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✓ 64 Hours CE/CME

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✓ Creativity and Madness Book Included

THE ALCHEMY WITHIN

Module 1: The Artist Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

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

Module 2: The Healer Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

For millennia, Indigenous cultures have used psychedelic medicines to access expanded states of consciousness, foster healing, and deepen spiritual connection. Today, modern neuroscience is uncovering parallel discoveries—revealing how these substances may enhance neuroplasticity, creativity, and emotional integration.
This presentation bridges traditional and contemporary perspectives, exploring how psychedelics engage the brain’s “silent synapses” and may facilitate psychological healing and creative insight. Clinicians will gain an understanding of the cultural, neurobiological, and therapeutic dimensions of psychedelic use while examining the ethical considerations and potential risks inherent in both ceremonial and clinical settings.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Discuss potential therapeutic benefits and potential risks of psychedelic use in both clinical and recreational contexts.
- Explain three mechanisms by which psychedelics may support improvement in psychiatric disorders.
- Describe how psychedelics may enhance creativity and facilitate integrative insight.
- Define the term psychoplastogens and its relevance to neuroplasticity.
- Identify three Indigenous cultures that utilize psychedelic medicines for healing purposes.
Psychoanalysis and theater share a common purpose: illuminating the depths of human nature. From Sophocles to Shakespeare, playwrights have long explored the same psychological truths that Freud later formalized. In this presentation, Dr. Ron Goldman weaves these traditions together through the moving story of a child who learns—slowly and painfully—the cost of avoiding deep emotional truth.
Through storytelling and psychoanalytic reflection, participants will explore how repression, loss, and revelation shape the human experience. This session invites clinicians to consider the parallels between stage and therapy—where both audience and patient are witnesses to the unfolding of inner life—and how creative expression can foster healing and insight.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this program, participants will be able to:
- Discuss the universal psychological conflict between emotional avoidance and the intrinsic drive toward awareness, expression, and healing.
- Identify how storytelling and metaphor can be used to deepen therapeutic understanding of unconscious processes.
- Discuss how creative expression and performance can facilitate emotional integration, insight, and healing.
- Describe the value of empathy and emotional resonance in clinical work.
Narcissism is a complex and pervasive personality pattern that affects individuals, families, and communities across cultures. This presentation examines narcissism through both psychoanalytic and affect-regulation frameworks, illuminating what lies beneath its familiar traits. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of its developmental origins, diagnostic distinctions, and evidence-based strategies for effective treatment. Through this lens, clinicians will explore the humanity beneath the defenses and learn approaches that foster genuine therapeutic change.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Discuss early developmental and relational factors contributing to narcissism.
- Differentiate diagnostic criteria among subtypes of narcissistic presentations.
- Identify the key elements required for successful and sustainable treatment.
Metabolic dysfunction is recognized as a key driver of chronic disease in the U.S., including its significant impact on mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. As awareness grows around the roles of obesity, insulin resistance, and inflammation in conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and depression, both patients and practitioners are seeking better tools to prevent and manage these issues.
This hands-on workshop bridges the gap between metabolic science and clinical application. Participants will gain practical, evidence-informed tools to assess and support metabolic balance and its role in mental health. Topics include key indicators often available in patient-presented lab results, stages of change, and recommendations for realistic lifestyle changes, and nutritional interventions.
In today’s digital health space, where influencers, biohacking trends, and supplement stacks shape public perception, clinicians and wellness professionals must navigate increasingly complex conversations with better-informed, but often misinformed, patients. This workshop provides the clarity and confidence you need to engage in those discussions as an informed participant.
Whether you work in mental health, social work, or integrative care, this training will empower you to become a more effective advocate for whole-person health.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the Stages of Change Model
2. Identify common signs and symptoms of metabolic imbalance.
3. List three impactful lifestyle and dietary changes to improve healthcare outcomes.
4. Discuss three risk factors associated with poor metabolic health, such as obesity, insulin resistance, and inflammation.
5. Apply lifestyle and nutrition strategies to support metabolic and mental health.
This engaging, interdisciplinary workshop examines the emerging concept of cellular memory—the idea that information about lived experience, especially trauma, may be encoded, stored, and retrieved not only in the brain but throughout the body at a cellular level. Drawing from neuroscience, epigenetics, psychobiology, and immunology, this program explores how traumatic experiences may leave lasting imprints in both central and peripheral systems, shaping psychological and physiological functioning.
Participants will investigate mechanisms such as epigenetic modification, immune cell memory, and neural plasticity to understand how trauma can become biologically embedded. Special attention is given to organ transplantation and the compelling reports from transplant recipients who describe unexpected memories, personality shifts, or behavioral changes following surgery, raising important questions about the ways memory and identity may be encoded in cells beyond the brain.
The course also explores compelling parallels in the natural world—how organisms such as bacteria, flatworms, butterflies, and plants encode and transmit information essential for survival. These examples highlight the biological foundations of cellular memory and deepen our understanding of how trauma may be recorded in human physiology even long after the initial threat has passed.
Designed for mental health professionals, this workshop integrates cutting-edge science with clinical application. Emphasis is placed on how understanding cellular memory can inform trauma-informed care, enhance somatic and mind-body interventions, and deepen our grasp of complex symptomology.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Explain the concept of cellular memory and its mechanisms, including encoding, storing, and retrieving information
2. Discuss the implications of cellular memory in trauma healing, transplantation medicine.
3. Discuss the reported experiences of organ transplant recipients and their relevance to theories of cellular memory.
4. Describe how organisms such as bacteria, flatworms, butterflies, and plants store and transmit memory-related information.
5. Analyze key research findings including epigenetic modifications, immune cell memory, and neural plasticity.
This three-hour workshop explores how clinicians can support older adults in navigating this expanded landscape of opportunity, identity, and psychological development. With longer lifespans, improved health, and greater financial freedom, many individuals in their 50s, 60s, and beyond are redefining what it means to live a purposeful life. The presentation builds on the work of developmental theorists like Erik Erikson, Gene Cohen, and Mary Catherine Bateson to explore how aging can be reframed as a time of creativity, resilience, and contribution.
Participants will examine the psychological and emotional shifts that come with the transition out of traditional work roles, including the potential for boredom, loss of identity, a feeling of being marginalized, and the drive to remain engaged and productive. Through case examples, interactive discussion, and research-based frameworks, clinicians will learn how to help clients consciously craft the next chapter of their lives—whether through revisiting old passions, exploring new vocations, or deepening their legacy.
This program also offers clinicians tools to reflect on their own experiences of aging and resilience, equipping them to support both clients and them-selves in embracing the second half of life with curiosity, clarity, and intention.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the differences between traditional concepts of retirement and contemporary views of post-career life.
2. Discuss the work of Mary Catherine Bateson, corroborating the work of Gene Cohen
3. Identify at least one concrete clinical strategy for supporting the emotional, cognitive, or other identity needs of aging clients.
4. Apply workshop content to help clients (and clinicians themselves) cultivate meaning, purpose, and psychological flexibility in later life.
In this interdisciplinary workshop, Michael Uebel introduces equanimity as a perceptual and relational stance that supports deeper therapeutic presence, psychological flexibility, and a more fluid engagement with lived experience. Drawing from Eastern contemplative traditions—including Zen Buddhism—as well as Western philosophy (e.g., Goethe, Merleau-Ponty, Alva Noë), this course challenges the dominance of rationalism and abstraction in psychotherapy and proposes an alternative: equanimity as a mode of knowing that is embodied, responsive, and relational.
Too often, clinicians and clients alike become constrained by fixed identity narratives, cognitive rigidity, or mindfulness practices that inadvertently reinforce self-focus. Uebel explores how equanimity, unlike detachment or neutrality, involves a full presence to the shifting world—without clinging or resistance. It enables the therapist to hold space for unfolding experience rather than rushing to interpret, categorize, or resolve. This stance is particularly relevant in working with trauma, anxiety, depression, and identity-based distress, where inflexibility and ego-preoccupation are central.
This program addresses key clinical practice gaps: the need for greater flexibility in how patients and clinicians perceive themselves and their challenges, and the limitations of treatment models that rely heavily on static interpretations or conceptual frameworks. Equanimity invites clinicians into a more embodied, holistic, and moment-to-moment therapeutic process.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Apply principles of equanimous awareness to clinical situations, particularly those involving trauma, identity conflict, or psychological rigidity.
2. Discuss the implications of equanimity for patient and personal mental health and how to implement it in everyday life.
3. Identify how conventional mindfulness practices may inadvertently reinforce self-focus and explore how equanimity offers an alternative therapeutic pathway.
4. Integrate Eastern philosophical and contemplative approaches with Western psychotherapeutic models to enhance clinical insight and effectiveness.
Are morals innate, or do culture and experience shape them? Are ethics fixed standards—or evolving agreements? In this interactive workshop, participants will explore the origins, evolution, and application of morality and ethics in both personal and professional life.
Drawing from nursing, law, and clinical practice, Joyce Stamp Lilly guides a reflective discussion on how moral values and ethical codes intersect—and sometimes conflict—across cultures, institutions, and time. Participants will engage in critical thinking and dialogue about how personal beliefs, worldviews, and professional expectations shape ethical decision-making in healthcare and beyond.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Identify three universal concepts that apply to morals and ethics.
- Explain how moral and ethical frameworks develop and evolve over time.
- Discuss how culture, worldview, and experience influence one’s moral compass.
- Analyze how morality and ethics shape and are shaped by history, politics, government, education, and healthcare.

*Creativity and Madness® reserves the right to substitute presenters or modify program content as needed.

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Samuel H. Markind, MD

Dr. Sam Markind, a neurologist with over 30 years of experience, explores how the brain shapes creativity through the stories of composers Erik Satie and Maurice Ravel. Combining medical insight with live piano performance, his presentation reveals how neurological conditions can both inspire and hinder artistic expression, offering a fascinating look at the creative brain.

» Learn more about Dr. Sam Markind «
Stephenie Riley, ND

Dr. Stephenie Riley, founder and Medical Director of High Sierra Naturopathic Medicine in Truckee, California, has over 19 years of experience as a Naturopathic Doctor. A former biomedical engineer, she blends scientific knowledge with holistic healing to promote optimal wellness. Passionate about Environmental Medicine, Dr. Riley empowers others to cultivate health through mindful living, nourishing food, and balanced habits.

