (the visible expression of the spirit), and autopoietic emergence, to explore how selfhood arises in context. These ideas align with and deepen modern therapeutic approaches such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), narrative therapy, and dialogical self-theory. The presentation will also examine non-ordinary states of consciousness as valid and often healing experiences, as well as the importance of land, story, and community in mental well-being.

Mental health care in the Western world has increasingly become industrialized, standardized, and distanced from the very human relationships that promote healing. In 1973, Ivan Illich warned that the medicalization of life and the professional monopolization of care would erode the conviviality essential to health. Today, this concern remains urgent. As mental health challenges rise globally, clinicians are seeking more culturally relevant, relational, and spiritually grounded models of care. This program meets that need by offering an alternative foundation for practice, one that is deeply informed by Indigenous philosophy and wisdom traditions. It addresses how political and economic systems shape the structure of mental health care and explores how practitioners can ethically and meaningfully integrate Indigenous knowledge into contemporary practice.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Identify three examples of how replacing nouns with verbs transforms our understanding of people and mental health.

2. Compare and contrast Indigenous versus mainstream ideas regarding the origin of human emotional problems

3. Discuss how political and economic systems shape the practice of mental health and its outcomes.

This program is designed for clinicians who work with individuals navigating anxiety, depression, traumatic stress, and moral injury—often tied to major life stressors or unresolved grief. The session provides practical tools grounded in trauma-informed theory, case studies, and emerging research to help therapists support clients in transforming pain into purpose and cultivating resilience.

By drawing from scientific literature, global narratives (including post-conflict Rwanda and urban America), and a mind-body integrative approach, the presenters illuminate forgiveness as a pathway to emotional well-being and post-traumatic growth.

Megan Feldman Bettencourt has presented nationally at healthcare systems, school districts, and faith-based organizations, including Norton Healthcare, the Tucson Unified School District, and NAMIC. Dr. Feldman has been a recurring speaker for Creativity and Madness and other international programs focused on healing through creative and psychological insight.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss core components of forgiveness.

2. Identify the three core practices common among individuals who have forgiven extreme offenses—grief, boundaries, and spirituality.

3. Describe the differences between forgiveness and reconciliation.

4. List four qualities of those who are resilient: optimism, empathy, emotion regulation, and self-efficacy.

This advanced-level program is designed for licensed psychologists and other mental health professionals seeking to deepen their clinical skills in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a well-researched and empirically supported approach to treating relational distress. Rooted in attachment theory and affective science, EFT offers a structured framework for helping couples recognize and shift the negative interaction cycles that erode emotional connection.

The program includes a compelling and clinically rich live demonstration of a couple’s therapy session, conducted by three experienced EFT therapists who collaborate to portray the therapeutic process in real time. Through this live enactment, participants will observe a couple in crisis as they begin their journey in therapy. The session will illustrate how the therapist creates a safe therapeutic alliance, identifies the couple’s negative interactional pattern, and helps each partner access and express their underlying primary emotions.

This portrayal offers a powerful prelude to the live therapy session, giving context to the couple’s emotional disconnection and highlighting the attachment injuries that fuel their conflict.

As the live therapy session unfolds on stage, participants will witness how EFT techniques are used in the moment to:

• De-escalate high emotional reactivity and defensiveness

• Access and validate vulnerable emotional states

• Restructure interactions to promote responsiveness and secure bonding

• Move couples from conflict to connection by fostering empathy and emotional engagement

Through this integrated format, combining didactic presentation, film clips and live clinical demonstration, participants will gain a more profound understanding of EFT in action. The program provides clear teaching on the stages and steps of EFT, the use of emotionally focused interventions, and the therapeutic stance required to work effectively with couples.

This program is grounded in established research in adult attachment, couples therapy, and emotion-focused clinical practice. It offers clinicians a unique opportunity to enhance their clinical competence through direct observation of expert-led, experiential therapy.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Describe Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)

2. Identify how attachment-based couple’s therapy can generate deeper connections.

3. Apply EFT concepts to clinical work

This presentation explores the rich intersection of art, poetry, and psychology through the visionary works of William Blake (1757–1827). Although Blake is often recognized for his mystical and symbolic illuminated books, his work also offers profound insights into human psychology, many of which prefigure modern theories of the unconscious mind.

