Wise Counsel Podcasts

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Richard Shulman, Ph.D. on Volunteers In Psychotherapy". Dr. Van Nuys talks with Dr. Richard Shulman about his non-profit organization Volunteers in Psychotherapy. Volunteers in Psychotherapy provides clients access to truly private psychotherapy free from the influence of managed care or insurance, in exchange for their agreeing to volunteer their time with organizations such as non-profits, and charitable and governmental agencies (including homeless, hospice, hospital, ambulance, and fire services) that benefit the community. Clients must volunteer four hours of their time for every hour of psychotherapy they are eligible to receive. They get a record of their participation and then give a copy of that record to VIP which awards them therapy credits. Patients may then redeem these therapy credits for free or low cost psychotherapy with a network therapist secure that their private business will remain their private business, and free from inappropriate coercion to medicate their problems, or see them as signs of an illness rather than simply a difficult life problem.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Irvin Yalom, MD on Death Anxiety", posted February 15, 2008. Dr. Van Nuys interviews Dr. Irvin Yalom, a psychiatrist and Stanford professor about his new book "Staring At The Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death". This book follows up on a theme previously explored in Yalom's earlier classic work \"Existential Psychotherapy\", namely that death anxiety permeates life and is a cause of many psychological symptoms and conditions, and that confronting one's own personal death can result in symptom reduction and a generally richer and more fulfilling life.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Annie Fox on Parenting 21st Century Teenagers", posted February 1, 2008. Dr. Van Nuys interviews Annie Fox, educator, author and maintainer of several websites aimed at helping teenage children negotiate the difficult transition to adulthood. She has been answering questions from teenagers and parents of teenagers online at her websites, "theinsite.org" and "anniefox.com" since 1996. According to Ms. Fox, the quickened pace, advanced communications technology and media saturation characteristic of the 21st century has resulted in a generation of children who are much more stressed out than prior generations. The level of academic and social performance expected of them has increased, they are encouraged to be sexual at earlier and earlier ages, and they have no regular periods of downtime. As a result, children are more stressed and pressured than ever before. Parents need to respond by becoming more active guides for their children's social and emotional development.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "David H. Barlow, Ph.D. on the Nature and Treatment of Anxiety and Panic Disorders", posted January 15, 2008. Dr. Van Nuys interviews David Barlow, Ph.D. a highly influential clinical psychologist and psychotherapy researcher well known for his seminal work on anxiety and panic disorders. In this interview, Dr. Barlow talks about some of the knowledge that research over the last several decades has taught us about the nature of the anxiety disorders. Among the important insights are these: 1) anxiety and fear are distinct emotions, 2) anxiety and panic are fundamentally distinct though related problems, 3) The older exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders don't work well. What does work well is to work with people's avoidance of their emotions and emotional experiences; not so much their avoidance of situations. One current project Barlow is working on is a unified model for how to do effective therapy with all of the emotional disorders. In order to do this right, it is necessary to cross old boundaries between therapy schools and incorporate behavioral, psychodynamic and humanistic techniques in a systematic fashion. Barlow predicts that in the future the historic distinctions between these schools of psychotherapy will become more or less irrelevant as research based treatments focus on what works, not where it came from.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Richard Heimberg, Ph.D. on Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder Research and Treatment", posted January 1, 2008. Dr. Richard Heimberg is one of the leading scientists in the world currently working on developing effective psychotherapies for anxiety disorders. Recently, he has been conducting research on how to best treat people who have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), a condition characterized by chronic disabling worry over seemingly unimportant life issues. At this time, his research suggests that people with GAD tend to fall into the habit of worrying over little and unimportant life events as a way of distracting themselves from more pressing and serious concerns, much in the way that a student might avoid studying by cleaning her apartment. GAD sufferers get stuck in the cycle of distracting worry and do not easily move on to problem solving. Dr. Heimberg used to study Social Anxiety Disorder, which used to be called Social Phobia. The name was changed so that the word phobia could be reserved for more specific sorts of fears (such as fears of spiders). Social Anxiety Disorder, which is the second most common mental disorder after major depression, involves a more generalized fear of negative evaluation by other people and fear of the resulting feeling of humiliation and embarrassment that would follow being negatively evaluated. Social Anxiety Disorder can get so bad that some people never go on dates despite wanting to, or do not go to school or take jobs that involve social interaction for fear of being rejected. More mild cases of social anxiety disorder also occur when people are afraid of public speaking, but otherwise can function.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Tony Madrid, Ph.D. on the relationship between broken maternal-infant Bonds and asthma", posted December 15, 2007. Dr. Van Nuys interviews Tony Madrid regarding his development of a therapy treatment protocol to help mothers who have not bonded well with their children to develop a stronger bond. There seems to be a relationship between a disrupted maternal infant bond and the prevalence of childhood asthma, and successful strengthening of the maternal infant bond results in a reduction of asthma symptoms, and a general lessening of tension and stress for both mother and child. Treatment consists of work to identify and resolve traumas and emotional problems that have caused a mother to be distant and preoccupied, and to deeply re-imagine a more positive birth scenario where separations do not occur. Hypnosis and EMDR are employed as the main therapies utilized.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)", posted December 1, 2007. Dr. Van Nuys interviews Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., the founder of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy or EMDR. EMDR is a very new form of therapy, dating back only to 1987. It is related to Systematic Desensitization, a technique drawn from behavior therapy, but represents an expansion or evolution of that earlier technique such that EMDR is now a quite distinct therepeutic approach. According to EMDR, emotional problems as well as disturbing beliefs are caused by the activation of old, disturbing memories, and if you can reprocess those memories so as to make them less troubling and disturbing, you will reduce or eliminate the emotional problems and beliefs they cause. Reprocessing of disturbing memories occurs while patients access their memories while engaged in eye-movement and similar reprocessing techniques.