» Learn more about Dr. Stephenie Riley «
Amy Vail, PsyD

Dr. Amy Vail is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in California and Nevada, and an authorized PSYPACT provider, offering telepsychology services across 43 states. Her wellness-based approach supports growth by addressing limiting beliefs and behaviors while honoring each person’s innate health. She collaborates with physicians, educators, and families to promote emotional well-being and serves as an allied provider at Tahoe Forest Hospital and supervising psychologist at Lake Tahoe Prep.
» Learn more about Dr. Amy Vail «
Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP)

Erica Lorentz, M.Ed., LPC, is a Jungian analyst and educator with decades of experience. A training analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of New England, she focuses on the embodied mythopoetic process and somatic approaches to analysis. Her forthcoming book, Body as Shadow: Jung’s Embodied Individuation Process, explores the vital connection between body and psyche in personal transformation.
» Learn more about Erica Lorentz «
Barry Panter, MD, PhD

Dr. Barry Panter is a Fellow of The American Psychiatric Association. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Southern California School of Medicine. (Emeritus) He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at The Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute (Emeritus). He is the first author and co-editor of Creativity and Madness - Psychological Studies of Art and Artists. He is the Founder and Director of The American Institute of Medical Education. He is a Fellow of The American Psychiatric Association, a past member of The American Psychoanalytic Association, and The International Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Panter is certified by The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, The American Board of Pediatrics, and The American Psychoanalytic Association.
» Purchase Dr. Barry Panter’s Books «
Mitchell Liester, MD

Dr. Mitchell Liester is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and maintains a private practice in Monument, Colorado. A psychiatrist with 39 years of experience, he has presented research internationally and published extensively on topics such as inner voices, near-death experiences, psychedelic therapy, nutrition and mental health, epigenetics, consciousness, personality changes after organ transplants, and low-dose sublingual ketamine therapy.
» Learn more about Dr. Mitchell Liester «
Ana Flores

Ana Flores is a UC Berkeley graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and public health. She works as a research associate focusing on mental health, developmental psychology, and treatment innovation. Passionate about advancing mental health research for adolescents and young adults, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
» Learn more about Ana Flores «
Deborah Levinson, LCSW

Deborah Levinson is a Johns Hopkins–trained psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker with over 40 years of private practice experience. She developed a model for rebuilding life after loss and is the author of three books. Her recent work focuses on the aging mind and the ways older adults remain productive and creative. Levinson frequently presents to both professional and general audiences, bringing extensive expertise in psychotherapy and life transitions.
» Learn more about Deborah Levinson «
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD

Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona is a physician and author who serves on the faculties of the University of New England, Eastern Maine Medical Center, and Acadia Hospital in Bangor, Maine. He is the Executive Director of the Coyote Institute in Orono, Maine, which promotes integrating indigenous wisdom into modern healthcare. A descendant of Lakota and Cherokee ancestors, Dr. Mehl-Madrona is the author of several books, including Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, Coyote Wisdom, and Narrative Medicine. His work focuses on using narrative as a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous healing traditions.
» Learn more about Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona «
Barbara Mainguy, MA

Barbara Mainguy is a psychotherapist trained in creative arts psychotherapy at Concordia University in Montreal and is completing an M.F.A. in documentary filmmaking at York University in Toronto. Based in Orono, Maine, she integrates indigenous practices into her psychotherapy work and is actively involved with the International Hearing Voices Movement and Working to Recovery, Inc. Her research and publications focus on indigenous approaches to psychosis and culturally informed mental health care. She is the co-author of Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story and Healing the Mind Through the Power of Story.
» Learn more about Barbara Mainguy «
Megan Feldman Bettencourt, MA

Megan Feldman Bettencourt is an award-winning journalist and author of Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World (Penguin). Her work explores the science and psychology of forgiveness and emotional resilience. She has presented nationally for healthcare systems, school districts, and faith-based organizations, including Norton Healthcare, the Tucson Unified School District, and NAMIC.
» Learn more about Megan Feldman Bettencourt «
Gail Carr Feldman, PhD

Dr. Gail Carr Feldman, Ph.D., MSW is a Clinical Psychologist and Ontological Life Coach with over 40 years of experience treating trauma in both clinical and academic settings. A former Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico Medical School, she has presented internationally on creativity, resilience, and healing. Dr. Feldman is the author of several books, including Lessons in Evil, Lessons From the Light, From Crisis to Creativity, and Midlife Crash Course.
» Learn more about Dr. Gail Carr Feldman «
Ron Goldman, EdD

Ron Goldman is a psychotherapist in private practice in Brookline, specializing in helping couples resolve communication challenges and reconnect with the love that first brought them together. He is also a playwright and performer, having written and performed two one-person plays at venues across the country.
» Learn more about Ron Goldman «
Jill Fischer, LICSW

Jill Fischer is a seasoned couple’s therapist and supervisor, as well being the trainer for the New England region in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). She is also certified in the Gottman Method of couples therapy.
» Learn more about Jill Fischer «
Amy Goldfarb, LCSW

Amy Goldfarb is an executive coach with over 25 years of experience helping leaders enhance their management effectiveness, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal impact. A former licensed therapist and improvisational actor, she combines psychological insight with creative communication techniques to help leaders build authentic relationships and expand their influence.
» Learn more about Amy Goldfarb «
Ralph Margolies-Kiernan, PhD

Dr. Ralph Kiernan is a clinical neuropsychologist with over 50 years of experience and a pioneer in the development of cognitive assessment tools, including Cognistat. He combines his extensive background in neuropsychology with a decades-long study of William Blake’s work, offering a unique perspective on the psychological dimensions of art and literature.
» Learn more about Dr. Ralph Kiernan «
Vineeth John, MD

Dr. Vineeth John is an accomplished psychiatrist and educator known for his expertise in creativity, innovation, and clinical leadership. His work bridges psychiatry, neuroscience, and education, emphasizing creative problem-solving and interdisciplinary approaches to mental health and medical practice.
» Learn more about Dr. Vineeth John «
Janet Lynn Roseman-Halsband, PhD

Dr. Janet Roseman is a clinician, researcher, and author of The Eternal Bond. Her work focuses on grief, spirituality, and women’s experiences of loss, particularly the unique and enduring bond between mothers and daughters. Through her research and writing, she integrates narrative, intuitive, and metaphysical dimensions of healing into clinical practice.
» Learn more about Dr. Janet Roseman «
Adrienne Panter, PsyD

Dr. Adrienne Panter, PsyD, LPC, is a licensed clinical psychologist and professional counselor with private practices in Durango and Pagosa Springs, Colorado. She integrates clinical psychology, experiential learning, and nature-based practices to foster growth, resilience, and creative expression. An alumna of NOLS and Outward Bound, she holds undergraduate degrees in Outdoor Recreation Leadership and Music Education and earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of the Rockies. With over 25 years of experience as an outdoor guide, Dr. Panter emphasizes the therapeutic and restorative power of nature in her work.
» Learn more about Dr. Adrienne Panter «
Jordan Price, LCSW

Jordan Price is a psychotherapist in private practice in Austin, Texas. He specializes in group work, individual therapy, and clinical training, and serves as a faculty member at the Center for Group Studies in New York City. In addition to his clinical and teaching work, he enjoys writing, presenting, and integrating his professional insights with his love of the outdoors and music.
» Learn more about Jordan Price «
Michael Uebel, PhD, LCSW

Michael Uebel has taught at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he is currently affiliated with the Office of the Associate Dean for Research. A former Fellow at the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, he has published extensively on cultural theory and mental health. His forthcoming book, The Seeds of Equanimity: Knowing and Being (Mimesis, 2025), expands on his work, integrating philosophy, psychoanalysis, and contemplative practice.
» Learn more about Michael Uebel «
Joyce Lilly, RN, JD

Joyce Lilly, RN, JD, is a Registered Nurse with experience in both hospital and community settings, including four years as a psychiatric nurse. She earned her law degree from Boston University School of Law and currently works as a plaintiff attorney representing individuals injured due to negligence. In addition, she represents nurses before the Texas Board of Nursing in Austin.
» Learn more about Joyce Lilly «

This educational activity is designed to enhance professional knowledge and clinical understanding.

Participation does not imply endorsement of specific therapeutic modalities or approaches.

Important Accreditation Notes

Each licensing board decides which hours it accepts. Please confirm that these hours meet your board’s requirements.

ACCME | APA | ASWB | AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
CE/CME credit is awarded only for sessions attended live or viewed in full via the enduring format, in accordance with accreditation requirements.
Credit is issued upon completion of required evaluations.
Partial credit is awarded where applicable.

Enduring content refers to recorded, on-demand CE/CME sessions. It’s the same accredited programming presented at our live Creativity and Madness conferences—now available for flexible, self-paced learning. The provider must ensure commercial independence, appropriate disclosures, and prohibition of advertising within the educational content.

Note: Accreditation requirements vary. Please confirm with your licensing board that enduring (home-study) CE/CME hours are accepted for your credential.

What is Enduring Content?

ACCREDITATION

Accreditation/Approvals:

The American Institute of Medical Education is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing education for physicians. AIMED designates this educational activity for a maximum of 36 AMA PRA Category I credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

In accordance with the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, all planners and faculty are required to disclose any relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies. The planners and faculty of The American Institute of Medical Education (AIMED) and the Creativity and Madness® 2026 Live Virtual Conference have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose.

Joint Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Amedco LLC and Creativity and Madness (CAM). Amedco LLC is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Amedco Joint Accreditation #4008163.

Professions in scope for this activity are listed below.

Nurses
Amedco LLC designates this enduring material for a maximum of 36.00 ANCC contact hours.

Psychologists

This course is co-sponsored by Amedco and Creativity and Madness (CAM). Amedco is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Amedco maintains responsibility for this program and its content. 36.00 hours.

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Psychologists/Counselors: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, IO, KS, MA (LEP ONLY), ME, MO, NC, ND, NH, NE, NJ, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

The following state boards accept courses approved by any other state for Psychologists/Counselors: CO, MD
MI: No CE requirements.
*OK: Accepts APA credit for live, in-person activities but not for ethics and/or online courses.
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NE, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WDC, WI, WY
AL MFTs: Credits authorized by NBCC or any other state licensing agency will be accepted.

MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Addictions Professionals: AK, AR, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MD, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NY (held outside NY ONLY), OK*, OR, SC, UT, WA, WI, WY
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Social Workers: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, ME, MN, MO, NE, NH, NM, OR, PA, VT, WI, WY

New York Board for Psychology (NY PSY)

Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0031. 36.00 hours.

As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Amedco is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Amedco maintains responsibility for this course. ASWB Learner Level: Intermediate. Social Workers completing this course receive 36.00 GENERAL continuing education credits.