Participants will be introduced to Blake’s poetic and artistic vocabulary, and how these works illuminate states of consciousness, the nature of perception, and the integration of shadow and light within the psyche. Blake’s portrayal of visionary experience, often misunderstood or labeled as madness, will be explored in relation to both historical context and contemporary psychological theory, including parallels to the later work of Carl Jung.

This program provides an accessible yet intellectually rich opportunity for psychologists and other mental health professionals to explore how visionary art and poetry can inform our understanding of consciousness, creativity, and psychological transformation.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the behaviors that led some to regard William Blake as mentally unstable and accuse him of madness.

2. Discuss William Blake's theory of Psychology how it parallels later developments in depth psychology.

3. Recite and interpret selected lines from Blake’s major poetic works that reflect psychological and existential themes.

Creativity, once attributed solely to genius or divine inspiration, is now understood as a skill that can be nurtured, taught, and applied across disciplines. In today’s rapidly evolving mental health landscape, creative thinking is essential for clinicians who must navigate complex, ambiguous, and often imperfect systems. This one-hour continuing education presentation explores the psychological and neurobiological foundations of creativity and innovation, emphasizing their relevance in clinical and institutional settings.

Central to this program are five key forces that influence creative breakthroughs: chance, curiosity, collaboration, crisis, and convergence. These forces are illustrated through the compelling story of Drs. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall, whose curiosity and unconventional methods led to the groundbreaking discovery of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of peptic ulcer disease. Dr. John draws on insights from neuroscience—specifically the default mode network, top-down control mechanisms, and insight-related processes—as well as the field of convergence sciences, which bridges multiple disciplines to address multifaceted societal challenges.

Attendees will be encouraged to reflect on their own creative processes and professional experiences through this five-forces framework, gaining tools to foster innovation in clinical practice, education, and organizational leadership.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the serendipitous discoveries that have significantly influenced the field of psychiatry.

2. Discuss individual and institutional factors that promote creative breakthroughs during crises.

3. List five critical forces, chance, curiosity, collaboration, crisis, and convergence, that shape creative outcomes in mental health and medical settings.

Drawing from her book The Eternal Bond and her qualitative research, Dr. Janet Roseman shares narratives from bereaved daughters who describe para-normal or extra-sensory experiences, dreams, visions, symbolic signs, that brought them deep comfort and a sense of continued connection. These experiences are often dismissed or pathologized in clinical settings, leaving grievers feeling isolated or “crazy” for sharing them. Dr. Roseman offers an alternative, validating framework that recognizes these occurrences as meaningful components of the grief journey.

Grief is an intrinsic part of the human experience, yet the grief experienced by adult daughters after the death of their mothers is uniquely profound, particularly among women who served as caregivers during their mothers’ lives. In this deeply compassionate and research-informed presentation, Dr. Roseman explores a less acknowledged yet vital dimension of grief: the metaphysical and intuitive experiences that often accompany the loss of a mother.

The presentation challenges the limitations of traditional grief models, including the widely known Kubler-Ross stages, and introduces a new paradigm for understanding the long arc of mother-loss and its enduring emotional and spiritual bonds. Through clinical insights, narrative accounts, and practical tools, Dr. Roseman offers clinicians a broader lens to support the bereaved navigating this profound transition.

This program addresses a significant gap in traditional grief counseling models, particularly in recognizing the lived experiences of bereaved daughters and their reports of metaphysical or para-normal experiences during grief. It also responds to the clinical need for alternative frameworks beyond stage-based models of grief, helping mental health professionals avoid inadvertently invalidating clients’ inner experiences.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the lived experiences of adult daughters grieving the loss of their mothers, including spiritual and metaphysical dimensions.

2. Discuss why the traditional Kubler-Ross model of grief may be outdated and potentially harmful in certain therapeutic contexts.

