Therapy on the Cutting Edge

In this episode, Dossie describes her latest endeavor where she and her colleague have been leading six-week group workshops for survivors of sexual abuse, as well as six-week groups for sexual violence offenders. Among many topics, she discusses the need for broader open communication about sex, consent, and the nuances of working with sexual violence transgressors. Dossie also discusses her work with individuals in open, polyamorous, and BDSM relationships, and the concepts of attachment, consent, communication, and healing aspects of BDSM. ​ Dossie Easton, LMFT is the author of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures, as well as four other books on various aspects of BDSM, sex, and relationships, all co-authored by Janet W. Hardy. Dossie is also a licensed marriage and family therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in working with trauma survivors. She works iwth alternative sexualities and open relationships, and serves the polyamorous, gender-diverse, and LGBTQ communities. She is also a speaker on the topic of cultural competency with couples and individuals in the BDSM community. Recently, she has been running separate six-week groups for survivors, and transgressors of sexual abuse called Navigating Consent: Helping Build a More Consensual Future.

In this episode, Lynn discusses her work with children and families, and how she developed her approach that integrates family systems, hypnosis, and cognitive behavioral therapy. She discusses working with children and adolescents with anxiety, and how she focuses on the pattern, and helping the clients to see how they are "doing the disorder", and interrupt that pattern, as opposed to focusing on the content of the anxiety. She identifies what skills the family is needing, and helps them develop those to not let worry and anxiety run the family. Lynn Lyons, LICSW is a psychotherapist, author, and speaker with a special interest in interrupting the generational patterns of anxiety in families. Lynn is the co-author with Reid Wilson of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents and the companion book for kids Playing with Anxiety: Casey's Guide for Teens and Kids. She is the author of Using Hypnosis with Children: Creating and Delivering Effective Interventions and has two DVD programs for parents and children. Lynn also hosts her own podcast, FlusterClux, where she helps parents and families with anxiety. She is in private practice in Concord, New Hampshire where she sees families, and she speaks regularly to parent groups, schools, and clinicians.

In this episode, Dr. Walser talks about her career and how it lead her to becoming interested in, and becoming a researcher and author in the Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) Approach. Robyn discusses how ACT resonated with her, and how she has gone on to develop the approach in working with clients with PTSD. She discusses the concepts of ACT, gives an example of the "chessboard metaphor", and talks about her current work in the area of moral injury, and discusses her recent publications. Robyn also talks about her application of ACT to couples therapy. Robyn Walser, Ph.D. is Director of TL Consultation Services and co-director of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Center and staff at the National Center for PTSD, Dissemination and Training Division. As a licensed psychologist, she maintains an international training, consulting and therapy practice. She is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has co-authored 6 books on ACT including The Heart of ACT: Developing a Flexible, Process-Based, Client Centered Practice Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and The ACT Workbook for Anger. She also has expertise in traumatic stress and substance abuse and has authored a number of articles, chapters and books on these topics.

In this episode, Jaqueline Persons, Ph.D. discusses conducting research in private practice and contributing to the scientific literature. One important way clinicians can contribute to research is by She explains the importance studying of using data from practice settings to examine the role of cultural and other diversity in the treatment process, as many research studies have a lack of cultural diversity in the populations being studied. Dr. Persons values evidence based treatment and as the director of the Oakland Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center, works with her team to collect data, study the process and research outcome of treatment, and publish their findings in scientific journals. She discusses her career in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and her work around individualizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for clients. Dr. Persons talks about the importance of studying whether the evidence -based practices are fitting for clients of nondominant cultures, and really understanding and connecting with clients to find a treatment that works for them. Jacqueline B. Persons, Ph.D. is the director of the Oakland Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center and works with clients using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Dr. Persons is author of the book, The Case Formulation Approach to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and has published numerous articles and two other books. Additionally, she is the past president of the Association for Behavioral and of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has published a video series through the American Psychological Association in which she and her co-authors teach the basic skills of of clinicians to learn Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Muniya Khanna, Ph.D., discusses the next step in her career, which is helping get the tools of effective treatment into the hands of parents who want to help their children. She discusses her career in treatment and research, working with Martin Seligman, Ph.D. researching Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and her work with Philip Kendall, PhD. researching his CBT treatment for children, Coping Cat. Muniya tells about her interest in technology, and her work with Phil to make a computer program, and now an online program for kids to learn CBT, which is evidence based and used widely in schools and is now available for parents. She also discusses her work with University of Pennsylvania where she was on faculty, and participated in the research related to children and OCD, as well as young children and OCD. She explains that her new passion is in getting the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tools for kids into the hands of parents through writing a book for consumers. She discusses her Worry Workbook, and her upcoming book which discusses five evidence based principals of resiliency that are effective transdiagnostically. Muniya Khanna, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist specializing in CBT for anxiety disorders and OCD. Dr. Khanna is a pioneer in web-based mental health research for anxiety disorders. In partnership with her mentor, Dr. Philip Kendall, she developed and tested Camp Cope-A-Lot, She is currently conducting 2 large-scale clinical trials, funded by NIH and NICHD, focused on the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments for anxiety in urban public schools. Dr. Khanna has authored numerous books and research publications, has been on faculty, is on the review board of journals, and boards of the American Psychological Association. She is Founder and Director of the OCD & Anxiety Institute in Pennsylvania and Research Scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

