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Experience Flash and learn how it can be a powerful addition to your couples and family therapy toolbox!
Presenters: David Bullard, Ph.D., and Celeste Himanek, MA, LPC, NCCMHC, PhD ABD
David will be giving the Dharma Talk at Jikoji Zen Center on Sunday, January 14th. You may register for the in-person event, or join online via Zoom.
The first hour will be a demonstration of, and the opportunity to directly experience, an adaptation of the Flash Technique, which reduces or eliminates the impact of a previously traumatic and disturbing memory without having to directly confront the disturbing memory itself.
No personal sharing of trauma memories will be required.
No previous experience with or knowledge of EMDR or other trauma-informed therapies will be required.
In the second (optional) hour, we will discuss emerging research and clinical data representing this New Paradigm for treating and healing traumatic and disturbing memories.
For palliative care providers and all others interested in healing.
Geshe Pema Dorjee will be arriving direct from Delhi, India to meet with us to reflect upon the issues that arise for palliative healthcare providers who are with people - often suffering - at the end of life.
Free to the UCSF community.
Livestream Webinar - Recording available to registrants for 30 days
Geshe Pema Dorjee was born in Tibet in 1951 and escaped to India with his family in 1959. He attended the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India where he earned degrees in both Prajnaparamitra and Madhyamika. He became a teacher, and eventually the Director of the Tibetan Children’s Village School in Dharamsala, where he served for over twenty years, helping to recreate and preserve the Tibetan culture and education system for Tibetan children in exile. In 1995 he was awarded the Geshe degree from the Drepung Loseling monastery in South India and became the first Principal of the College for Higher Tibetan Studies. In 2001, His Holiness the Dalai Lama asked Geshe-la to revive and promote the Bodong tradition, and with aid from His Holiness, became the founder and Director of the Bodong Research and Publication Center. The Tibetan government in exile appointed him to the Higher Level Textbook Review Committee as well as spiritual counselor to former political prisoners who had been tortured. In addition to his many charitable projects in Nepal and northeast India, Geshe Pema Dorjee has taught and lectured about Tibetan Buddhism around the world and speaks English fluently.
$50 Registration with access to recording for 60 days
$75 with 3 CE Credits for live Zoom attendance
$75 with 1 month Private Group Consultation
$100 with 3 CE Credits & 1 month Private Group Consultation
This three-hour webinar will help Flash-trained therapists to incorporate Flash into their Couples and Family Therapy sessions. For those therapists not yet trained in Flash, this is your chance to learn about this exciting new technique.
This seminar will be helpful both to those who have taken Manfield and Engel's 6-hour Introduction to the Flash Technique and the Advanced Courses (see Flashtechnique.com) and is also relevant for therapists who are curious about Flash but have not yet been trained in this new therapeutic technique.
In Couples and Family Therapy, we usually deal with disturbing incidents experienced in the relationship, and often uncover earlier interpersonal traumas that may get triggered by current relationship dynamics.
Recent research into therapy outcomes in trauma and PTSD shows promising results from including partners and family members into therapy. However, the current treatment paradigm for trauma-focused therapies assumes that conscious exposure to the memory, even if titrated in small doses, is necessary. While effective in some cases, such exposure therapy can be distressing, which creates problems with treatment acceptance and has potential for re-traumatization. Recent large-scale data from electronic medical records research from over 265,000 PTSD-diagnosed veterans (Maguen et al, 2023) has shown only modest symptom improvement from current exposure-based trauma-informed therapies, and they found these therapies were completed by only 10% of veterans eligible.
Recent research and clinical data point to a New Paradigm: healing with minimal exposure using Manfield's Flash Technique (FT). FT has been found to be effective, rapid, and has been found to be preferred by clients over exposure-based trauma therapies. Over 13,000 trauma-informed therapists have been trained in FT over the past 6 years, with 12 peer-reviewed articles describing rapid and effective healing from disturbing memories and fear, and more are underway.
Celeste and David have extensive backgrounds in couples and family therapy, and each has trained in and utilized FT from its very beginning six years ago. They have also participated in a Special Interest Group at the First Annual International Flash Technique Conference in October 2022, and have met monthly with colleagues exploring the topic of Flash with Couples and Families. They are eager to show you how powerful and healing this technique can be when integrated into work with couples and families.
Celeste Eckman Himanek, MA, LPC, NCCMHC, PHD ABD is a Licensed Professional Counselor, speaker, consultant, and author who is passionate about helping people change their lives. An empathic therapist and enthusiastic educator, Celeste uses EMDR to help people move from trauma to transformation. Having worked with hundreds of individuals, groups, and families in agencies, private practice, hospitals, schools, and universities and with over 17 years of practice, she finds the Flash Technique an exciting addition to her work. Celeste loves working with clients at her new healing space in Southern Oregon where she offers Intensive Trauma-focused Retreats.
David Bullard, PhD, SEP's trauma therapy background includes advanced EMDR trainings over the past 25 years, he is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and has been teaching an adaptation of the Flash Technique for the past six years. With a background in many modalities of couples therapy together with Buddhist concepts, he has been also taught by the couples and families themselves that he has known in over 45 years of private practice. Incorporating FT into his work with individuals, couples and families has been a game-changer.
For clinicians and researchers interested in trauma, resilience and posttraumatic growth, and the neuroscience of a new paradigm for reducing fear and healing disturbing memories
Shira Maguen, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco Veterans Administration Health Care System
Paul Siegel, PhD
Purchase College, SUNY
University of Southern California
David Bullard, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
With commentary by
Mark Solms, PhD
University of Cape Town
International Neuropsychoanalysis Society
We may all experience feelings of stress, pain and even fear at various times in our lives. The memories of these feelings can remain disturbing over time, despite our attempts to change them through distraction, meditation, spirituality or even psychotherapy. A major life challenge is to be able to process memories of trauma experiences into resilience, compassion and wisdom.
The current treatment paradigm for trauma-focused therapies assumes that conscious exposure to the memory, even if titrated in small doses, is necessary.
While effective in some cases, such exposure therapy can be distressing, which creates problems with treatment acceptance and has potential for re-traumatization. Can exposure be effectively delivered unconsciously—and thus without causing traumatized or phobic people to experience distress?
In this 90-minute presentation, neuroscientists and psychotherapists studying and treating psychological trauma, PTSD, and phobias will discuss the current efficacy of conventionally recommended "Evidence-Based Psychotherapies" (EBP's) for trauma and PTSD.
Then a discussion of research and clinical data representing a New Paradigm will point toward the neurobiological underpinnings of trauma and its healing, shedding additional light on consciousness and resilience.