Social Workers

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Social Workers: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, OH, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WV*, WY

OK: Accepts ASWB ACE for live, in-person activities but not for ethics and/or online courses.
WV: Accepts ASWB ACE unless activity is held live in West Virginia.
The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Counselors: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MO, ND, NE, NM, NH, NV, OK*, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

MI: No CE requirement for licensed counselors.

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

AL MFTs: Credits authorized by NBCC or any other state licensing agency will be accepted.
MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

MI: No CE requirement for licensed MFTs.

The following state boards accept ASWB ACE credit for Addictions Professionals: AK, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MO, MT, ND, NM, NV, OK, OR, SC, WA, WI, WV, WY

Module 3: The Seeker Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Description
In 1913, Carl Jung undertook a profound inner journey into the unconscious, an experience that became foundational to his life’s work and the development of analytical psychology and active imagination. Central to this legacy is the understanding that the soul, body, and psyche are inseparable. Yet the embodied soul has been relegated to the cultural shadow.
Drawing on contemporary the neuroscience of Iain McGilchrist, participants will examine how the embodied soul including emotion, imagination, the somatic unconscious, and subtle body have been culturally and clinically devalued, and the implications of this split for psychological health.

Through Jungian theory and clinical vignettes, this session introduces active imagination as a method for engaging the embodied soul and facilitating psychological integration. Participants will be shown how this approach can be applied to therapeutic work and support healing.

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

1. List at least two factors contributing to the marginalization of the body in Western culture and their clinical implications.
2. Discuss Carl Jung’s concept of embodied active imagination.
3. Identify the healing power of the method of embodied active imagination in clinical practice
Description
Imagination and creativity are not talents reserved for the gifted few. They are powerful, learnable skills available to every one of us. Whether you are a clinician, educator, or simply someone curious about the human mind, this session will transform the way you think about two of our most essential and extraordinary human abilities.
Drawing from neuroscience, positive psychology, and philosophy, Dr. Sheila Pontis takes us on a fascinating journey through the science of imagination and creativity. Discover what Salvador Dalí and Michael Faraday had in common, how the brain generates creative thought, and why these abilities are essential to our mental and physical well-being. Not just in the studio or laboratory, but in the therapy room, the hospital, and everyday life.

This session offers practical, evidence-based strategies for bringing creative thinking into both clinical care and everyday life. From the therapy room to your own personal journey, cultivating imagination and creativity has the power to transform patient outcomes and deepen human connection. It can also reignite your professional purpose and awaken a creative potential you never knew you had.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the distinction between imagination and creativity
2. Explain the role of imagination in supporting creative thinking.
3. Identify the evidence-based health benefits of deliberate imaginative and creative practice
Description
For thousands of years, contemplative practitioners have discovered that sitting in stillness and presence does something unexpected: it generates creative expression of unusual depth and beauty in the form of poetry.
From the dohas of medieval North India to the enlightenment songs of Tibetan masters, from the verse of Chinese monk-poets to the death poems of Zen teachers, this connection runs through the heart of every major contemplative tradition. The poem emerges from within the meditation rather than being added to it.
What all of these traditions share is a realization that the practice of meditation opens up a quality of perception, a kind of attention, and a relationship to language distinct from ordinary consciousness.
Drawing on a lifetime of Buddhist contemplative study, the neuroscience of stillness, and direct experience of the practice, Polly Ryan and Robert Thomas will explore sitting as a fundamental human creative act, one with deep centuries-old roots, urgent contemporary relevance, and the capacity to generate meaning, connection, and beauty in an increasingly fragmented world.
This presentation introduces a contemporary practice of sitting together and collective poetry, a living experiment in how pausing intimately together with others creates the conditions for shared expressive emergence.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:
2. Describe the relationship between meditation practice and poetic expression in contemplative traditions.
3. Describe the psychological and physiological benefits of stillness and mindful presence for both helping professionals and clients.
4. Explain neuroscientific findings that support creativity emerging from contemplative stillness.
5. Apply the practice of sitting together and collective poetry in clinical or group settings.
Description
In the stormy summer of 1816, an eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley had a dream that changed literature forever. From that single visionary moment emerged Frankenstein, one of history's most enduring explorations of imagination, creation, and the boundaries of human invention.

In this richly illustrated lecture, Dr. Vineeth John and Dr. Ezekiel Hinojosa trace the psychological, neuroscientific, and cultural forces that gave birth to Frankenstein. Drawing from Shelley's own journals and the novel itself, he explores how grief, intellectual rivalry, scientific discovery, and cultural upheaval converged to ignite one of the most extraordinary acts of creative imagination ever recorded.
Through contemporary models of creativity including the Wallas four-stage process, the 4P framework, and the Brandt and Eagleman model of Bending, Breaking, and Blending, this session reveals how Shelley's waking dream exemplifies the interplay between emotion and cognition at the heart of every creative breakthrough. Recent neuroscience findings on the Default Mode Network, daydreaming, and the "aha" moment bring her story into startling modern focus.
Frankenstein is reimagined here not only as a literary masterpiece, but as a timeless case study in the psychology of invention. A reminder that genius can emerge from solitude, sorrow, and wonder.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe major psychological and neurocognitive models underlying creativity.
2. Analyze Mary Shelley's creation of Frankenstein through modern frameworks of innovation and insight.
3. Evaluate the dynamic relationship between imagination, crisis, and the creative process.
Description
Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been reported across cultures, throughout history, and by some of the most celebrated minds in science, literature, and the arts. From Carl Jung's vision of Earth from space during a 1944 heart attack, to Sharon Stone's transformative experience following a brain hemorrhage, to Ernest Hemingway's out-of-body encounter on a WWI battlefield, NDEs have inspired, challenged, and forever changed those who lived them.
In this compelling session, Dr. Mitchell Liester invites participants into one of the most fascinating frontiers of modern consciousness research. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and the lived accounts of artists, writers, scientists, and visionaries, this presentation explores what NDEs can teach us about the nature of consciousness and the extraordinary capacity of the human mind to heal, transform, and find meaning.
For clinicians, the implications are profound. NDE survivors consistently report reduced death anxiety, increased compassion, diminished materialism, and a deepened sense of purpose. These transformations offer powerful insights for therapeutic approaches to existential distress, end-of-life care, and treatment-resistant depression.
This is a session that will move you, challenge you, and expand the way you think about life, death, and everything in between.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe the core features of near-death experiences and evaluate current neuroscientific and consciousness-based models proposed to explain them.
2. Identify clinically relevant psychological and behavioral changes commonly reported by NDE survivors: such as reduced death anxiety, increased altruism, diminished materialism, and enhanced sense of purpose
3. Apply evidence-based frameworks for meaning-making, present-moment awareness, and values clarification into patient-centered psychiatric and palliative care.
Description
What if an ancient ritual could open a doorway to healing that modern therapy alone cannot reach?
The ofrenda, a sacred altar tradition rooted in Mexican culture, is far more than a cultural ceremony. It is a profound act of symbolic communication between the living and the dead, and a powerful vehicle for psychological transformation. For those navigating complicated grief, it may offer something deeply needed: a way to reconnect, remember, and heal.
In this evocative and clinically meaningful session, participants are introduced to a Jungian art-based inquiry into the therapeutic power of the ofrenda ritual. Drawing from active imagination, archetypal imagery, and symbolic artmaking, this presentation explores how the ritual process of constructing an ofrenda helped participants integrate loss, restore ancestral connection, and experience genuine emotional renewal.
Research findings reveal how this ancient practice functions as a living mandala, bridging conscious and unconscious processes and creating a sacred space where grief can be witnessed, expressed, and transformed. For clinicians, educators, and anyone touched by loss, this session offers both inspiration and practical tools for integrating ritual and art into therapeutic grief work.
Ancient wisdom and modern psychology meet in this deeply moving exploration of how creativity and culture can heal the human heart.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe the cultural and psychological significance of the ofrenda ritual and its role in addressing complicated grief.
2. Identify therapeutic benefits of symbolic and archetypal artmaking
3. Apply strategies for integrating ritual and symbolic art-based approaches into clinical grief work and therapeutic practice.
Description
In this clinically relevant session, Dr. Karen Bekker and photographer Matthew Septimus bring together the worlds of art, social justice, and mental health. Through Septimus's documentary portraits of Occupy Wall Street participants, they examine how photography amplifies marginalized voices, challenges systemic assumptions, and bears witness to collective trauma, resilience, and the human capacity for recovery.
This session offers a framework for integrating visual narrative into clinical awareness, supporting cultural sensitivity, trauma-informed perspective-taking, and reflective practice, with particular attention to how systemic inequity and social displacement affect psychological well-being.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss how documentary photography can reveal vulnerability and resilience in both individual and communities.
2. Explain the role of visual storytelling as a catalyst for empathy.
3. Identify ways in which photography and the arts can be used to support mental health education and awareness around social justice and collective trauma
Description
What does it take to repair a relationship after it has been wounded? Love alone is not enough. It takes courage, skill, and the willingness to do something most of us were never taught how to do well: apologize meaningfully and forgive genuinely.
In this rich and clinically grounded presentation, Deborah Levinson explores apology and forgiveness as two sides of the same coin, and as among the most powerful tools available for relational healing. Drawing on the vivid metaphor of a tree, she invites participants to consider how relationships, like living things, require intentional tending. Just as a skilled arborist prunes dead wood to restore vitality and growth, couples and families can learn to identify and release the unhealthy patterns that quietly erode their bonds, making space for deeper connection and renewed love.
Grounded in Gottman's Love Map and a practical toolbox of conflict negotiation skills, this presentation offers clinicians a clear, immediately applicable framework for facilitating meaningful apology and genuine forgiveness. Whether you work with couples, families, or parent-child relationships, you will leave with concrete tools to help your clients repair what matters most
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Apply evidence-informed skills for negotiating conflict in couple and parent-child relationships in clinical practice.
2. Describe the five dimensions of apology and how each dimension supports relational repair
3. Discuss the tree-and-pruning metaphor as a tool to release harmful relational patterns.
Workshop Description
Witnessing the suffering of others can shape our psychological world in profound ways. For clinicians, caregivers, artists, and anyone deeply engaged with the experiences of others, empathic engagement can lead to vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, or burnout.
This 3-hour workshop introduces an evidence-informed framework for understanding these responses and explores the concept of vicarious resilience—the growth, meaning, and renewed perspective that can emerge through witnessing the resilience of others.
Using the narrative of an artist who experienced vicarious trauma through her creative work, alongside broader examples from helping professions, participants will learn to recognize key indicators of both vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience. The session concludes with practical strategies for managing the emotional impact of trauma exposure and intentionally cultivating moments of insight, connection, and resilience in everyday work and life.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this course, participants will be able to:
1. Identify three signs and symptoms of vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience
2. List three evidence-based clinical techniques that foster vicarious Resilience.
3. Discuss how these methods can be implemented to enhance both provider wellbeing and client/patient outcomes.
4. Select vicarious resilience strategies for inclusion in a personalized resilience plan supporting their ongoing professional development.
FORMAT: Workshop with PowerPoint presentation
EVALUATION: Standard Evaluation Form
RESOURCES: The BRAVE Method Toolkit
Workshop Description
This 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, participants 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 healthcare 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 the development of moral and ethical frameworks, and how they impact end-of-life care and decisions.
2. Discuss 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
6. Identify ethical challenges of working with Traumatic Brain Injury patients and their families.
FORMAT: Workshop with PowerPoint presentation
EVALUATION: Standard Evaluation Form
REFERENCES: Click here to access the references