In this interview, Guy Diamond discusses his personal journal in developing Attachment Based Family Therapy, a proven, effective treatment, that helps adolescents with depression, trauma, suicide, and anxiety, as well as LGBTQ adolescent young adults and their families. Dr. Diamond discusses how, through clinical practice and research, he and his collogues learned to make those profound, heartfelt moments in family therapy happen more often in a more purposeful, and predictable manner, event in a brief treatment model. These healing sessions activate the parents’ natural caregiving instinct, matched with the adolescents’ attachment need, to rebond the parent-child, creates a family safety net. This builds the foundation of trust and connection needed for adolescents to effectively solve problems and overcome life's adversity. Dr. Diamond discusses how this process oriented, emotionally focused, has been manualized and evaluated in several clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Diamond talks about cutting edge treatment development and research with ABFT and adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders. Guy S. Diamond Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Associate Professor at Drexel University in the College of Nursing and Health Professions. At Drexel, he is the Director of the Center for Family Intervention Science (CFIS) and the Director of the Ph.D. program in the Department of Couple and Family Therapy. He has received several federal, state and foundation grants to develop and test this model. Dr. Diamond is the author, with his co-authors, Drs. Gary Diamond and Suzanne Levy, of the book, Attachment-Based Family Therapy for Depressed Adolescents, and continues to develop and implement the ABFT model.

Domestic violence often leads a therapist to determine that couples therapy is "contra-indicated", which may lead to treatment that could be helpful not being utilized. In this interview, John Hamel, PhD, LCSW discusses what the research tells us, and how his entry into the field of working with men who were domestically violent began with a model that was focused on men enforcing a patriarchy on women, but has evolved to consider the many ways that abuse manifests itself, from escalating conflicts fueled by poor impulse control and communication skills, to a pattern of domineering behaviors intended to control the partner, typically involving a personality disorder. John discussed how often men are vilified, and women are identified as helpless "victims", although the problem is much more complex. John explains how working with the couple together, the men individually, or in a group should be assessed, and that actually, working the couple may be a very effective means of repairing the couples' relationship and overcoming violence and anger problems. John Hamel, PhD, LCSW has authored several books on domestic violence including Gender-Including Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse, Family Interventions in Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner and Family Abuse: A Casebook of Gender-Inclusive Therapy, and is currently editing the upcoming book, Beyond the Gender Paradigm: A Legal Primer on Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Approaches to Intimate Partner Violence. John provides therapy, oversees an anger management program, is an expert witness, teacher, and author. He has published numerous books, chapters, and peer reviewed research on the topic of domestic violence. For more information, you can go to his website at: www.johnhamel.net

Psilocybin (or magic mushrooms as it is commonly called) was used and researched in the treatment of mental health disorder extensively in the 50s and 60s, but stopped as the substance became illegal. Today, psilocybin has been named a "breakthrough treatment" by the FDA for the treatment of depression and other mental health disorders and is on track to be legalized for medical use. James Keim, LCSW discussed how psilocybin assisted therapy creates neuroplasticity, and helps clients change their brain. James Keim, LCSW is the founder of Mimosa Technologies, Inc., which uses bioreactors to grow research grade, natural psilocybin, rather than the synthetic psilocybin which is most widespread. He was the clinical director for Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes, the developers of Strategic Family Therapy, has published his work on Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and heads the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy's Oppositional and Conduct Disorder Clinic. James Keim in addition to teaching at the IAP, he also teaches family therapy in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. ​