UCSF Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Mental Health Director of the Post-9/11 Integrated Care Clinic and Staff Psychologist on the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team (PCT), San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS). Member, Creating Options for Veterans’ Expedited Recovery Commissio (COVER).
Dr. Maguen will discuss her research on PTSD evidence-based psychotherapy and moral injury in Veterans. Dr. Maguen was the recipient of a DOD grant that examined rates of evidence-based psychotherapy as well as a VA Health Services Research and Development Grant that examined the impact of killing in veterans of war and moral injury. She is currently conducting a multi-site trial examining a novel treatment for veterans who have killed in war. She also works in a clinical capacity within the Post-9/11 Integrated Care Clinic and treating veterans with evidence-based treatments for PTSD. She supervises research health fellows and other trainees in evidence-based treatments for PTSD, and provides mentorship for trauma-focused research fellows.
Recent publications:
Maguen, S., Holder, N., Madden, E., Li, Y., Seal, K. H., Neylan, T. C., Lujan, C., Patterson, O. V., DuVall, S. L., & Shiner, B. (2020). Evidence-based psychotherapy trends among posttraumatic stress disorder patients in a national healthcare system, 2001-2014. Depression and anxiety, 37(4), 356–364. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22983
Maguen, S., Madden E, Holder N, Li Y, Seal KH, Neylan TC, Lujan C, Patterson OV, DuVall SL, Shiner B.(2021). Effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of evidence-based psychotherapies for posttraumatic stress disorder in clinical practice.Psychol Med. 2021 May 18:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0033291721001628. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34001290
Maguen, S., Holder N, Li Y, Madden E, Neylan TC, Seal KH, Lujan C, Patterson OV, DuVall SL, Shiner B. (2020). Factors associated with PTSD symptom improvement among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving evidenced-based psychotherapy. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2020 Aug 1;273:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.04.039. Epub 2020 May 1. PMID: 32421589
Maguen, S., Nichter, B., Norman, S.B., Pietrzak, R.H. (2021). Moral injury and substance use disorders among US combat veterans: results from the 2019–2020 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study. Psychological Medicine. DOI: 10.1017/S0033291721002919
Professor, Purchase College, SUNY, and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, USC, on his research published in Biological Psychiatry (in press, 2022), Behaviour Research and Therapy (2021), Lancet: Psychiatry (2020), Human Brain Mapping (2017), Psychophysiology (2017), etc. on “Very Brief Exposure”....fMRI studies showing greater reduction of fear from subliminal flashing of a photo of a tarantula than from exposure to a "recognizable" photo. Collaborator with Dr. Siegel is Bradley S. Peterson, MD at USC (Chief, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Keck School of Medicine of USC; Vice Chair for Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC).
"My translational research program is testing a clinical implication of emotional neuroscience, which has shown that fear responses can be activated and acquired without conscious awareness. Very brief exposure (VBE) is the presentation of a continuous series of masked – unrecognizable - phobic images to reduce fear. A series of experiments conducted in my lab have shown that VBE reduces avoidance and experienced fear of a live tarantula by spider-phobic participants without causing them to experience fear consciously. A recent study found that VBE has similar fear-reducing effects on highly socially anxious persons. These findings challenge the prevailing clinical belief that a person must directly confront a feared object or situation in order to reduce fear of it.
“With the support of an R21 Research Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, I am conducting fMRI studies of the neurobiological basis of VBE. My collaborator on this research is Dr. Bradley Peterson, Director of the Institute for the Developing Mind, and Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California."
Recent publication:
Siegel, P., Cohen, B., Warren, R. (2021). Nothing to fear but fear itself: A mechanistic test of unconscious exposure. Biological Psychiatry, Archival Report Vol 91 Issue 3, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.08.022
UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine - Volunteer
UCSF Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Volunteer
Weill Institute for Neurosciences.
Consultant, Symptom Management Service
UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine
President, San Francisco Psychological Association
Past Mentor, Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research
California Institute of Integral Studies
Dr. Bullard will discuss his clinical experiences and that of over 14,000 trauma-informed therapists who have trained in Manfield’s Flash Technique over the past 6 years. There are now 10 peer-reviewed articles on this new paradigm for healing from disturbing memories and fear.
Recent publications:
Manfield, P., Engel, L., Greenwald, R., & Bullard, D.G. (2021) Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19 related stress in healthcare providers. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research. Vol 15, Issue 2, DOI: 10.1891/EMDR-D-20-00053.
Schore, A.N. & Bullard, D.G. (2019). Allan Schore on the science of the art of psychotherapy: Interview. In Schore, A.N., Right brain psychotherapy. New York: Norton.
Chair of Neuropsychology, University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology).
President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association.
Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Dr. Solms founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and was a Founding Editor (with Ed Nersessian) of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, Trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London, and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Trust in Cape Town.
Recent publications:
Solms, M. (2021). The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. W. W. Norton & Company.
Sponsor:
UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience
Co-sponsors:
UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-informed Health Care
UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine
UCSF Psycho-Oncology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
San Francisco Psychological Association
San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group
Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research
California Institute of Integral Studies
Bayview Zendo (San Rafael, CA)
Foundation of the Sacred Stream (Berkeley, CA)
TibetHouse.US (NYC, NY)
We may all experience feelings of stress, pain and even fear at various times in our lives. The memories of these feelings can remain disturbing over time, despite our attempts to change them through distraction, meditation, spirituality or even psychotherapy. A major life challenge is to be able to process memories of trauma experiences into resilience, compassion and wisdom.
The current treatment paradigm for trauma-focused therapies assumes that conscious exposure to the memory, even if titrated in small doses, is necessary.
While effective, such exposure therapy can be distressing, which creates problems with treatment acceptance and has potential for retraumatization. Can exposure be effectively delivered unconsciously—and thus without causing traumatized or phobic people to experience distress?
In this 90-minute presentation, neuroscientists and psychotherapists studying and treating psychological trauma, PTSD and phobias will discuss a NEW PARADIGM for understanding the nature of trauma and its healing, with presentations on Very Brief Exposure and the Flash Technique, shedding additional light on consciousness and resilience.
At the end of the program, interested registrants will be directed to a website for a free 45-minute "practicum" in which they can personally (and privately) experience the Flash Technique.