Module 4: The Visionary Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Description
Burn injuries are among the most catastrophic traumas a person can endure, devastating not only physically, but psychologically and socially. Recovery demands far more than wound healing; it requires rebuilding identity, reclaiming relationships, and finding a path forward in a profoundly changed body and life. Yet within that devastation, resilience is possible, and two extraordinary women are living proof.
In this deeply personal and professionally grounded presentation, Cindy Rutter and Jill Sproul share their parallel journeys as childhood burn survivors who went on to dedicate their careers to burn care: Cindy as a burn nurse and psychotherapist, and Jill as a burn nurse and Chief Nursing Officer. Drawing on decades of lived experience and clinical expertise, they illuminate the unique psychological landscape of burn recovery, the complex grief and loss that accompanies disfigurement, the challenges of body image, sexuality, and intimacy, and the critical role of peer support, advocacy, and hope in the healing process.
Participants will also explore the often-overlooked psychological needs of parents, siblings, caregivers, and the burn care professionals themselves, including surgeons, nurses, therapists, and social workers, who carry the emotional weight of this work, particularly amid ongoing staffing shortages and systemic burnout. Through personal narrative, clinical insight, and a strengths-based lens, Cindy and Jill model what it means to transform tragedy into purpose, and to offer that same possibility to every survivor they serve.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the unique psychological, physical, and social needs of burn survivors.
2. Identify national and local resources available to burn survivors and their loved ones.
3. Apply evidence-based strategies to support the emotional well-being of burn survivors and their families and reduce burnout among caregivers and burn care professionals.
Description
What does it mean to find your voice when your culture demands your silence?
For many Iranian and Iranian American women, this is not a metaphor. It is a lived reality. Intergenerational trauma, patriarchal expectation, religious constraint, and family loyalty create a powerful web of silence that shapes identity, limits autonomy, and profoundly affects the therapeutic relationship. For clinicians working with this population, cultural awareness alone is not enough. Deep understanding is required.
In this rich and clinically grounded session, Dr. Charlyne Gelt and Dr. Vida Nikzad bring together film, poetry, mythology, and case material to illuminate the inner world of Iranian and Iranian American women in therapy. Through the poetry of Forough Farrokhzad, Iran's most courageous female voice, films such as A Separation and Shadya, and the transformative myth of The Handless Maiden, they trace the psychological journey from silence and submission toward voice, agency, and individuation.
Using Jungian, feminist, and multicultural frameworks, the presenters examine how shame, duty, relational dependency, and fear of self-expression shape the goals Iranian women bring to therapy, and how those goals often differ from those of the general population. Clinicians will gain practical, culturally sensitive tools to recognize barriers, interrupt destructive patterns, and support their clients in building resilience and reclaiming their sense of self.
Even a trapped bird, given the right conditions, can learn to fly free.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Identify cultural, patriarchal, and familial barriers that impact therapeutic engagement and treatment outcomes with Iranian and Iranian American women clients.
2. Discuss patterns of toxic abuse common in the general population and distinguish them from culturally specific dynamics within Iranian culture.
3. Apply culturally sensitive, Jungian, and feminist clinical interventions to foster resilience, agency, and transformation with Iranian / Iranian-American women clients.
Description
What if the experiences that made you feel different were your greatest gifts?
Many healers, clinicians, and creatives carry a lifelong sense of being "other." Shaped by early rejection, trauma, or simply the feeling of never quite belonging, the outsider experience can feel like a wound. Yet throughout history, it is often the outsiders who become the visionaries, storytellers, cultural bridge-builders, and most intuitive healers.
In this thought-provoking and clinically rich lecture, Patrice Roy invites participants to explore the outsider identity not as a wound to hide, but as a source of wisdom, originality, and profound human connection. Drawing from psychology, creativity research, and trauma theory, she traces the pathways through which early rejection and "not fitting in" become the very forces that fuel imagination, empathy, and deeper clinical insight.
Through compelling research and real-world examples, participants will explore how shame transforms when given creative expression, and how outsider narratives reorganize meaning, regulate emotion, and reconnect individuals to vitality and belonging. The lecture examines pathways for healing and reintegration including psychotherapy, somatic work, community-building, and finding a creative tribe that mirrors one's inner landscape.
This session is designed to foster both professional growth and personal healing, offering clinicians practical tools they can integrate directly into practice.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe three psychological mechanisms through which outsider experiences and early rejection shape identity
2. Identify research-supported healing modalities, including expressive arts, somatic therapies, and psychedelic-assisted interventions, that transform shame-based outsider identities into adaptive strengths.
3. Apply creative strategies in clinical practice to help clients transform outsider experiences into resilience and insight
Description
In this dynamic and experiential lecture, pioneering psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher Dr. Ronald Alexander brings together cutting-edge techniques from Mindfulness, Positive Psychology, and Core Creativity Practices. Drawing from neuroscience and somatic therapy, he explores how resources such as spontaneity, curiosity, trust, creativity, and joy can unlock the healing of painful experiences stored in the brain's neural pathways and the body's somatic memory.
This session blends theory with direct experience. Through somatic deep breathing, yogic kriyas, music, and creative imagery, participants will have the opportunity to access the unconscious, attune to natural mind and body healing rhythms, and develop practical tools for nervous system regulation and trauma healing.
Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of their own creative process and practical strategies to cultivate self-compassion, resilience, and lasting wellness, for themselves and for those they serve.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Apply mindfulness and core creativity techniques in clinical practice.
2. Discuss how mindfulness meditation and core creativity practices promote insight and support healthy brain development.
3. Demonstrate somatic breathing and mindfulness techniques that access the unconscious and its natural healing resources.
Description
What does it mean to create art in service of a better world?
Russian artist Nicholas Roerich known as the "Messenger of Beauty," he was a visionary mystic, fearless explorer, and passionate peace advocate whose extraordinary life and prolific body of work continue to inspire awe and wonder. Alongside his wife Helena, he pursued a lifelong quest to elevate human consciousness through discipline, courage, beauty, and spiritual devotion.
In this richly illustrated lecture, Dr. Eleanor Hamilton traces the remarkable journey of one of history's most captivating creative spirits. Drawing from Roerich's art, writings, and life story, she explores the psychological, cultural, and environmental forces that shaped his evolution as an artist and activist. From the mystical landscapes of the Himalayas to his groundbreaking international peace efforts, Roerich's story offers a profound clinical lens through which to understand how creativity and meaning can be nurtured, encouraged, and sustained.
Participants will explore the psychological environment that inspired Roerich's creative process, the impact of his background on his courage and dedication to the arts, and the role of emotional authenticity in the pursuit of creative expression. The session also examines clinical approaches to developing healthy self-efficacy and building the kind of focused, purposeful direction that sustains creative growth over a lifetime.
For clinicians and creatives alike, Roerich's life is a masterclass in what becomes possible when beauty, meaning, and purpose are placed at the center of one's work.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the environmental and psychological influences that nurtured Roerich's creative process and commitment to peace.
2. Analyze how Roerich's background and cultural context shaped his artistic vision and dedication to human consciousness.
3. Identify the role of purpose in strengthening resilience and emotional well-being across the lifespan.
Description
What if there were a "thermometer" that could objectively measure a client's "mental temperature" with the same precision and speed that a physician takes a patient's body temperature?
This presentation introduces a theoretical model of consciousness that generates precise balances of positive and negative emotions, differentiating dysfunctional, subnormal, normal, optimal, and peak levels of psychological functioning. Drawing on decades of research in cognitive-affective balance and positive psychology, Dr. Schwartz presents practical, accessible examples of how to apply this simple yet innovative method in clinical settings.
Participants will learn how to use the States of Mind Model to more precisely assess emotional balance, track changes across the course of psychotherapy, and evaluate in-session responses to relaxation training and other therapeutic interventions. This approach offers clinicians a concrete, mathematically grounded tool for understanding where a client stands on the spectrum from dysfunction to optimal flourishing, and for measuring meaningful progress over time.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. List three examples demonstrating the role of emotion in healthy psychological functioning.
2. Identify scientific studies that support the relationship between emotional balance ratios and levels of psychological functioning.
3. Apply two practical assessment methods to evaluate their own emotional balance and integrate these methods into clinical practice.
Description
Witnessing the suffering of others shapes our psychological world in profound ways. Clinicians, caregivers, artists, and anyone deeply engaged with the experiences of others face real risks: vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout.
This 1-hour workshop offers an evidence-informed framework for understanding these responses and introduces vicarious resilience: the growth, meaning, and renewed perspective that can emerge through witnessing the resilience of others. Through the personal narrative of an artist who experienced vicarious trauma through her creative work, participants will explore how empathic engagement can carry both risk and reward. The session closes with practical, evidence-based strategies for managing the emotional impact of trauma exposure and cultivating resilience in daily professional life.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this course, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the empathic response continuum.
2. Define vicarious resilience.
3. Identify two evidence-based clinical techniques that foster vicarious resilience.
Description
What does it mean to live creatively, and how does creativity itself become a form of psychological practice? In this engaging and thought-provoking session, Dr. Barton Goldsmith explores the intersection of creativity, emotional fitness, and the pursuit of happiness, drawing on more than 30 years of clinical experience and his nationally syndicated column, Emotional Fitness. Dr. Goldsmith examines how creative expression functions not only as artistic output, but as a dynamic process of self-discovery, resilience-building, and psychological healing.
Through vivid storytelling, research-grounded insights, and his signature warmth and humor, Dr. Goldsmith invites clinicians and mental health professionals to rethink how they integrate creativity into their own lives and therapeutic work. He draws from his own eclectic journey, including his work in the film and television industries, his role as an NPR radio host, his decades as a keynote speaker, and his authorship of seven books, to illustrate that a creative life is not a luxury, but a clinical imperative. Participants will leave with concrete, immediately applicable tools for cultivating creativity as a daily psychological practice, both personally and with their clients.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss how creative engagement can support emotional regulation, resilience, and psychological well-being.
2. Identify at least two evidence-informed creative strategies for use in clinical work addressing mood, relational, or trauma-related concerns.
3. Discuss how humor can serve as a therapeutic tool to strengthen alliance, reduce resistance, and promote emotional well-being.
Workshop Description
This three-hour workshop explores the connection between imagination and happiness and trains health-related professionals in both the deliberate use of imaginative thinking in everyday life and the strengthening of inner discovery and emotional well-being. The goal is for attendees to walk away feeling hopeful and empowered, and with the tools and techniques to integrate and foster imagination skills in their practice.
Imagination has immense benefits for our mental and physical health, personal growth, and emotions. However, despite everyone having the ability to form mental representations of things, situations, or concepts that are not present to the senses, internal and external factors visibly hinder our imaginative behaviors. On the one hand, we are increasingly feeling anxious, more lonely and unhappy. Pervasive pessimism and hopelessness about the future contribute to this mental state. On the other hand, culture, social constructs, and education systems reward those who follow the norms, while judge those who think differently. As a result, our imagination has become constrained and underdeveloped, with most ideas being permutations of what we have already seen, known, and done. We struggle to imagine positive paths forward, a better life, or think about problems differently from what we know. In this context, integrating imagination training (rooted in inner discovery) in health practices can increase optimism, happiness, and the quality of social connections, as well as provide the tools to think more positively about the future.
Sitting at the intersection of psychology and well-being, this workshop will explore imagination as a mindset and skill that can be taught, developed, and improved by first journeying inwards. Attendees will engage in theoretical exploration and review results from latest research to enhance their understanding of imagination as a key component of emotional well-being. The practice of interactive, fun techniques rooted in mindfulness, serious play, positive psychology, and creativity literature will give them an opportunity to experience the positive effects of imaginative thinking and gain confidence imagining individually and collaboratively. The goal is for attendees to walk away with the tools to integrate and foster imagination skills in their practice.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Explain imagination as a mindset and its role in emotional well-being.
2. Identify common barriers to imagination and strategies to overcome them.
3. Apply mindfulness and playful interventions to cultivate inner-discovery and deliberate imagination in themselves and others (patients, colleagues, etc.).
4. Develop strategies for integrating imagination-boosting techniques into daily practice.
The workshop is an interactive session combining theory, research studies, discussion, hands-on activities, and reflection.
“A Year Living with Your Imagination Challenge”
Daily imagination and wellbeing exercises for 1 year to help reclaim your unbound potential by journeying inwards, slowing down, & harnessing your imagination!
WORKSHOP MATERIALS:
• 10 Blank sheets of paper (letter size or tabloid size, no lines)
• Colored markers (like Sharpies) or crayons (but no pencils!) - at least 4-5 different colors: red, green, blue, orange, brown, yellow, pink, etc.
• 1 Black thin marker (no pencil!)
FORMAT: Workshop with PowerPoint presentation
EVALUATION: Standard Evaluation Form
Workshop Description
Drawing from four decades in psychiatry, Dr. Moss explores how structured creative engagement can shift clinical outcomes by restoring voice, agency, and relational presence. He introduces the Creative 8™ framework, a methodology encouraging brief, daily engagement in accessible creative acts (music, art, writing, cooking, movement, gardening, etc.) and examines how these practices reduce anxiety, interrupt rigid diagnostic identity, and strengthen therapeutic alliance.
This three-hour workshop investigates creativity as an inherent human capacity that precedes pathology and can reorient both clinician and patient toward wholeness and explores how creative expression and authentic voice can deepen psychological insight and human connection within therapeutic contexts.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Identify how diagnosis-centered frameworks can unintentionally narrow identity and suppress creative agency
2. Describe how structured micro-creative practices (Creative 8™) can support emotional regulation and therapeutic engagement
3. Integrate creativity-informed dialogue into clinical or counseling environments without abandoning evidence-based care
4. Analyze clinical interactions for signs of disconnection or loss of attunement.
FORMAT: Workshop with PowerPoint presentation
EVALUATION: Standard Evaluation Form