Parental Alientation occurs when one parent manipulates children into believing that the other parent has rejected them and is otherwise no good and should be themselves rejected. Parental Alienation Syndrome is what happens to the children who are subject to this treatment. PAS only applies when there is evidence of parental manipulation and there is no other good reason why a child might reject a parent (e.g., becuase that parent was abusive, etc.). The syndrome was first identified in the 1980s as something that occurred in the context of divorce and custody battles. Dr. Baker suggests that while this classic sort of PAS does occur (e.g., when a narcissistic or otherwise troubled mother in the midst of a divorce turns her children against her former husband), there are also other variants to how PAS may occur. PAS may occur in the midst of an intact but troubled marriage, for instance, and PAS may also be something initiated by fathers against mothers, contrary to the normal stereotype.

One of the things that we have hoped to do in this series from time to time is to get the psychotherapy client's perspective. We have interviewed a number of well-known and highly-respected therapists, counselors, and research academics, representing a wide variety of theoretical perspectives. To balance out the picture, it's also important to hear from client's themselves about both the benefits they have received, as well as the challenges and possible setbacks they faced in their therapeutic journey. Today's interview is with Laris Macpherson, a 36 year old woman from the Netherlands. Laris left home at 16, setting off on what proved to be a rocky road that over the years would include some success as a radio and TV announcer, but also several diagnoses, visits to multiple therapists, an eating disorder, marriage and divorce, and an eventual diagnosis and treatment for ADHD. At his point, she feels better than she ever imagined possible and is planning to study to become a counselor herself.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. on Dialectial Behavior Therapy", posted October 15, 2007. In this interview, Dr. Van Nuys talks with Dr. Marsha Linehan, who is widely known as the founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an empirically validated form of psychotherapy useful for treating people who have borderline personality disorder, suicidal people, and other people who are in severe and chronic psychological pain. DBT represents an integration of two traditions: the behavior and cognitive-behavioral therapy tradition which is focused on developing technologies of change, and the mindfulness tradition that comes out of various spiritual practices including Zen Buddhism and contemplative Christian practices. The main change target of Dialectical Behavior Therapy is to help patients stop engaging in life threatening behaviors. If that goal can be achieved, then the focus of the therapy shifts to work on understanding and altering behaviors that interfere with patients' ability to attend and benefit from therapy. This second focus inevitably calls attention to the quality of the relationship between the patient and the therapist.