Welcome and Introduction:
David Bullard, PhD
UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine - Volunteer and Clinical Professor – Volunteer, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Mentor, Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, California Institute of Integral Studies. President-Elect, San Francisco Psychological Association
Presenters:
Paul Siegel, PhD – Associate Professor SUNY, Purchase and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, USC, on his research published in Biological Psychiatry (in press, 2022), Behaviour Research and Therapy (2021), Lancet: Psychiatry (2020), Human Brain Mapping (2017), Psychophysiology (2017), etc. on “Very Brief Exposure”....fMRI studies showing greater reduction of fear from subliminal flashing of a photo of a tarantula than from exposure to a "recognizable" photo. Collaborator with Dr. Siegel is Bradley S. Peterson, MD at USC (Chief, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Keck School of Medicine of USC; Vice Chair for Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC).
Paul Siegel, PhD: "My translational research program is testing a clinical implication of emotional neuroscience, which has shown that fear responses can be activated and acquired without conscious awareness. Very brief exposure (VBE) is the presentation of a continuous series of masked – unrecognizable - phobic images to reduce fear. A series of experiments conducted in my lab have shown that VBE reduces avoidance and experienced fear of a live tarantula by spider-phobic participants without causing them to experience fear consciously. A recent study found that VBE has similar fear-reducing effects on highly socially anxious persons. These findings challenge the prevailing clinical belief that a person must directly confront a feared object or situation in order to reduce fear of it.
“With the support of an R21 Research Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, I am conducting fMRI studies of the neurobiological basis of VBE. My collaborator on this research is Dr. Bradley Peterson, Director of the Institute for the Developing Mind, and Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.”
Recent article:
Siegel, P., Cohen, B., Warren, R. (2021). Nothing to fear but fear itself: A mechanistic test of unconscious exposure. Biological Psychiatry, Archival Report Vol 91 Issue 3, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.08.022
Phil Manfield, PhD – EMDRIA-Approved EMDR Training Provider and Consultant
Developer of the Flash Technique, a non-exposure-based scalable, low-intensity treatment in which over 9,000 EMDR therapists have been trained, with 8 peer-reviewed articles to date.
In contrast to other psychological treatments for trauma (such as EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, Trauma Focused-CBT, Somatic Experiencing, Emotional Freedom Technique, etc.) the Flash Technique INVOLVES LITTLE TO NO CONSCIOUS EXPOSURE to traumatic or disturbing memories. This paradigm shift reduces the risk of re-traumatization to nearly zero.
Dr. Manfield has been licensed as a marriage and family therapist since 1975. He has authored or edited five books about psychotherapy and the use of EMDR. An international trainer, he has taught in the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. In January, 2001, he was honored to be featured in the book, “3 Minute Consultations with America’s Greatest Psychotherapists.” (Jason Aronson, Publishers) He is currently Northern California Regional Coordinator for the EMDR International Association. Recent article:
Manfield, P., Engel, L., Greenwald, R., & Bullard, D. (May, 2021). Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19-related stress in healthcare providers. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research Vol 15 Issue 2, DOI: 10.1891/EMDR-D-20-00053
Shira Maguin, PhD – UCSF Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Mental Health Director of the Post-9/11 Integrated Care Clinic and Staff Psychologist on the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team (PCT), San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS). Member, Creating Options for Veterans’ Expedited Recovery (COVER).
Dr. Maguen will discuss her research on PTSD evidence-based psychotherapy and moral injury in Veterans. Dr. Maguen was the recipient of a DOD grant that examined rates of evidence-based psychotherapy as well as a VA Health Services Research and Development Grant that examined the impact of killing in veterans of war and moral injury. She is currently conducting a multi-site trial examining a novel treatment for veterans who have killed in war. Recent articles:
Maguen, S., Holder, N., Madden, E., Li, Y., Seal, K. H., Neylan, T. C., Lujan, C., Patterson, O. V., DuVall, S. L., & Shiner, B. (2020). Evidence-based psychotherapy trends among posttraumatic stress disorder patients in a national healthcare system, 2001-2014. Depression and anxiety, 37(4), 356–364. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22983
Maguen S, Madden E, Holder N, Li Y, Seal KH, Neylan TC, Lujan C, Patterson OV, DuVall SL, Shiner B.(2021). Effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of evidence-based psychotherapies for posttraumatic stress disorder in clinical practice. Psychol Med. 2021 May 18:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0033291721001628. Online ahead of print.PMID: 34001290
Maguen S, Holder N, Li Y, Madden E, Neylan TC, Seal KH, Lujan C, Patterson OV, DuVall SL, Shiner B. (2020). Factors associated with PTSD symptom improvement among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving evidenced-based psychotherapy. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2020 Aug 1;273:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.04.039. Epub 2020 May 1.PMID: 32421589
Maguen, S., Nichter, B., Norman, S.B., Pietrzak, R.H. (2021).
Moral injury and substance use disorders among US combat veterans: results from the 2019–2020 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study. Psychological Medicine. DOI: 10.1017/S0033291721002919
Discussants
Sarah Metz, PsyD
UCSF Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Director, Division of Trauma Recovery Services and Chief Psychologist, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital
Pratik Mukerjee, MD, PhD
UCSF Professor, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Bioengineering. Director, UCSF Neural Connectivity Laboratory (NCL) and Attending Neuroradiologist. Director, Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Disease (CIND) San Francisco VA Medical Center.
George Silberschatz, PhD
UCSF Clinical Professor - Volunteer, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences. President, San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. Past President, North American chapter and Past President, International Society for Psychotherapy Research
Sponsor:
UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience
Co-sponsors:
UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-informed Health Care
UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine
UCSF Psycho-Oncology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
UCSF Spiritual Care Services, UCSF Health
Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco Psychological Association
San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group
TibetHouseUS (NYC)
Bayview Zendo (San Rafael)
KUNDE Institute: Center for Tibetan Wellness and Healing (Daly City; Berkeley)
Part of the 37th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies: “Trauma in Context: Moving Beyond the Individual”
Much of the world's most vulnerable populations are facing both immense human suffering as a result of war and dislocation, and as the result of the global pandemic. In this panel, we will present new research findings from the presenters addressing: 1) the prevalence of traumatology in Syrian children and RCT findings regarding the positive impact of expressive arts therapies; 2) the prevalence of traumatology in Syrian women refugees in Jordan, and data about the positive impact of social support from peers (even beyond that of spouses); 3) the impact of secondary/vicarious trauma on helpers such as healthcare providers dealing with patients traumatized by war and by COVID-19, with results of a brief, scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19 related stress in healthcare providers (Manfield, et al., 2021. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, Vol 15 No 2); 4) and research on increases in health care providers' compassion and effectiveness with patients with trauma-informed health care education. Discussion will highlight similarities in both trauma and healing contexts in war and the COVID-19 pandemic and recommendations for future research and practice.