*Creativity and Madness® reserves the right to substitute presenters or modify program content as needed.

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP)

Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP) and author of Body as Shadow: Jung’s Method of Embodied Healing (Karnac, 2026). She is a training analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of New England and has served as Curriculum Coordinator and Training Board Member. She has also been a training analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and adjunct faculty at Antioch School of Professional Psychology.
Since 1986, Ms. Lorentz has maintained a private practice working with individuals, couples, and groups. She has lectured and led workshops throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India, including recent presentations on decolonizing mental health. Her work has been featured on Pacifica Radio and the Jung Platform. Her clinical and teaching focus centers on the embodied mythopoetic process and the inter-active field in analysis.
Her exploration of Jung’s embodied active imagination process began in 1975 through the study of Authentic Movement with Janet Adler.
In 1913, Carl Jung undertook a profound inner journey into the unconscious, an experience that became foundational to his life’s work and the development of analytical psychology. Central to this legacy is the understanding that the body, imagination, and psyche are inseparable, yet modern psychology has often relegated the body to the margins.
» Learn more about Erica Lorentz «
Sheila Pontis, PhD

Sheila Pontis, PhD is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and practitioner whose work sits at the crossroads of imagination, design, and human flourishing. Originally trained as a graphic designer in Buenos Aires and holding a PhD in Information Design from the University of the Arts London, she has spent over two decades exploring how people think, learn, and create — and how those capacities can be deliberately cultivated.
She has held faculty positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Northeastern University, among others, where she led graduate programs, and designed and taught courses on creativity, imagination, well-being, design, and human-centered research. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that imagination is not a talent reserved for artists — it is a fundamental human capacity that can be nurtured in anyone.
Sheila's recent work bridges positive psychology, behavioral science, and design education. She has completed advanced training at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Yale's Science of Well-Being program. She is also a certified yoga teacher and brings somatic and mindful practices into her work with learners and organizations.
As founder of Imagination for Human Flourishing, she develops workshops, courses, and research that empower individuals and communities to harness their imaginative abilities — to dream, to play, and to address life's challenges more creatively. She is also faculty at the School of Radical Imagination, where she teaches courses on imagination, optimism, and being human. Her work asks a simple but radical question: What becomes possible when we take imagination seriously?
» Learn more about Sheila Pontis, PhD «
Polly Ryan

Polly Ryan is a licensed marriage and family therapist, meditation teacher, and grief educator based in Truckee, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds degrees in music performance, music therapy, and counseling psychology and has been a licensed therapist in California and Nevada for over 40 years. She is the founder of InnerAction Therapy, offering counseling and personal development to individuals, couples, and families.
Polly’s clinical approach is trauma-informed and integrative, drawing on EMDR, somatic awareness, parts work, polyvagal theory, and Feeding Your Demons, a therapeutic method she is certified to teach. Her work goes beyond traditional talk therapy, combining evidence-based psychological tools with contemplative wisdom to support deep, lasting transformation.
Polly is a devoted student of Lama Tsultrim Allione and Lama Alan Wallace and has received teachings from many great Tibetan and Bhutanese teachers. She serves as a senior teacher (Lopön) and spiritual mentor at Tara Mandala Retreat Center, where she has taught numerous in-person and on-line retreats. In 2023 she co-led pilgrimages to Bhutan and India.
Polly founded the Northern Sierra and Santa Fe Tara Mandala Global Sanghas where she offers in-person and on-line practice and study. She is also co-founder of Sitting Lab with her partner, Robert Thomas, and brings to this work a lifelong commitment to the integration of contemplative practice, creative expression, and psychological healing.
After the death of her 21-year-old son in 2023, she has immersed herself in the grief work of Mirabai Starr and David Kessler and completed her Grief Educator Certificate in 2024. She created LoganIsLove! A Mother’s Bereavement Circle as a tribute to her son’s life.
» Learn more about Polly Ryan «
Robert Thomas

Robert Thomas began practicing meditation in 1993 as a novice monk at Wat Pah Nanachat, a renowned Thai forest monastery. He went on to dedicate his life to contemplative practice, spending six years as a monk at Tassajara, the first Buddhist monastery in America, founded by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
He attained the highest level of ordination in Soto Zen, receiving Dharma Transmission from his teacher, Norman Fischer, in 2009, and spent 22 years as a Zen priest and teacher-in-residence at the San Francisco Zen Center, Upaya Zen Center, and the Austin Zen Center.
Robert is also the former CEO of three groundbreaking organizations: the San Francisco Zen Center, Mindful Schools, and the Tara Mandala International Buddhist Community. In 2024, he founded Sitting Lab, an online platform supporting people in establishing a regular and deepening meditation practice.
He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his partner, Polly Ryan, and he spends his time writing, making art, walking his dog, and helping people practice meditation.
» Learn more about Robert Thomas «
Vineeth P. John, MD, MBA

Vineeth P. John, MD, MBA, is a double board-certified psychiatrist specializing in geriatric psychiatry, currently based in Houston, Texas. He serves as the John S. Dunn Professor in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, where he also holds the role of Vice Chair for Education and Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Program. His clinical interests span adult general psychiatry, bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and the psychiatric care of older adults.
A passionate advocate for creativity in medicine and education, Dr. John has dedicated his career to cultivating learning environments enriched with openness, creative problem solving, and innovative thinking, believing these conditions are the foundation for extraordinary scholarship and discovery. Over the past decade, he has also been studying the effect of disruptive styles of leadership in organizations, presenting his research at national and international conferences.
Dr. John earned his medical degree from the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, India. He completed his psychiatry residency at Tufts Medical Center in Boston and his fellowship in geriatric psychiatry at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.
Throughout his career, Dr. John has held academic leadership positions at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in both psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry and is actively involved in psychiatric education and training initiatives at the national level.
» Learn more about Vineeth John «
Ezekiel Hinojosa, MD

