Healing Combat Trauma

"The Frontiers of Trauma Treatment" - Seminar

Bessel A. Van Der Kolk, M.D., and Dana Moore will be presenting "Frontiers of Trauma Treatment" at Kripalu in Western Massachusetts, from January 9-11, 2009.

The program is designed, according to the informational material,

For licensed therapists, yoga instructors, and other individuals interested in studying the nature and processes of trauma.

Traumatic experiences alter people’s relationship to their bodies in ways that leave them feeling uptight, helpless, disconnected, hurt, on edge, frantic, and at odds with themselves and their environment. Research is demonstrating that physical sensations and action patterns are the very foundation of consciousness. The experience of physical mastery that yoga and other body-based practices provide is often necessary in order to initiate new ways of perceiving reality. By learning to pay close attention to internal experience and working with the felt sense, people can reclaim authority over their lives.

In this weekend, we will explore recent developments in the neurosciences, attachment research, and new psychotherapeutic treatments. This course is not meant to serve as personal trauma treatment but as an introduction to the neuroscience of trauma and attachment. It offers a chance to be exposed to an array of body-centered approaches for dealing with trauma, including EMDR, yoga, theater work, and tai chi. These approaches help in dealing with hyperarousal and processing traumatic memories, and promote mastery over the posttraumatic legacy of constriction and feeling lost in the world.

CE Credits

This program is eligible for :

• 8 credits for nurses (CS, NP, RN, LPN), $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for social workers, $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for certified counselors (NBCC), $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for physical therapists (PT), $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for athletic trainers (BOC), $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for psychotherapists (APA), $20 additional charge
• 8 credits for yoga instructors (YA), $20 additional charge

For further information about the weekend or to register, click here.

Writing Workshop Planned on "Trauma, Art & Writing" for June, 2009

Plan ahead for this writing workshop, June 15-26, 2009:

Sponsored by the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences and the Creative Writing Program of the University of Massachusetts Boston.

This workshop - open to writers of fiction and nonfiction, poetry, playwriting and translation - involves one or two weeks of working sessions and individual consultations with distinguished writers. The faculty includes Vietnam veterans and others whose lives have been altered by the experience of war, but applicants with diverse interests and backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

Visiting writers will join the teaching staff in a series of readings, seminars, and panel discussions. Special events held at UMass Boston and at other Boston locations will be open to both workshop students and the general public. This year's faculty reading series schedule will be posted.

Editor's note: Additional information about the writing workshop, including faculty bios, course schedule, accommodations, and application (as well as other materials) are linked here.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Forum This Friday - Monroe, LA

University of Louisiana at Monroe associate professor Mitchell Young will host a post-traumatic stress disorder forum 6-9 p.m. Friday in the ULM Conference Center on the seventh floor of the library. The public is welcome to attend and refreshments will be served.

The event is cosponsored by the ULM Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling and aims to educate attendees about the effects of trauma, common reactions and what treatments are available.

Combat veterans who fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan will share their struggle to rejoin their families and communities when they come home from the battlefields.

He has presented at national conferences on PTSD and conducted training sessions to Veterans Affairs and readjustment counselors in several states. Young has published articles on the subject in research journals and helped hundreds of combat veterans, victims of Hurricane Katrina and criminal violence and other individuals diagnosed with PTSD.

For more information, contact Young at (318) 342-1255.

Belleruth Naparstek Seminars on Reversing PTSD

Belleruth Naparstek and The Conference Works presents:

Reversing Panic Attacks, Acute Stress and PTSD Powerful New Solutions to Formerly Intractable Problems

October 4-5 New Orleans, LA - Hampton Inn & Suites New Orleans October 11-12 Denver, CO - Ramada Plaza Denver North November 22-23 Salt Lake City, UT According to the seminar materials: If you, someone you love or someone in your care has suffers from panic attacks, acute stress or the symptoms of PTSD, you know the devastating impact it can have on body, mind, life and spirit. We now know that multi-sensory guided imagery and other simple mind-body tools hold the critical key to healing. Guided imagery is a kind of directed daydreaming, a guided meditation, usually set to soothing music. Although it has been called "visualization" and "mental imagery," these terms are misleading. Guided imagery involves all of the senses. Because imagery engages the whole person—mind, body and spirit—it brings to bear much more of a person's deepest strength and motivation to accomplish a desired end. Subtle and gentle as this technique is, it is very powerful, and becomes more so over time. Belleruth Naparstek (pronounced: bell-rooth´ nap´-pur-stack) is a psychotherapist known worldwide for her powerful guided imagery and her outstanding ability to help people rediscover their bodies’ innate ability to heal. Click here for more information about the seminar.

A Mind-Body Medicine Approach to PTSD - Conference Oct. 11th and 12th - West Coast

The Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA will hold a seminar on 

Mind-Body Approach to PTSD," October 11th and 12, 2008, featuring a Center for Mind-Body Medicine faculty member, Gjorgji Nikoloski, M.D..  According to the ITP's website, linked here, the program will be a 

"one and a half day workshop that teaches: the scientific basis for mind-body medicine; the depth and power of our unique small group approach; and the use of a range of the most effective tools for self-care and stress management.

Comprehensive materials and hands-on experience will prepare you to integrate our mind-body model into your work in a wide variety of settings, including private practice with individuals and groups, hospital work, educational programs and work with populations affected by war, abuse, terrorism and other forms of trauma.

Our approaches are fundamental to relieving the stress that contributes so significantly to all chronic illnesses, and to comprehensive and integrative approaches to the treatment of PTSD.