Presenters:
David G. Bullard, PhD – Volunteer Clinical Professor; Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco
Khalid Kheirallah, PhD – Medical School of Jordan University of Science and Technology
Sara Al-Zureikat, MD, MPH – Medical School of Jordan University of Science and Technology
Edward Machtinger, MD - Professor of Medicine, Director of the Women’s HIV Program (WHP), and Director of the Center to Advance Trauma-informed Health Care (CTHC), University of California, San Francisco
Learning objectives:
Describe two creative art therapies that lessened PTSD in Syrian children refugees living in Jordan
Describe the most powerful social relationship that helped mitigate suffering among Syrian women refugees living in Jordan who had been traumatized by war
Describe a commonality among health care providers working with both refugees traumatized by war and COVID-19 patients
Anxiety. Fear. Guilt. Regret. Anguish. Jealousy. Disgust. Humiliation. Panic.
Life makes us all susceptible at times to these stressful and painful feeling states. But often they are experienced as memories of suffering and trauma.
These memories can afflict us long after the initial wounding, despite our attempts to change them through distraction, mindfulness and meditation, spirituality, or psychotherapy.
In this two-hour presentation, we will discuss new tools in our trauma toolkit emerging from evolving understanding of the nature of trauma, relevant memory reconsolidation and other neuroscience research, Buddhist and psychedelic awareness.
Included will be demonstrations of and opportunities to directly experience an adaptation of the Flash Technique®, which reduces or eliminates the impact of previously traumatic and disturbing memories, and has been taught internationally in the past three years by Phillip Manfield, PhD and Lewis Engel, PhD to over 8,000 EMDR trauma therapists.
No personal sharing of trauma memories will be required.
And NO previous experience with or knowledge of EMDR or other trauma-informed therapies will be required.
In contrast to other psychological treatments for trauma, this adaptation of the Flash Technique® involves no conscious re-exposure to traumatic memories. This shift greatly reduces the risk of re-traumatization.
Two recent peer-reviewed articles on Flash Technique® are:
Manfield, Engel, Greenwald & Bullard (May, 2021). Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19-related stress in healthcare providers. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research Vol 15 Issue 2, DOI: 10.1891/EMDR-D-21-00048
Wong (August, 2021). A Model for the Flash Technique Based on Working Memory and Neuroscience Research. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research Vol 15 Issue 3, DOI: 10.1891/EMDR-D-20-00053..
Presenter:
David Bullard, PhD is a licensed psychologist and marriage and family therapist in private practice in San Francisco. He is UCSF clinical professor in the departments of medicine at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. He also has served as a mentor in the center for psychedelic therapies and research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
David's trauma therapy background includes advanced EMDR training, he is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner®, and has been teaching an adaptation of the Flash Technique® for the past three years.
David presented these topics live onsite at TibetHouse US in New York City on February 29, 2020.
"I have had the pleasure of knowing David for several years and admire his ability to bring kindness and humor into his interaction with others with such ease. He is most known for his work with trauma and relationships, where, in addition to his professional expertise as a clinical psychologist, he also brings important Buddhist insights as part of his therapeutic approach. I recommend him as a caring and entertaining teacher."
- Thupten Jinpa, PhD, principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama since 1985, founder and chairman of the Compassion Institute and author of A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives (2015)
“I have attended David’s previous presentations about the newest and absolutely the most interesting and powerful direction of the treatment of trauma. It will change how you view trauma treatment and possibilities for healing. Highly recommended.” - Nancy Haugen, PhD, associate clinical professor, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Chairperson for disaster mental health for Marin County Psychological Association.
Information on Optional Continuing Education Credit for Health Professionals
• 2 CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSWs, MFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California.
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact David Bullard, PhD at david@drbullard.com. For questions about CE, visit www.spiritualcompetency.com or contact David Lukoff, PhD at CE@spiritualcompetency .com.
The filing fee for CE's for this program is included in the prices as noted above.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the program, participants will be better able to…
* Describe the perceptual error of a disturbing memory
* Demonstrate a short visualization that will diminish sensory, emotional and cognitive disturbances of a difficult memory
Saturday, June 5, 2021; 10:00am to 12:00noon
Online Zoom webinar link provided the evening before the event to those registered
THOSE WISHING 2 CE CREDITS MUST SIGN IN AND OUT AT START AND ENDING BY EMAIL.
INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE EMAILED TO ALL REGISTRANTS INCLUDING THOSE SELECTING CE OPTION ON FRIDAY EVENING AND AGAIN SATURDAY MORNING.
Anxiety. Fear. Guilt. Regret. Anguish. Jealousy. Disgust. Humiliation.
Life makes us all susceptible to these stressful and painful feeling states. But primarily they are experienced as memories of suffering and trauma – either which we have experienced directly or vicariously from the pain of others.
These memories can afflict us long after the initial wounding, despite our attempts to change them into resilience, compassion, and wisdom through mindfulness and meditation, spirituality, psychotherapy, or distraction.
In this two-hour presentation, we will discuss a few new tools in our trauma toolkit emerging from evolving understanding of the nature of trauma; relevant memory reconsolidation and other neuroscience research; Buddhist and psychedelic awareness; together with demonstrations of and opportunities to experience an adaptation of the Flash Technique® which reduces or eliminates the impact of previously traumatic and disturbing memories, and has been taught internationally in the past three years by Phillip Manfield, Ph.D. and Lewis Engel, Ph.D. to over 7,000 EMDR trauma therapists.
In contrast to other psychological treatments for trauma (such as EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, Trauma Focused-CBT, Somatic Experiencing®, Emotional Freedom Technique, etc.) the Flash Technique® INVOLVES NO CONSCIOUS EXPOSURE to traumatic or disturbing memories. This paradigm shift reduces the risk of re-traumatization to nearly zero.
The latest peer-reviewed article on Flash Technique has just been published:
Manfield, Engel, Greenwald & Bullard (May, 2021). Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19-related stress in healthcare providers. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research Vol 15 Issue 2, DOI: 10.1891/EMDR-D-20-00053
No previous experience with or knowledge of EMDR or other direct trauma-informed therapies will be required for this presentation.
Presenter:
David Bullard, PhD is a licensed psychologist and marriage and family therapist in private practice in San Francisco. At UCSF, he is clinical professor in medicine and in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Weill Institute for Neurosciences; and at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He also has served as a mentor in the center for psychedelic therapies and research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
David's trauma therapy background includes advanced EMDR training, he is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner®, and he has been exploring the Flash Technique® for the past three years.
David presented these topics live onsite at TibetHouse.US in New York City on February 29, 2020.