Ezekiel Hinojosa, MD, is a fourth-year psychiatry resident in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. He earned his MD from McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2022, and his BS in Biology and Psychology, magna cum laude, from Texas A&M University in 2018, where he was a recipient of the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the Texas A&M Century Scholarship.
Dr. Hinojosa has demonstrated exceptional academic achievement throughout his training, earning the Psychiatry Residency PRITE Award in each of his first three years of residency. He has been selected by his program director to lead the residency's APA MindGames team and was chosen by forensic psychiatry fellowship leadership to assist in developing a forensic psychiatry clinical track within the residency program. His research background spans phospholipid signaling in tumor cells, circadian rhythm and genetics, and medical informatics, with publications in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Cell Science and BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making.
A dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Hinojosa has developed and delivered numerous lectures and case conferences throughout his training, with a particular commitment to building the next generation of psychiatric clinicians. His co-presentation with Dr. Vineeth John at the Creativity and Madness 2026 conference reflects his growing interest in the intersection of psychiatric science, human experience, and the creative mind.
Mitchel Liester, MD

Mitchell B. Liester, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1985, completed his psychiatric residency at the University of California, Irvine, and served as Chief Resident. He has maintained a private practice in Monument, Colorado for over 34 years.
Dr. Liester's interest in psychiatry originates from a deep fascination with altered states of consciousness, whether triggered spontaneously by near-death experiences or through other means. His grandfather's near-death experience, which occurred while Dr. Liester was still a medical student, first introduced him to this realm and shaped a research career spanning more than three decades. His work encompasses consciousness, near-death experiences, indigenous healing practices, biological psychiatry, and psychedelic medicines. He has also investigated the phenomenon of cellular memory, exploring how personality changes following heart transplantation may point to memory stored beyond the brain itself. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, contributes regularly to Psychology Today, and served as Vice President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. To investigate indigenous healing practices, he has journeyed to the Himalayas, Hawaii, Bali, Fiji, and the Andes and Amazon rainforest of South America.
What happens at the edge of life? And what can those who have returned tell us about consciousness, healing, and what it means to truly live?
» Learn more about Mitchel Liester «
Angelina H. Rodriguez, PhD

Angelina H. Rodriguez, Ph.D., is a Houston-based depth psychologist and psychotherapist who brings a creative perspective and integrative approach to healing, incorporating the principles of Depth Psychology with talk therapy and art therapy. She holds a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor/Supervisor and Registered Board-Certified Art Therapist with over two decades of clinical experience.
Her Jungian-informed approach blends depth-oriented insight with therapeutic dialogue, creative art processes, dreamwork, and mindful practices, helping clients move through grief, anxiety, depression, addiction, and major life transitions. She is the founder of Psychotherapy by Angelina and has served clients spanning immigration evaluations, grief work, substance recovery, and trauma healing in both English and Spanish.
Dr. Rodriguez has conducted extensive research on the ofrenda ritual, a traditional practice of honoring the deceased through art and symbol, exploring its role in grief, healing, and the psychology of death. Her documentary, "The Ofrenda Ritual: Bridging Art and Death," follows the healing journeys of participants in her workshops, which have been described as "extremely effective, memorable, and transformational." She has served the community as a therapist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, counseling patients with terminal cancer and their grieving families, and volunteered as a crisis counselor during the September 11th crisis in New York City.
A professional artist for over 25 years, Dr. Rodriguez's paintings and murals can be found in private residences and businesses throughout the country, and her work has been displayed in prestigious galleries and museums. She has presented at local, state, and national conferences and has been featured on Fox 26, ABC 13, KHOU Channel 11, the Houston Chronicle, among other media.
» Learn more about Angelina Rodriguez «
Deborah Levinson, LCSW

Deborah Levinson, LCSW, is a Johns Hopkins and Catholic University-trained licensed clinical social worker with more than four decades of experience helping individuals, couples, and families navigate life's most profound transitions. Her clinical work has long centered on the healing potential embedded in human relationships, with particular expertise in the therapeutic dimensions of apology, forgiveness, and relational repair.
Mrs. Levinson is best known for developing the Spousal Loss Model, a clinically researched framework for rebuilding identity and purpose after major loss. Over the course of her career, she has come to understand forgiveness not as a simple act of letting go, but as one of the most powerful and complex interventions available in clinical practice. She has facilitated groups for widowed and divorcing individuals through the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services in New York and has presented to professional audiences at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Gerontological Society of America, and the United States Secret Service Employee Assistance Program, among others.
She is the author of three books, including her widely used workbook Surviving the Death of Your Spouse (New Harbinger, 2004), and has published clinical research in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Personal and Interpersonal Loss and Illness, Crisis and Loss.
A member of Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, Mrs. Levinson brings decades of clinical wisdom, scholarly grounding, and genuine warmth to her exploration of the transformative power of love expressed through apology and forgiveness.
Jenny Hughes

Jenny Hughes, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma and PTSD. She holds multiple faculty appointments and practices Brainspotting, EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. As the founder of the BRAVE Trauma Therapist Collective, Dr. Hughes helps trauma therapists be human again as they learn how to manage vicarious trauma and enhance vicarious resilience together. She is the author of The PTSD Recovery Workbook and Triggers to Glimmers: A Vicarious Resilience Journal and Workbook.
» Learn more about Jenny Hughes «
Sarah Sudhoff

Sarah Sudhoff is a Houston-based artist, educator, and nonprofit leader whose work sits at the intersection of visual arts, community engagement, and social practice. She is the Founder and Director of Ramona Residency, the first artist residency in Texas dedicated to artist mothers, and Co-Founder of Throughline Collective, an artist-run space in Houston. With over two decades of experience in photography, arts administration, and higher education, Sarah has held leadership roles at institutions including the Houston Center for Photography and the Texas Photographic Society. Her work has been recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Houston Arts Alliance, and Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50, among others. She holds an MFA in Photography from Parsons the New School for Design and a BA from the University of Texas at Austin.
» Learn more about Sarah Sudhoff «
Joyce Lilly, RN, JD

Joyce Lilly, RN, JD is a Registered Nurse who has worked in hospital and community settings. She worked as a psychiatric nurse for 4 years. Joyce attended Boston University School of Law and is a Plaintiff lawyer representing persons injured due to the negligence of others. She also represents Nurses before the Texas Board of Nursing in Austin.
» Learn more about Joyce Lily «

Cindy Rutter, LMFT, BSN, RN

Cindy Rutter, LMFT, BSN, RN brings more than 45 years of expertise in burn care to her work as a clinician, advocate, and dedicated champion for burn survivors and their families. A burn survivor herself for 66 years, Cindy's personal and professional journeys are deeply intertwined, giving her a uniquely powerful perspective on healing and recovery.
Cindy began her career as a burn unit nurse and went on to serve as Nurse Manager of the UCSD Regional Burn Center. She is currently in private practice as a psychotherapist in San Diego, with a primary focus on burn and trauma recovery. Throughout her career, she has contributed to the field through service on the Education Committee for the American Burn Association, the Executive Board for the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, and the Advisory Board for the San Diego Burn Institute.
Cindy's passion for aftercare has shaped some of the most meaningful contributions of her career. She co-founded one of the first national adult burn survivor retreats in the United States and continues to serve as a facilitator at adult retreats, youth summits, and children's burn camp support programs. She was instrumental in designing, developing, and implementing SOAR (Survivors Offering Assistance in Recovery), a peer support recovery program for burn survivors and their family members, and she remains on the National Advisory Committee and National Faculty of the SOAR program. She has taught peer support training across both the United States and Canada. Cindy is also a frequent speaker and presenter at the American Burn Association conference and the Phoenix Society World Burn Congress.
Her extraordinary contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including California Nurse of the Year in 2000, the San Diego Chargers Community Quarterback Award in 2002, and the Remarkable Women Award from Redbook Magazine in 2007. In 2011, she received the prestigious Alan Breslau Award for her sustained commitment to the burn community.
Cindy is the proud mother of two grown daughters and the devoted grandmother of two grandchildren.

» Learn more about Cindy Rutter, LMFT, BSN, RN «
Jill Sproul, MS, RN

Jill Sproul, MS, RN brings more than 30 years of dedicated expertise in burn care to her work as a clinician, leader, and passionate advocate for burn survivors. She began her nursing career in 1990 as a new graduate from San Jose State University, joining the Burn Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, an institution that would become the cornerstone of her remarkable career.
In 1996, Jill expanded her experience at the University of California San Diego Burn Center, serving as Assistant Nurse Manager before returning to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in 1997 as Burn Center Nurse Manager, a role she held for 20 years. Her leadership continued to grow as she took on the Director of Critical Care, Emergency Department, and Perioperative Services, and ultimately became Chief Nursing Officer for Valley Medical Center in 2017. In 2019, she was elevated to System CNO, overseeing hospitals and clinics across the system until her retirement from Santa Clara County in June 2023.
Alongside her clinical and administrative leadership, Jill's deepest passion has always been outreach and aftercare for burn survivors. She is especially proud of her contributions to the Phoenix Society's SOAR peer support program as a member of the National Advisory Committee. A steadfast believer in the power of peer support, she conducted her graduate research in 2009 at San Jose State University on peer support and its perceived benefits for burn survivors. Her relationship with the Phoenix Society spans three decades, beginning in 1994, and includes service on the Board of Directors from 2012 to 2022. She has also been an active contributor to the American Burn Association, including service on their Board of Directors from 2013 to 2016 and participation on numerous ABA committees.
Since February 2024, Jill has served as Director of Programs for the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors, continuing her lifelong commitment to the burn community in a new and meaningful chapter.
Jill is married and the proud mother of four grown children. Since retiring from Santa Clara County, she has remained deeply engaged in the burn community, a testament to the relationships and mission that have defined her career.