3. Identify the stigma surrounding para-normal experiences in grief and explain how clinicians can validate these occurrences to support psychological well-being

Despite unprecedented access to information, modern society faces an increasing disconnection from the natural world and its restorative potential. Research in environmental and positive psychology reveals the costs of this detachment, including diminished attention, emotional fatigue, and a decline in both physical and psychological well-being. Humanity’s pathological dissociation from nature parallels mounting threats to many of the planet’s most vital life-sustaining ecosystems. Within the profound landscape of the Grand Canyon, this presentation explores how immersive nature experiences can evoke flow states, peak experiences, and transpersonal meaning. Participants will examine evidence-based frameworks linking exposure to nature with cognitive and emotional restoration and consider practical methods for integrating nature-based elements into clinical practice to enhance therapeutic outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Describe Mikai Chiczhentzmihai's psychological concept of flow states. 

2. Discuss how nature-based experiences can foster personal growth, self-awareness, social connectedness, and ecological respect.

3. Identify at least three practical strategies for incorporating nature-informed interventions into clinical practice.

Major depressive disorder affects more than 350 million people worldwide, and a significant portion of those individuals experience limited relief from pharmacological treatments alone. Mental health professionals regularly encounter clients with treatment-resistant depression and are tasked with exploring integrative strategies for support and healing.

This presentation uses the life and creative legacy of Leonard Cohen, renowned poet, songwriter, and spiritual seeker, as a lens through which to examine the complexities of living with chronic depression. Despite lifelong struggles with mood disturbances, Cohen remained an active creator and found periods of relief through deep introspection, spiritual discipline, and contemplative practice.

Drawing on current research in neuroscience, psychology, and contemplative traditions, this program explores how mindfulness, metacognition, and spiritual engagement may influence depressive symptoms. Particular attention is given to the neurobiological underpinnings of rumination and the activation of the default mode network, which has been closely linked with self-referential thinking and depressive cycles.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how creative expression and contemplative awareness can serve as powerful adjuncts in the treatment of depression, particularly in clients for whom traditional interventions have been insufficient. Clinical implications for integrating mindfulness and metacognitive strategies into psychotherapy will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss the concept of metacognition. 

2. Describe the process of rumination. 

3. List three activities that can activate the Default Mode Network

4. Apply mindfulness and contemplative strategies into clinical work with depressed clients.

This interactive workshop explores the complex landscape of moral and ethical decision-making at the end of life, one of the most sensitive and universally relevant issues facing individuals, families, and healthcare professionals today. There are more and more states and countries which legally allow Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), and there are professionals who both agree and strongly disagree with those options. While many assume that morals and choices stemming from those morals are fixed and universal, and that ethics are externally defined codes of conduct, this course invites participants to critically examine how both morals and ethics are shaped, internalized, and challenged over time.

Participants will explore key questions such as: What are the origins of our moral beliefs? How do personal values align, or conflict, with institutional ethics? What happens when ethical codes fail to offer guidance in real-world dilemmas? Through reflective discussion, case examples, and group exercises, attendees will analyze how concepts of self-determination and autonomy, culture, worldview, professional identity, and lived experience influence one’s moral compass, as well as the ethics within which we may work or practice; especially in high-stakes situations involving end-of-life care, patient autonomy, and family decision-making.

Grounded in both legal, secular and religious as well as clinical perspectives, this workshop supports mental health professionals in building greater self-awareness, cultural sensitivity, and ethical clarity when navigating the emotionally charged territory of life’s final choices and decisions.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. List three core concepts commonly associated with development of moral and ethical frameworks, and how they impact end of life care and decisions.

2. Discuss the pros and cons in general terms of MAID vs Euthanasia, VS Hospice care

3. Explain how morals and ethical principles develop and evolve over time in response to personal, cultural, and societal influences.

4. Discuss the impact of culture, worldview, personal experience, and professional role on moral decision-making and ethical interpretation in clinical and family contexts.

5. Discuss the general framework of MAID laws, requirements and hurdles for patients and families