"I have had the pleasure of knowing David for several years and admire his ability to bring kindness and humor into his interaction with others with such ease. He is most known for his work with trauma and relationships, where, in addition to his professional expertise as a clinical psychologist, he also brings important Buddhist insights as part of his therapeutic approach. I recommend him as a caring and entertaining teacher." - Thupten Jinpa, PhD, principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama since 1985, founder and chairman of the Compassion Institute and author of A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives (2015).
Saturday, June 5, 10am-12noon
Registration Fee: $60 ($50 with SFPA membership discount)
Registration with 2 CE credits: $85 ($70 with SFPA membership discount)
Information on Optional Continuing Education Credit for Health Professionals
2 CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain this document for 4 years after the course concludes.
SCA is an approved CE provider for National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coaches (CEP Number 100196)
• For questions about enrolling in CE or receiving your Certificate of Attendance,
contact David Bullard, PhD at david@drbullard.com
For other questions about CE contact David Lukoff, PhD at
CE@spiritualcompetency.com .
The filing fee for CE's for this program is included in the prices as noted above.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the program, participants will be better able to…
* Describe the perceptual error of a disturbing memory
* Demonstrate a short visualization that will diminish sensory, emotional and cognitive disturbances of a difficult memory
Saturday, June 5, 2021; 10:00am to 12:00noon
Online Zoom webinar link provided the evening before the event to those registered
THOSE WISHING 2 CE CREDITS MUST SIGN IN AND OUT AT ABOVE TIMES BY EMAIL.
INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE PROVIDED TO ALL SELECTING CE OPTION.
Serving and bearing witness to those suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually, healthcare personnel can be left with vicarious and secondary trauma from distressing memories. This has been described as "Critical Incident Stress Syndrome." We will address these issues with some exciting new developments in the field of trauma therapy, modified into an easy, rapid visualization exercise: Blink-Flash Meditation®.
Since 2017, over 7,000 EMDR-trained psychotherapists from over 30 countries have attended a daylong workshop or webinar to learn of a recent advance in trauma treatment: the Flash Technique®, developed over the past year by senior EMDR trainer Phil Manfield, Ph.D. with Lewis Engel, Ph.D.
In contrast to other psychological treatments for trauma (such as EMDR, Prolonged Exposure Therapy; Critical Incident Stress Debriefing; Trauma Focused-CBT; Somatic Experiencing®, Emotional Freedom Technique, etc.) the Flash Technique® INVOLVES NO CONSCIOUS EXPOSURE to traumatic or disturbing memories. This paradigm shift reduces the risk of re-traumatization to nearly zero.
Derived from Manfield and Engel's technique for EMDR-trained therapists, Blink-Flash Meditation® is offered as a self-administered visualization technique to help psychotherapists and other health care personnel when they have disturbing memories, either from their own personal history or after exposure to significant medical, emotional and spiritual suffering in patients and their loved ones. A short and simple visualization, it can rapidly reduce vicarious trauma and can promote and integrate resilience.
This approach has been demonstrated to psychologists, social workers, other mental health professionals, and to physicians, nurses and chaplains in oncology, palliative care, hospice and ICU and ER staff at UCSF and Kaiser San Rafael. We have also hosted meetings demonstrating the Flash Technique® for researchers and clinicians from the VAMCSF, UCSF, ZSFGH Trauma Center, and to senior Zen, Tibetan Buddhist and Insight Meditation teachers.
In this two-hour presentation, we will hear clinical case examples with audio and video recordings, and will discuss theoretical issues in the nature of trauma, memory re-consolidation and subliminal perception research, together with how Buddhism and psychedelic awarenesses help us understand consciousness and resilience
This same program was presented at TibetHouse.US in New York City on February 29,2020.
Most importantly, participants will have an opportunity to DIRECTLY EXPERIENCE Blink-Flash Meditation® and subjectively feel changes in participants' own disturbing memories (of any kind. Contents of such memories do not need to be revealed or discussed by participants).
("Money-back guarantee" for any participant who does not find this seminar engaging, powerfully useful in their clinical practice and personal life, and intriguing for what it can demonstrate about consciousness and memory.)
Optional 2 CE credits, fee $25, for psychologists and others as noted below are provided by the Spiritual Competency Resource Center (SCRC) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content. SCRC is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association. For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Bullard Psychology Consultants at david@drbullard.com. For questions about CE, visit www.spiritualcompetency.com or contact David Lukoff, PhD at CE@spiritualcompetency.com
A discussion with the Rev. Dr. Rachel Rivers and David Bullard, PhD, moderated by George Silberschatz, PhD, President SFPRG.
Presenter:
Brian C. Muraresku, author: The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name (2020)
In Conversation With:
Mary Cosimano, MSW, director of guide/facilitator services, center for psychedelic and consciousness research, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
William (Bill) Richards, PhD, MDiv, STM, psychologist, psychiatry department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center. Author, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016
Moderator:
David Bullard, PhD, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry and behavioral sciences - volunteer, Weill Institute of Neurosciences, UCSF; mentor, center for psychedelic therapies and research, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
Sponsor:
UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine
Co-Sponsors:
UCSF Psycho-Oncology
UCSF Psychedelic and Entheogen Academic Council (PEAC)
Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, California Institute of Integral Studies
Together, we will discuss new ways to understand stress from disturbing and traumatic memories, (even from the news of the night before!) and from projections from the past onto the future. Consciousness can be seen through a convergence of Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, psychedelic experiences, memory reconsolidating research and a new, non-exposure trauma therapy - the Flash Technique® - that has been successfully taught to over 7,000 EMDR trauma therapists, and is now being provided for healthcare workers burdened by secondary or vicarious trauma due to COVID-19.
There will be an opportunity to directly experience a modification of the Flash Technique®. Personal sharing of any traumatic memories will not be necessary, and yet this non-exposure technique usually gets very rapid and impressive changes in how the memory is then experienced.
Presenters:
Bessel van der Kolk, MD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine President, Trauma Research Foundation
Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH
Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UC San Diego School of Medicine
David Bullard, PhD
Volunteer Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
This presentation is part of the Emotional Well-Being During the COVID-19 Crisis for Health Care Providers webinar series. View previous and upcoming presentations at https://psych.ucsf.edu/coronavirus/webinars.
The series is co-sponsored by the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Office of Alumni Relations, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, Mindsight Institute, and the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation.
Presenters: Michael W. Rabow, MD & David Bullard, PhD
The world is suffering deep losses in the COVID-19 pandemic. Already, millions are infected, hundreds of thousands killed, a global economic disaster and all the suffering that accompanies it. And even if you yourself are not infected with this virus, even if you haven’t lost your business or your job, even if no one in your family is sick or has died, we all are affected.
