Wise Counsel Podcasts

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Dr. Van Nuys interviews Bruce Ecker, M.A., L.M.F.T. on Coherence Therapy". For many psychotherapists, the peak of satisfaction occurs during breakthrough sessions in which a client experiences a deeply felt shift and then is free of an entrenched behavioral reaction, a mood problem, an attachment pattern, an emotional wound or obsessive cognitions. However, the alchemy that produces such a fundamental shift has been something of a mystery, so they come unpredictably, typically after many months or years of sessions with a client. The guiding principle of Coherence Therapy is that an individual's symptom, normally regarded as pathology or disorder, is actually the sensible expression of an adaptive, unconscious emotional schema learned earlier in life. On an emotional level, symptoms make deep sense. By offering clinicians a clear, explicit map of how profound change occurs, Coherence Therapy helps catalyze the therapeutic process so that genuine client breakthroughs become a more regular and predictable therapeutic outcome.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Dr. Van Nuys interviews Ilan Meyer, Ph.D. on Minority Mental Health". In this Wise Counsel Interview, Dr. Ilan Meyer, Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, talks about his research on the effects of stress on the mental health of minority populations. For the past 10 years Dr. Meyer has studied public health issues related to minority health. His areas of research include stress and illness in minority populations, in particular the relationship of minority status, minority identity, prejudices and discrimination, and mental health outcomes in sexual minorities, and the intersection of minority stressors related to sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and gender.

In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Peter R. Breggin M.D., a Psychiatrist and a well known critic of what he calls the Psychopharmaceutical Complex. This phrase is a a play on American President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous phrase, Military-Industrial Complex, taken from his farewell address. Just as Eisenhower warned Americans that their government was in danger of being corrupted by the crushing wealth and influence of military defense contractors, Dr. Breggin has spent his career warning us of the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry which, he believes, has twisted the field of psychiatry and public perceptions of mental health to better serve their economic purposes, much to the detriment of the public's mental health. Dr. Breggin describes examples of drug company's corrupting influence and of psychiatry's capitulation to the drug companies.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Dr. Van Nuys interviews David Wallin, Ph.D. on Attachment in Psychotherapy". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews David Wallin, Ph.D. on Attachment in Psychotherapy. Dr. Wallin describes the history of Attachment Theory, as developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, and then later by Mary Main and Peter Fonagy. Attachment refers to the character of the early parent-child relationship from the perspective of the child. In addition to secure attachment (a 'best' outcome), where a child feels secure enough with the parent to be able to balance affiliation with exploration, there are also two 'second best' outcomes, avoidant, and ambivalent in which children choose exploration over affiliation, or vice versa, respectively, and a fourth and least optimal 'disorganized' solution. Implications of childhood attachment style for psychotherapy are discussed.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Dr. Van Nuys interviews Keith Sutton, Psy.D. on Oppositional Defiant Disorder". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Keith Sutton, Psy.D. on Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Dr. Sutton is a California Bay Area based Psychologist who has specialized in family therapy through his private practice partnership with Jim Keim, LCSW (a student of Jay Haley, one of the founders of modern family therapy). Dr. Sutton notes that late childhood is all about individuation, and that some level defiance at this age is age appropriate. The diagnosis of ODD occurs when normal defiance takes on an extreme character resulting in children having problems functioning at home or at school. ODD is about children's need for limit-setting. As children become more anxious about not having limits set upon them appropriate to their needs, they become more likely to act out. Dr. Sutton describes his approach to treating ODD, which involves family and individual meetings, observation of family interactions, parental education and respite, a non-blaming systemic treatment formulation, and an eclectic array of possible interventions, offered with the understanding that several will likely need to be tried as there is no single intervention that always works.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Dr. Van Nuys interviews Kristin Celello, Ph.D. on the History of Marriage in 20th Century America.". Kristin Celello, Ph.D., an historian, is the author of the book, "Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States". The main idea of the book is that public attitudes towards marriage changed radically across the 20th Century, starting at a position best described as "duty", and ultimately arriving at a position best described as "work". This is to say, in the early years of the 20th Century, people endured marriages when they didn't work well there was no marriage counseling and few remedies such as easy access to divorce. By the end of the 20th Century, attitudes towards marriage had shifted from thinking of marriage as something static and relatively unchangeable which needed to be endured to something you needed to work at actively a process that required your focused attention in order to keep it functioning well, and which was capable of being nurtured into better health if it was ailing.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Lorna Smith Benjamin, Ph.D. on SASB and the Structure and Treatment of Personality Disorders". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Lorna Smith Benjamin on SASB and the Structure and Treatment of Personality Disorders. Dr. Benjamin, a psychologist, is the inventor of SASB or Structural Analysis of Social Behavior which is a formal and rigorous coding system for capturing the specific character and nature of a person's interpersonal interactions. Though SASB was originally developed as a way of understanding the social behaviors of monkeys in a laboratory setting, Dr. Benjamin realized many years ago that it would provide an excellent basis for studying personality disorders and helping to identify ways that these complicated and by their nature very social problems could be effectively treated with psychotherapy. For approximately the past 30 years she has rather tirelessly worked to do that, most recently through her development of Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy (IRT).

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ed.D. "Rebecca LaFountain, Ed.D. on Adlerian Psychotherapy". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Rebecca LaFountain, Ed.D. on the topic of Adlerian Psychotherapy. Adlerian psychotherapy is based on the work of Alfred Adler, who is best known as an early disciple of Sigmund Freud who broke away to pursue his own independent line of psychotherapy. Adler is the originator of many psychological concepts that remain popular today, including the the idea that birth order is an important determinant of personality, and the "inferiority complex", although they are not always tightly identified as originating with Adler. Dr. LaFountain reviews Adler's contributions and clarifies frequently misunderstood concepts. As presented by Dr. LaFountain, Adler was a man "ahead of his time" who anticipated hugely popular later developments in psychotherapy including positive psychology, family systems and humanistic person-centered therapy.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Steven Philipson, Ph.D. on Treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Steven Philipson, Ph.D. on the nature and treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD, an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessions (unwanted thoughts accompanied by anxiety) and compulsions (actions carried out in order to neutralize anxiety). Dr. Philipson stresses that there is no thought disorder in ODC and that it is thus not useful to help people to become more rational about their obsessions. Instead, he advocates behaviorally-based exposure therapy treatment which helps people to gradually expose themselves to increasing levels of anxiety so as to unlearn the anxious association in a non-verbal manner. Dr. Philipson has helped popularize the term Pure O which refers to ODC patients whose obsessions and rituals are not easily observable and the interview goes over this concept in some detail.

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "William Robiner, Ph.D. on prescription privileges for psychologists". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews William Robiner, Ph.D., ABPP, on the topic of prescription privileges for psychologists.