» Learn more about Jill Sproul, MS, RN «
Vida Nikzad, PsyD

Vida Nikzad, PsyD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Los Angeles, California, with a private practice in Santa Monica. Rooted in an Existential, Humanistic, and Gestalt orientation, her work integrates depth psychology, somatic awareness, and evidence-based approaches to support individuals, couples, and families navigating trauma, mood disorders, addiction, and relational healing.
Dr. Nikzad holds a Doctor of Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy from Phillips Graduate Institute. She is a Certified Gestalt Therapist, EMDR Certified Therapist, Certified Hypnotherapist, and EFT-trained couples therapist, with additional training in DBT, CBT, Jungian dreamwork, archetypal analysis, and mediation.
Her clinical career has spanned private practice, hospital, and residential treatment settings, including seven years as a Staff Psychologist at the Betty Ford Center, where she specialized in dual-diagnosis treatment, DBT and CBT-based addiction and relapse prevention, and family codependency therapy. She has also served as a program therapist at Mission Community Hospital, providing crisis intervention, geriatric psychiatric care, and dual-diagnosis group treatment.
A passionate educator and group facilitator, Dr. Nikzad has led ongoing clinical workshop series integrating dreamwork, Iranian and American fairy tales, myth, poetry, and film as pathways to archetypal and narrative trauma processing. She is fluent in both English and Farsi, and brings a rich multicultural perspective to all of her clinical and educational work.
» Learn more about Vida Nikzad, PsyD «
Charlyne Gelt, PhD, CGP

Charlyne Gelt, PhD, CGP is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified group psychotherapist, and educator based in Encino, California, with over 30 years of experience working with individuals, couples, adolescents, families, and groups. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and brings a rich integrative approach to her work, drawing on cognitive-behavioral, depth psychological, family systems, and self psychology frameworks.
Dr. Gelt is the author of "Hades' Angels: The Transformative Journeys of Women Who Love Lifers and Death Row Inmates," a groundbreaking exploration of the psychological dynamics of women in committed relationships with incarcerated men. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Psychologist, The California Therapist, and numerous professional publications, and she contributes a monthly Cinema Therapy column to the San Fernando Valley CAMFT newsletter.
Dr. Gelt’s interests span the intersection of cinema, therapy, relationships, and the transformation of consciousness. Her clinical workshops, Women's Empowerment Groups, and Men-Only group series focus on moving individuals from emotional dependency and destructive relational patterns toward emotional independence and mature interdependency.
Her clinical specialties include women's relationship and empowerment issues, grief and loss, family therapy, and children with special needs, particularly those on the autism and Asperger's spectrum. She has facilitated a College Survival Process Group for students on the autism spectrum through UCLA Extension's Pathway Program, and has volunteered for over a decade as a group facilitator for families with a loved one in prison through Friends Outside LA.
» Learn more about Charlyne Gelt, PhD, CGP «
Patrice Roy, PMH-NP, CNS, MA, MSN

Patrice Roy, PMH-NP, BC, CNS is a board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with over 25 years of experience spanning clinical practice, academic teaching, and the emerging frontier of psychedelic-assisted therapy. She brings to her work a rare combination of rigorous clinical training and a deeply human perspective forged at the edges of convention.
Before stepping into clinical practice, Patrice was hauling lobster traps off the coast of Maine, playing banjo and ukulele, and creating encaustic art. These weren't detours from her professional path; they were the foundation of it. Every unconventional experience taught her something essential about resilience, meaning, and the wisdom that comes from standing outside looking in.
That perspective has shaped her clinical career at every turn. At Maine's largest tertiary care hospital, she helped build the Substance Abuse Consultation Service and co-founded the Dana Foundation Addictions Training Project, training healthcare professionals across New England to see patients with addiction through a more compassionate lens. She later joined Mayo Clinic in Arizona before turning her full attention to ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Now in private practice in Scottsdale, Patrice offers ketamine-assisted treatment to clients with treatment-resistant depression, chronic PTSD, and anxiety, integrating preparation, real-time support, and structured post-session integration into immersive retreat formats. For over two decades, she has also taught at the University of Southern Maine, Boston College, the University of Vermont, and Drexel University, consistently bringing the same message: the best clinicians aren't the ones who follow the rules perfectly. They're the ones who understand when the rules themselves need to evolve.
Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP is a psychotherapist, leadership coach, and international trainer in Mindfulness Meditation, Core Creativity, Gestalt Therapy, Ericksonian Mind-Body Therapies, and Somatic Experiencing. He is the Executive Director of the OpenMind® Training Program, offering personal and professional training in mindfulness-based mind-body therapies, transformational leadership, and meditation for over forty years.
A lay Zen Buddhist practitioner, Dr. Alexander specializes in utilizing mindfulness meditation to help individuals access the mind states that open the portal to their core creativity. He is the author of two books: "Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self" and "Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change."
Since 1972, he has conducted workshops and professional clinical trainings supporting personal, clinical, and corporate excellence across the United States, Europe, Canada, Russia, Asia, and Australia.
Recent advances in neuroscience, somatic therapy, and mindfulness practice have transformed the way we understand trauma, painful thought patterns, and destructive emotions. A powerful new approach is emerging, one that views symptoms of suffering not as problems to be eliminated, but as the body's own wisdom pathways, creating communication between the unconscious and the aware self in service of healing and transformation.
» Learn more about Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP «
Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC

Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC brings more than 40 years of dedicated clinical experience to her work as a psychotherapist, with deep specializations in psychological trauma, addiction and recovery, grief and loss, anger management, and meditation and mindfulness. Throughout her career, she has worked with individuals, couples, families, and groups across diverse cultural communities throughout the United States.
Dr. Hamilton holds a B.S. and M.A. from Columbia University and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology. Her doctoral studies included extensive hypnosis training in Switzerland, and her post-doctoral work at the C.G. Jung Institute in Santa Fe deepened her grounding in Archetypal and Developmental Psychology, providing a rich framework for culturally integrative practice.
Her clinical career has taken her across the country, including serving as Clinical Supervisor for the Behavioral Health Department of the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington, where she worked within an Integrative Medicine Program and collaborated directly with Native Healers. She also served as a Military Life and Family Therapist at Fort Drum, New York, led a groundbreaking Women's Support Group for Soldiers, and has provided counseling services to active-duty military, veterans, and their families throughout her career.
Currently in private practice at Pathways in Temple, Texas, Dr. Hamilton holds certifications in HeartMath Biofeedback, Anger Management Therapy, Brain Spotting, EMDR, and Military Counseling. She is licensed in Texas, Washington, New York, and Washington, D.C.
» Learn more about Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC «
Robert M. Schwartz, PhD

Robert M. Schwartz, PhD is a clinical psychologist and one of the pioneers of positive psychology. Together with renowned psychologist John M. Gottman, he developed one of the first scientifically based measures to assess both positive and negative thoughts and emotions. Over a 30-year career as a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Medicine, he published 25 scientific papers spanning depression, anxiety, stress, psychotherapy outcome, and the science of well-being.
His groundbreaking contribution, the States of Mind Model, is the first mathematically based system for identifying whether a person is in an optimal, normal, or dysfunctional psychological state. This model has been applied in clinical research on depression treatment, agoraphobia, and cognitive-affective balance, and has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Therapy and Research, and Clinical Psychology Review.
Dr. Schwartz is the founder and president of Cognitive Dynamic Therapy Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his clinical work integrates cognitive, psychodynamic, and positive psychology approaches. He is also a Certified Diplomate of Sex Therapy through the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, with additional specialties in anxiety, depression, marital therapy, and stress management.
In addition to his research and clinical practice, Dr. Schwartz has led Beyond Positive Thinking seminars with groups and helped hundreds of clients transform their state of mind into a more balanced, optimal zone. He has presented his work at national and international conferences and continues to write and publish on psychology, positive emotion, and human flourishing.
» Learn more about Robert M. Schwartz, PhD «
Jenny Hughes, PhD

Jenny Hughes, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma and PTSD. She holds multiple faculty appointments and practices Brainspotting, EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. As the founder of the BRAVE Trauma Therapist Collective, Dr. Hughes helps trauma therapists be human again as they learn how to manage vicarious trauma and enhance vicarious resilience together. She is the author of The PTSD Recovery Workbook and Triggers to Glimmers: A Vicarious Resilience Journal and Workbook.
» Learn more about Jenny Hughes, PhD «
Sarah Sudhoff

Sarah Sudhoff is a Houston-based artist, educator, and nonprofit leader whose work sits at the intersection of visual arts, community engagement, and social practice. She is the Founder and Director of Ramona Residency, the first artist residency in Texas dedicated to artist mothers, and Co-Founder of Throughline Collective, an artist-run space in Houston. With over two decades of experience in photography, arts administration, and higher education, Sarah has held leadership roles at institutions including the Houston Center for Photography and the Texas Photographic Society. Her work has been recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Houston Arts Alliance, and Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50, among others. She holds an MFA in Photography from Parsons the New School for Design and a BA from the University of Texas at Austin.
» Learn more about Sarah Sudhoff «
Barton Goldsmith, PhD, LMFT, CADAC

Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., LMFT, CADAC is a multi-award-winning psychotherapist, entertainment journalist, nationally syndicated columnist, executive coach, bestselling author, and radio host with more than 30 years of clinical experience. Recognized by Cosmopolitan Magazine as one of America's top therapists, Dr. Goldsmith has spent his career making psychology accessible, engaging, and genuinely useful to audiences worldwide.
His weekly column Emotional Fitness, syndicated by Tribune News Service, appears in more than 400 publications, including The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Time Magazine. His Psychology Today blog has surpassed 35 million followers. For nearly a decade, "Dr. G" hosted a weekly program on NPR affiliate KCLU, interviewing leading thinkers for nearly 90,000 listeners.
As the creator of Between the Notes, he now interviews artists, performers, filmmakers, and other creative voices to uncover the stories behind their work, going beyond what audiences see onstage and on screen to reveal the human story behind it.
The author of seven books, including the Emotional Fitness series and The Happy Couple, Dr. Goldsmith has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, CBS News, and NBC News. He has served as an on-set therapist in film and television, as a national public health spokesperson, and as an executive coach to entertainment professionals and business leaders.
His honors include the Clark Vincent Award for Writing (CAMFT), the Peter Markin Merit Award (AAMFT), the Giannantonio Award as Outstanding Educator in Addiction Medicine, and induction into the CAADAC Hall of Fame. He received special recognition from the City of Los Angeles for his crisis work following the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Dr. Goldsmith holds a Ph.D. in Human Behavior Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor. A National Merit Scholar and former Professor of Psychology, he connects with every audience through clinical depth, warmth, and an irrepressible sense of humor. He believes the best interviews, and the best conversations, begin with curiosity, whether interviewing an award-winning performer, helping a client through a difficult transition, or writing a syndicated column.
» Learn more about Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., LMFT, CADAC «
Sheila Pontis, PhD

Sheila Pontis, PhD is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and practitioner whose work sits at the crossroads of imagination, design, and human flourishing. Originally trained as a graphic designer in Buenos Aires and holding a PhD in Information Design from the University of the Arts London, she has spent over two decades exploring how people think, learn, and create — and how those capacities can be deliberately cultivated.
She has held faculty positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Northeastern University, among others, where she led graduate programs, and designed and taught courses on creativity, imagination, well-being, design, and human-centered research. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that imagination is not a talent reserved for artists — it is a fundamental human capacity that can be nurtured in anyone.
Sheila's recent work bridges positive psychology, behavioral science, and design education. She has completed advanced training at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Yale's Science of Well-Being program. She is also a certified yoga teacher and brings somatic and mindful practices into her work with learners and organizations.
As founder of Imagination for Human Flourishing, she develops workshops, courses, and research that empower individuals and communities to harness their imaginative abilities — to dream, to play, and to address life's challenges more creatively. She is also faculty at the School of Radical Imagination, where she teaches courses on imagination, optimism, and being human. Her work asks a simple but radical question: What becomes possible when we take imagination seriously?
» Learn more about Sheila Pontis, PhD «
Dr. Fred Moss, MD