For almost everyone, there is anxiety, fear, and, at least some of the time, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. In charts and tables, in town halls and zoom meetings, in videos and photographs, our news and social media document real losses in painful and visible detail. And, for almost everyone, there also are invisible losses.
This is the “Both/And” virus. It is true both that many have already died, and that the majority will not. It is true both that some have lost everything, and that some will only know the greatest suffering second-hand. Many of us are being hurt by what is happening in our world, and also by what has not happened. Indeed, there is pain and loss even in what we escape.
We are professional caregivers, usually drawn to this calling from a deep sense of responsibility for others, often taking oaths and making deeply personal and celebrated public promises to care for the ill. Even when uninfected ourselves, we know the names of the overwhelm for which we are at risk. Numbing and Compassion Fatigue are when emotional and physical exhaustion sap our ability to empathize or to feel compassion. Compassion Fatigue can be the unwanted, uninvited cost of caring. Repeatedly now in the time of COVID, we are advised (appropriately so) by a series of platitudes that are, none-the-less, absolutely true: “put on our oxygen mask first,” “prioritize on self-care,” especially as we reckon with the fact that “this is a marathon, not a sprint.” We must sustain for the long-haul, or at least refuel for the next wave.
We can be hurt by what we bear witness to in others. In caring for our patients, we can experience Secondary Trauma. Repeatedly seeing and hearing about, working to ameliorate or treat the traumatic losses experienced by others, we are at risk of being traumatized ourselves, going beyond just empathy for another’s pain to an actual vicarious experience of suffering and trauma.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, with our flattened curve and our comparison to New York City, some of us are developing Survivor Guilt, an unfounded sense that we have done something wrong by not being infected or even by surviving an infection with COVID. We are hurt by what has not hurt us. This feeling can be both rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious. Literally and figuratively, our brothers and sisters, our spouses and life-partners, our grandparents, parents and children, at home, across the street, the country, and the globe, are dying of what we have escaped. And, sitting in a quiet room in front of our computers and smartphones, many of us feel guilty about not doing enough. For some, there is guilt about not using the “time off” in the lockdown productively to learn to bake bread, speak Spanish, or be a better parent. Professional caregivers, in particular, can feel guilt and even shame about not being on the front lines of the pandemic, rolling up our sleeves and “doing our part” alongside our colleagues, the real heroes out there being exhausted, pushed to the brink, even dying for the cause.
We can even experience another invisible but well-documented emotional response—unconscious Survivor Guilt-- whose outward manifestations are thoughts that act as tools for self-punishment, a common response to the perception that we have fallen short of our natural and even hyper sense of responsibility for the lives of others. Rumination and worry are exaggerations of thoughtful self-reflection, and contribute to feelings of unease and depression, distorting the natural sadness and grieving that are inherent in our humanity, and robbing us of joy and delight in our own present moments of precious living.
And here again, the advice is repeated. Though it has become commonplace, even cliché, it remains true: recognize your feelings are normal (and common); realize you are not exempt and there will be time still for us all to feel losses that we might deem big enough; and, if you can, pay it forward. If you have had good fortune, you can dedicate yourself to having your life and work be an honor to those who have not had such luck. Let yourself find moments of peace, connection, joy and love; they can be valuable treatments for the wide world of pain and suffering.
Ultimately, be gentle with yourself. Be compassionate to yourself for the losses that anyone might see in your life, for the invisible suffering only you can feel, and for your place in the misery of what has befallen us all in a million inexplicable ways.
Whether on the frontlines or the sidelines, kindness and taking care of yourself allow you to be compassionate with and to provide deep help to others. Kindness and self-care, most of all, allow us to see the sacrifices and contributions that we and so many are making and to feel our connection to all humankind.
Sponsor:
UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine
Co-Sponsors:
UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
UCSF Psycho-Oncology
UCSF Spiritual Care Services
UCSF Integrative Psychiatry Interest Group
Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing, University of Minnesota
Global Health Research Foundation, Los Altos, CA
Institute for Holistic Health Studies, SF State University
Kunde Institute: Center for Tibetan Wellness and Healing, Daly City, CA
Tibet House US, New York, NY
2 CE credits for California licensed nurses, psychologists, LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT.
See below.
During the current coronavirus pandemic, medical care providers worldwide - physicians, nurses, paramedics, aides and clinic staff, - together with health workers such as chaplains and psychotherapists, face tremendous difficulties and challenges, including awareness of risks to their own personal health. Tibetan medicine, an integration of Chinese, Ayurveda, ancient Greek, and indigenous Tibetan healing arts, is an ancient medical system with relevance in this critical time. In particular, Tibetan medical texts discuss the qualities of compassion and methods for its cultivation in order to increase well-being for healthcare personnel and to help them in their healing of others.
In this presentation, Dr. Tenzin Namdul, a Tibetan Medical Practitioner and medical anthropologist interested in the intersection of Tibetan medicine and Buddhist psycho-philosophy in the care of terminally-ill patients, will be joined by Tibetan physician Dr. Yangdron Kalzang and Tibetan meditation instructor Geshe Lobsang Partsang to share techniques and perspectives on the development of compassion and self-care for healthcare providers. Jennifer Daubenmier, Ph.D. of San Francisco Statue University, will discuss the emergence of compassion training for healthcare providers across medical universities and present recent survey findings among Western vs Tibetan medical students on similarities and differences in levels of stress and ways of coping in medical school. The presentation will include guided meditation and discussion led by UCSF's Michael Rabow, M.D. and David Bullard, Ph.D.
Dr. Tenzin Namdul
Teaching Faculty, Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota
Dr. Namdul's doctoral research, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, examines how death and dying perspectives of Tibetan medical doctors, Buddhist practitioners, and lay people translate into their care for dying individuals and informs their own attitudes about dying. This ethnographic study explores the Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practice called thugs dam (pronounced tukdam), a meditation that adept practitioners engage in after a clinical death. His results show how these attitudes and perceptions inform and shape both the socio-moral fabric of life and the sense of well-being at the time of dying in Tibetan refugee communities in India.
Dr. Namdul's future research focuses on conducting a cross-cultural comparative study with terminally-ill patients using the Constitutional Self-Assessment Tool (CSAT), created by Dr. Namdul and Dr. Miriam Cameron, based on Tibetan medicine. Their research team tested, refined, and published the CSAT, now used in the U.S., India, and Tibet to teach Tibetan Medicine. His latest publication is Cameron, M.E., & Namdul, T. (2020). Tibetan Medicine and You: A Path to Wellbeing, Better Health, and Joy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. (The book explains how to use Tibetan medicine for self-care and integrative care).