The featured presenter, Dr. Nikoloski is a Psychiatrist and Mental health clinician who has worked with child adolescent services and the Community Mental Health Clinic in Guelph, Ontario Canada. He began as Faculty of Mind-Body Medicine in Kosovo in 1999 and Founded the Center for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Skopje, Macedonia in1999. He is on the Board of Directors of the Coalition for Work with Psycho-trauma and Peace (CWWPP) in Vukovar, Croatia.  (A more extensive bio for Dr. Nikoloski is linked here.)

To purchase tickets to this event, click here."

Marine Corps Combat Operational Stress Control Conference Starts Tomorrow

Headquarters Marine Corps Combat Operational Stress Control (COSC) Program is pleased to announce the 2008 Marine Corps COSC Conference to be held on August 12-14, 2008 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, CA.

Purpose of the Conference: The purpose of this conference is to bring together subject matter experts and stakeholders in the Marine Corps COSC process, and to present, examine,
and become informed on COSC policies, programs, and practices specifically
tailored to Marines and their families. Topics will be of interest to Marines, leaders, researchers, treatment providers, Family Readiness staff, chaplains and family members. This is a warfighting issue. Representation
from command leadership is essential to improve Corps-wide efforts to
maximize force preservation and readiness. This year our goal is to introduce the new Marine Corps COSC Continuum Model, which emphasizes the importance of leadership roles in promoting wellness, prevention and early identification of combat stress.

Who should attend: The conference is designed to benefit Marines, leaders of Marines, mental health professionals, Family Readiness staff, chaplains, medical providers, policy makers, family members, veterans, and their advocates.

Information about the conference is linked here.

Meeting Needs of Returning War Veterans, Families and Communities - Conference

The Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology has an upcoming conference scheduled on Friday, June 13th, from 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm, entitled "Returning War Veterans: Meeting Health Needs of Veterans, Families and Communities."  The program, which is the 31st Erich Lindemann memorial lecture, will feature a panel discussion, including longtime veterans advocate and VA psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., winner of a MacArthur grant and the author of several important books on understanding the psychology of combat veterans: both Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming.

CE Credits:	2.5 (for Psychologists, Social Workers, Nurses & LMHCs)
Tuition:	$20.00 (for CE Credits) Open to the Professional Community and the Public, No Admission Charge. Pre-registration requested. Call 617-327-6777 x 282 to reserve your seat.
	Speakers: Jaine L. Darwin, Psy.D., Supervising Analyst, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis; Clinical Instructor in Psychology, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Co-Chair, SOFAR Project—Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists Richard T. Moore, M.A., State Senator and Chairman of the Health Care Financing Committee; General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.., Staff Psychiatrist, Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic, Boston; Author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994); and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2000); MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award (2007) Moderator David G. Satin, M.D., DLFAPA, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Chairman, Erich Lindemann Memorial Lecture Committee

The program is sponsored by The Erich Lindemann Memorial Lecture Committee, and The Erich Lindemann Community Mental Health Education Center Initiative of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology in cooperation with The North Suffolk Mental Health Association Board of Directors.

For further information about the program, including registration, click here. To read our previous blog entries about Dr. Shay, click here, here and here.

Mind-Body Medicine Conference - Includes Therapies for PTSD

A conference is planned for October 25-29th in Minneapolis, MN on Mind-Body Medicine, geared towards practitioners -- training the trainers -- around the topic, "Integrating Mind-Body Medicine into Clinical Practice, Medical Education & Trauma Healing."  The conference is sponsored by James S. Gordon, M.D.'s Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C.  The Harvard-trained Gordon is a luminary in the field of mind-body medicine, having authored numerous books on the subject, been featured in Bill Moyer's PBS series, Healing and the Mind, and has been a frequent speaker at the Smithsonian, in their public lecture series.  He is a clinical professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and is the former chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy.  The Center has done significant work with trauma in the Middle East, Kosovo, in Louisiana with victims of Hurricane Katrina, with 9/11 rescue workers, etc. 

The conference information is linked here. Dr. Gordon's bio is linked here.  The Center for Mind-Body Medicine is linked here.

"Hidden Wounds of War" Conference in LA

This weekend, the Soldiers Project holds its "Hidden Wounds of War" conference in LA.  See link for more details.  The theme of the conference is "hidden wounds of war: pathways to healing," and conference speakers will focus on everything from the impact of war on the servicemember and his or her family, to the challenges facing therapists who counsel them.  The speakers will include:

• Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., longtime veterans advocate and VA psychiatrist;
• Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA), chairman of the house Veterans Affairs comittee;
• Harriet Katz Zeiner, PhD - Lead Neuropsychologist, Polytrauma Rehabilitation Unit, VA Palo Alto;
• Jimmy Castellanos - OIF Veteran, student at Claremont McKenna College;
• Paula Domenici, PhD - Deployment Behavioral Psychologist, Center for Deployment Psychology, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda. Co-Author - Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returnng from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families;
• Helena Young, PhD - Clinical PTSD Program Manager, VA Palo Alto; and
• William Saltzman, PhD - Professor, Educational Psychology, Administration & Counseling, California State University Long Beach; Assistant Director, Project Focus Program, UCLA

Editor's note: For a link to the Soldier's Project, click here.

Aspen Institute Forum on PTSD and Iraq Veterans

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, the full program from last fall's Aspen Institute's Health Forum on PTSD and Iraq War Veterans is available on the Web.  The program was entitled, "From the Front Lines: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Legacy of Iraq," and it featured panelists Charles Figley, Ph.D., combat veteran Georg-Andreas Pogany, Jennifer Vasterling, Ph.D., and Barbara Romberg, Ph.D..  Click here for the link to the video, or just watch it below.