Dr. Fred Moss, MD is a psychiatrist, author, keynote speaker, and transformational coach who has spent more than four decades challenging the boundaries of conventional mental health care. A graduate of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and a fellowship-trained Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. Dr. Moss has worked across a wide spectrum of settings from inpatient and outpatient care to homeless shelters, nursing homes, prisons, drug rehabilitation centers, and telepsychiatry, and served thousands of patients throughout his career.
Known as "The Undoctor," Dr. Moss expanded beyond traditional diagnostic and medication driven models to champion a movement built on one essential truth: authentic human connection is the foundation of real healing. He believes that communication, connection, creativity, and self-expression are core to all healing, not just in mental health, but in every aspect of life.
He is the founder of UnDoctor RESET™, a practical framework for transformation through communication, creativity, and community. Dr. Moss is also the author of Creative 8: Healing Through Creativity & Self-Expression and Find Your True Voice!, and has contributed numerous articles to Psychology Today. His essay "Global Madness, What Must Happen to Unite" earned him an award at the 2019 Conference for Global Transformation.
Dr. Moss brings both clinical authority and a deeply human perspective to the conversation about creativity, mental health, and what it truly means to heal.
» Learn more about Dr. Fred Moss, MD «

Download the Learner Notification

This educational activity is designed to enhance professional knowledge and clinical understanding.

Participation does not imply endorsement of specific therapeutic modalities or approaches.

Important Accreditation Notes

ACCME | APA | ASWB | AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
CE/CME credit is awarded only for sessions attended live or viewed in full via the enduring format, in accordance with accreditation requirements.
Credit is issued upon completion of required evaluations.
Partial credit is awarded where applicable.

Note: Accreditation requirements vary. Please confirm with your licensing board that enduring (home-study) CE/CME hours are accepted for your credential.

What is Enduring Content?

Accreditation/Approvals:

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

ACCREDITATION

Joint Accreditation Statement

Nurses
Amedco LLC designates this enduring material for a maximum of 36.00 ANCC contact hours.

Psychologists

MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

New York Board for Psychology (NY PSY)

Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0031. 36.00 hours.

Social Workers

MI: No CE requirement for licensed counselors.

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

AL MFTs: Credits authorized by NBCC or any other state licensing agency will be accepted.
MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

MI: No CE requirement for licensed MFTs.

The following state boards accept ASWB ACE credit for Addictions Professionals: AK, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MO, MT, ND, NM, NV, OK, OR, SC, WA, WI, WV, WY

This educational activity is designed to enhance professional knowledge and clinical understanding.

Participation does not imply endorsement of specific therapeutic modalities or approaches.

Important Accreditation Notes

Each licensing board decides which hours it accepts. Please confirm that these hours meet your board’s requirements.

ACCME | APA | ASWB | AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
CE/CME credit is awarded only for sessions attended live or viewed in full via the enduring format, in accordance with accreditation requirements.
Credit is issued upon completion of required evaluations.
Partial credit is awarded where applicable.

Note: Accreditation requirements vary. Please confirm with your licensing board that enduring (home-study) CE/CME hours are accepted for your credential.

What is Enduring Content?

ACCREDITATION

Accreditation/Approvals:

The American Institute of Medical Education is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing education for physicians. AIMED designates this educational activity for a maximum of 28 AMA PRA Category I credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

Joint Accreditation Statement

Physicians
Amedco LLC designates this material for a maximum of 28.00 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM for physicians. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Nurses
Amedco LLC designates this enduring material for a maximum of 28.00 ANCC contact hours.

Psychologists

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Psychologists/Counselors: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, NC, ND, NH, NE, NJ, NM, NV, OH, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY MA: Accepts APA for all classes of psychology license; does not accept APA for licensed counselors (LMHC, LMFT, etc.) except LEP. MD: Does not accept Jointly Accredited content.

MI: Accepts courses from APA for Psychologists. No general CE requirement for Counselors.

OK: Accepts APA credit for live, in-person activities but not for ethics and/or online courses.

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NE, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OH, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WDC, WI, WY

AL MFTs: Credits authorized by NBCC or any other state licensing agency will be accepted.

MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

MI MFTs: There are no CE requirements for MFTs in MI.

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Addictions Professionals: AK, AR, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MD, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NY (held outside NY ONLY), OK*, OR, SC, UT, WA, WI, WY

The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Social Workers: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, ME, MN, MO, NE, NH, NM, OR, PA, VT, WI, WY

Social Workers

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Social Workers: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NJ, NV, OH, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WV*, WY *OK: Accepts ASWB ACE for live, in-person activities but not for ethics and/or online courses.

*WV: Accepts ASWB ACE unless activity is held live in West Virginia.

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Counselors: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA (LEP ONLY), MD, ME, MO, ND, NE, NM, NH, NV, OK*, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

MI: No CE requirement for licensed counselors.

The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY

AL MFTs: Credits authorized by NBCC or any other state licensing agency will be accepted.

MA MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.

MI: No CE requirement for licensed MFTs.

The following state boards accept ASWB ACE credit for Addictions Professionals: AK, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MO, MT, ND, NM, NV, OK, OR, SC, WA, WI, WV, WY

New York Social Workers

Amedco SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0115. 28.00 credit hours.

New York Psychologists

Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0031. 28.00 hours.

THE ALCHEMY WITHIN

Module 1: The Artist Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of EthicsClick the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Module 2: The Healer Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of EthicsClick the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Samuel H. Markind, MD

Stephenie Riley, ND

Amy Vail, PsyD

Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP)

Barry Panter, MD, PhD

Mitchell Liester, MD

Ana Flores

Deborah Levinson, LCSW

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD

Barbara Mainguy, MA

Megan Feldman Bettencourt, MA

Gail Carr Feldman, PhD

Ron Goldman, EdD

Jill Fischer, LICSW

Amy Goldfarb, LCSW

Ralph Margolies-Kiernan, PhD

Vineeth John, MD

Janet Lynn Roseman-Halsband, PhD

Adrienne Panter, PsyD

Jordan Price, LCSW

Michael Uebel, PhD, LCSW

Joyce Lilly, RN, JD

What is Enduring Content?

ACCREDITATION

Module 3: The Seeker Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of EthicsClick the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Body as Shadow: Jung's Method of Embodied Healing, Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP) (1 hr)

Imagination & Creativity: The Myths, The Science and The Benefits, Sheila Pontis, PhD (1 hr)

The Sacred Pause and the Poetic Field, Polly Ryan, LMFT & Robert Thomas (1 hr)

The Waking Dream: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vineeth John, MD & Ezekiel Hinojosa, MD (1 hr)

Learning from Dying: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Consciousness, Healing, and Living, Mitchel Liester, MD (1 hr)

Jungian Active Imagination and the Ofrenda Ritual: Symbolic Healing in Complicated Grief, Angelina H. Rodriguez, PhD, LPC-AT/S, ATR-BC (1 hr)

The Frame as Witness: Visual Storytelling as a Catalyst for Empathy, Karen Bekker, PhD & Matthew Septimus (1 hr)

Love in Action: The Therapeutic Power of Apology and Forgiveness, Deborah Levinson, LCSW (1 hr)

Beating Provider Burnout with Vicarious Resilience, Jenny Hughes, PhD & Sarah Sudhoff (3 hr)

End of Life Decisions: A Journey to Other Dimensions, Joyce Lilly, RN, JD (3 hr)

Module 4: The Visionary Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of EthicsClick the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Triumph from Tragedy: The Power of Hope, Tenacity, and the Beauty of Resilience, Cindy E. Rutter, RN, BSN, LMFT & Jill Sproul, MS, RN (1 hr)

Barriers to Treating Iranian/American Women Clients: Giving Voice and Transformation to the Silenced Feminine, Vida Nikzad, PsyD & Charlyne Gelt, PhD (1 hr)

Making Magic from the Margins: The Creative Power of Not Fitting In, Patrice Roy, PMH-NP, CNS, MA, MSN (1 hr)

Core Creativity and Mindfulness: Bridging the Gap Between Suffering and Healing, Ronald Alexander, PhD, LMFT (1 hr)

Nicholas Roerich: Mystic, Artist and the Evolution of Consciousness Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC (1 hr)

Take Your Mental Temperature: A Model of Consciousness Relating Emotional Balance to Psychopathology and Optimal Functioning Robert M. Schwartz, PhD (1 hr)

Vicarious Trauma and Resilience Through the Eyes of an Artist Jenny Hughes, PhD & Sarah Sudhoff, MFA (1 hr)

A Creative Life = A Creative Practice Barton Goldsmith, PhD, LMFT, CADAC (1 hr)

The Journey Within: How to Boost Imagination & Well-Being Sheila Pontis, PhD (3 hr)

Healing Through Creativity and Self-Expression Fred Moss, MD (3 hr)

Erica Lorentz, MEd, LPC, Diplomate Jungian Analyst (IAAP)

Sheila Pontis, PhD

Polly Ryan

Robert Thomas

Vineeth P. John, MD, MBA

Ezekiel Hinojosa, MD

Mitchel Liester, MD

Angelina H. Rodriguez, PhD

Deborah Levinson, LCSW

Jenny Hughes

Sarah Sudhoff

Joyce Lilly, RN, JD

Cindy Rutter, LMFT, BSN, RN

Jill Sproul, MS, RN

Vida Nikzad, PsyD

Charlyne Gelt, PhD, CGP

Patrice Roy, PMH-NP, CNS, MA, MSN

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP

Eleanor D. Hamilton, PhD, LPC, LMHC

Robert M. Schwartz, PhD

Jenny Hughes, PhD

Sarah Sudhoff

Barton Goldsmith, PhD, LMFT, CADAC

Sheila Pontis, PhD

Dr. Fred Moss, MD

What is Enduring Content?

ACCREDITATION

What is Enduring Content?

ACCREDITATION

Module 1: The Artist Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Module 2: The Healer Within, 18 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Module 3: The Seeker Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.

Module 4: The Visionary Within, 14 hours CE/CME, 3 hours of Ethics
Click the presentation title to read the needs and objectives of each presentation.