Dr. Yangdron Kalzang, Menpa, DAOM, LAc.
Doctor of Tibetan Medicine, Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and Licensed Acupuncturist
Founder and Director, Kunde Institute: Center for Tibetan Wellness and Healing, Daly City, CA
Dr. Kalzang was born in Tibet and was first introduced to Tibetan Medicine as a young child by her uncle, who served as Chief Physician for the Integrative Unit of the Tibetan Medical Hospital (Men-Tsee-Khang) in Lhasa. She was later fortunate to work under his supervision at the Tibetan Medical Hospitals in Lhasa and Chengdu. Menpa Yangdron earned her Tibetan Medicine degree from the Tibetan Medical University in Lhasa, Tibet. She has been practicing Tibetan Medicine for over 20 years and she speaks and teaches throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Dr. Kalzang's previous teachings include at The International Forum on Buddhism and Medicine in Montpellier, France 2006, along with lectures at Stanford University, the University of California at San Francisco, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Rice University, Amherst College, and many Buddhist centers. She lectured at the 1998 and 2003 Congress of Tibetan Medicine in Washington D.C. and at the California State Oriental Medical Association Conference in 2002 and 2003. More recently, she has given presentations at the Rubin Museum in New York in 2016, conferences in Integrative Medicine in Barcelona and Tenerife, Spain in 2016 and 2017. Since 2008, Dr. Kalzang has coordinated a series of Tibetan and Western Medicine Integrative Symposia at Stanford University.
Geshe Lobsang Partsang (DAOM Cand.)
Geshe Ngarampa, Meditation Instructor and Tibetan Medicine Practitioner
Geshe Lobsang is a Tibetan Medicine practitioner and instructor of Mindfulness Training and a student of Traditional Chinese Medicine at University of East West Medicine in Sunnyvale, California. Geshe Lobsang completed a rigorous over 20-year study of Buddhism at Gyudmed Tantric Monastic University in South India, where he received the Geshe Ngarampa degree. He is also trained to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and certified by the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School. He has been serving as a Buddhist Chaplain at Santa Clara County Jail for the past seven years teaching mindfulness sessions.
Geshe Lobsang studied Tibetan Medicine at the International Academy for Tibetan Traditional Medicine and has been practicing in Kunde Institute's clinic in Daly City. He teaches courses in Buddhism, meditation and the arts of compassion, and travels regularly throughout the United States, Taiwan, India, Russia and Europe. are from Kunde Institute in Daly City will share techniques and perspectives on the development of compassion and self-care for health care providers.
Jennifer Daubenmier, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in the Holistic Health Studies program at San Francisco State University (SFSU)
Dr. Daubenmier received her doctorate in social psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and conducted postdoctoral research at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in health psychology. From 2007-2016, Dr. Daubenmier was Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF. For the past 15 years, she has studied the impact of Eastern mind-body healing practices, including meditation and yoga, on psychological wellbeing and health outcomes among individuals with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and prostate cancer. She has conducted NIH-funded randomized controlled trials to examine the impact of meditation and mindful eating practices on eating behavior and metabolic health. In 2015, she was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Senior Research Scholar Award to study Tibetan medical and Buddhist perspectives of the mind-body relationship in Dharamsala, India. She currently teaches a course on traditional Tibetan healing methods at SFSU.
Michael W. Rabow, M.D., FAAHPM, Discussant
Helen Diller Family Chair in Palliative Care, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Urology, Associate Chief of Education & Mentoring, and Director, Symptom Management Service in the Division of Palliative Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Rabow received the 2016 AAHPM PDIA National Palliative Care Leadership Award, and is a past recipient of the Soros Project on Death in America Award and the Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award.
David Bullard, Ph.D. Moderator
UCSF Clinical Professor of Medicine and Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology (Psychiatry)
Dr. Bullard consults at UCSF with the Symptom Management Service of the Division of Palliative Medicine, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and is a member of the UCSF Professional Advisory Group, Spiritual Care Services. He most recently taught a workshop February 29, 2020, at TibetHouseUS in New York City: Trauma, Memory, Resilience and Consciousness.
2 CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Resource Center (SCRC) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content. SCRC is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association. For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Bullard Psychology Consultants at david@drbullard.com. For questions about CE, visit http://www.spiritualcompetency.com or contact David Lukoff, PhD at CE@spiritualcompetency.com
Part V: On the Ground Perspectives on Public Health and Education in Tibet: COVID-19 in light of international exchange and Tibetan medicine
Speakers: Kunchok Gyaltsen, Palchen Sangdak, Phuntsog Dorje, Rinchen Dorjee, Lumo Tsering (Amdo)
Moderator: David Bullard
Registration required. We will send a login information upon registration; please note that this panel discussion will not be broadcast online. It is only available by joining zoom meeting on the date and time of the event.
Guilt
Anguish
Regret
Envy
Anxiety
Trauma
Life makes us all susceptible to these painful states of mind. And sometimes memories of suffering and trauma – either which we have experienced directly or vicariously to the pain of others – continue to be powerfully disturbing long afterward, despite our attempts to change them through understandings from meditation, spirituality or psychotherapy.
New advances in trauma therapy and memory research, together with Buddhist perspectives on consciousness, can help us neutralize or greatly diminish the disturbance such memories have held for us.
These passing contents of consciousness can be seen as illusions, similar but in contrast to the “willing suspension of disbelief” we engage in when enjoying movies and theatrical productions. (Those “people” we see on the movie screen are really projections of light or are patterns of pixels from the digital world; the interesting “characters” we are focusing on in a play are actually actors – often with extremely different personalities than those they are portraying). Memories can be seen as illusory also, with memory research highlighting the “perceptual errors” inherent in them.
In this two-hour seminar, we will explore understandings of consciousness from mindfulness, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, together with recent research on memory reconsolidation, and will have demonstrations of and opportunity to experience an adaptation of the Flash Technique® for traumatic and disturbing memories, which has been taught internationally in the past three years by Phillip Manfield, Ph.D. and Lewis Engel, Ph.D. to approximately 6,000 EMDR trauma therapists.
Added to this workshop will be insights from in-depth conversations David has had with Tibetan Buddhist scholars Robert Thurman, PhD and Thupten Jinpa, PhD.; senior Zen teachers; UCLA neuro-psychoanalyst Allan Schore, MD; trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, MD; and psychedelic researcher and psychologist William (Bill) Richards, PhD of Johns Hopkins Medical University.
General:$25/Members:22.50 REGISTER HERE
Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
Registration Fee: $60 ($50 with SFPA membership discount)
Registration with 2 CE credits $75 ($65 with SFPA membership discount)
Guilt Anguish
Regret Envy
Anxiety Trauma
Life makes us all susceptible to these painful states of mind. And sometimes memories of suffering and trauma – either which we have experienced directly or vicariously to the pain of others – continue to be powerfully disturbing long afterward, despite our attempts to change them through understandings from meditation, spirituality or psychotherapy.
New advances in trauma therapy and memory research, together with Buddhist perspectives on consciousness, can help us neutralize or greatly diminish the disturbance such memories have held for us.
These passing contents of consciousness can be seen as illusions, similar but in contrast to the “willing suspension of disbelief” we engage in when enjoying movies and theatrical productions. (Those “people” we see on the movie screen are really projections of light or are patterns of pixels from the digital world; the interesting “characters” we are focusing on in a play are actually actors – often with extremely different personalities than those they are portraying). Memories can be seen as illusory also, with memory research highlighting the “perceptual errors” inherent in them.
In this two-hour seminar, we will explore understandings of consciousness from mindfulness, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, together with recent research on memory reconsolidation, and will have demonstrations of and opportunity to experience an adaptation of the Flash Technique® for traumatic and disturbing memories, which has been taught internationally in the past three years by Phillip Manfield, Ph.D. and Lewis Engel, Ph.D. to approximately 6,000 EMDR trauma therapists.
Added to this workshop will be insights from in-depth conversations David has had with Tibetan Buddhist scholars Robert Thurman, PhD and Thupten Jinpa, PhD.; senior Zen teachers; UCLA neuro-psychoanalyst Allan Schore, MD; trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, MD; and psychedelic researcher and psychologist William (Bill) Richards, PhD of Johns Hopkins Medical University.
"I have had the pleasure of knowing David for several years and admire his ability to bring kindness and humor into his interaction with others with such ease. He is most known for his work with trauma and relationships, where, in addition to his professional expertise as a clinical psychologist, he also brings important Buddhist insights as part of his therapeutic approach. I recommend him as a caring and entertaining teacher." - Thupten Jinpa, PhD, Principal Translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama and author of A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives
2 Continuing Education Credits are available for attending this program
CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Resource Center (SCRC) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Spiritual Competency Resource Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
LCSWs, MFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association..
SCRC is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California.
For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact David Bullard, Ph.D. at david.bullard@drbullard.com For questions about CE, visit www.spiritualcompetency.com or contact David Lukoff, PhD at CE@spiritualcompetency.com
The filing fee for CE's for this program is included in the prices as noted above.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the program, participants will be better able to…
* Describe the perceptual error of a disturbing memory
* Demonstrate a meditation that will diminish sensory, emotional and cognitive disturbances of a difficult memory
https://lecture.ucsf.edu/ets/Play/a2e90f3e5e9c46e196b5ea3b6b62fe831d
Individual trauma is defined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as “an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.”
In a "Mini TED talk" format with discussion, a distinguished group of researchers and clinicians will discuss current understandings of the neuroscience of memory and trauma, secondary and vicarious stress affecting health care providers, and current approaches and innovations in the treatment of emotional and psychological trauma including psychedelic- and MDMA-assisted therapies, and the new "non-exposure" Flash Technique®. The role of trauma in health, with international perspectives, will also be addressed.
This program will be of interest to medical, nursing, mental health and spiritual care providers.
Lewis Engel, PhD, EMDR certified therapist and approved consultant, San Francisco
Janis Phelps, PhD, professor and founder and director, center for psychedelic therapies and research, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
Dianne Shumay, PhD, health sciences assistant professor, department of psychiatry and director, psycho-oncology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSF
Phil Wolfson, MD, director, Ketamine Research Foundation, San Rafael, CA; co-editor, The Ketamine Papers (2016)
Wajdi Akef Fakhoury, MA, MFTA, Psychotherapist, San Francisco, CA, conducting research with refugee populations in Jordan, Syria and Turkey
Ilene Serlin, PhD, BC-DMT, co-editor, Integrated Care for the Traumatized: A Whole-Person Approach (2019); training trauma therapists in China, Israel, Jordan and Turkey.
Edward Machtinger, MD, professor of medicine and director, women's HIV program and center to advance trauma-informed health care (CTHC), UCSF
David Bullard, PhD, consultant, spiritual care services and symptom management service, division of palliative medicine and clinical professor - volunteer, departments of medicine and psychiatry, UCSF
The program will start at 6:45pm with a short introduction and experience of seated yoga presented by Nora Burnett CIYT. Nora has taught Iyengar Yoga for 30 years, including classes of all levels, topical workshops, retreats, and Teacher Education, primarily at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco.
Division of Palliative Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCSF
Psycho-Oncology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSF
Spiritual Care Services, UCSF Health
California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
Ketamine Research Foundation, San Rafael, CA
Net proceeds from this event will be donated to The International Rescue Committee El Salvador.
Photo by Chris Ensey on Unsplash.
This practical course highlights obstacles to intimacy in our culture and provides tools to transmute those obstacles into opportunities for deeper intimacy both with our self and with the people in our lives. Buddhist and other spiritual approaches together with Western psychotherapeutic understandings will be examined, in order to remember one of life's most important lessons: we are all connected and embodied in this beautiful energy of life.
Three of the nation's top clinicians/researchers/educators in psychedelic medicine will be speaking on the history and research findings of psychedelic-assisted therapy in treating existential distress, anxiety and depression in life-threatening illnesses. Of particular emphasis will be a review of the phenomenology of psychedelic-generated mystical experience as well as the best practices for set, setting, and therapist skills to optimize these therapeutic experiences.
Come hear a psychologist who is researching how psilocybin can treat existential anxiety in cancer patients, in conversation with a hospice and palliative care specialist whose TED Talk on “What Really Matters in Life” has had over 5.3 million views, and a psychologist and family therapist who teaches in East-West psychology.
In aspiring to Suzuki Roshi’s wisdom, we sometimes encounter memories of relational trauma that feel overwhelming. We can also be triggered into anxiety and anger when attempting sensitive conversations with those we love. This four-hour workshop will explore recent advances in our understandings of trauma and its treatment, including new therapeutic processes that involve no conscious experiencing of the traumatic memory.
Join renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar Robert A. F. Thurman in conversation with Isa Gucciardi and David Bullard in which they will explore the path of service for health providers, informed by Buddhist understandings of life, death, mindfulness, and consciousness.
In this talk, Dr. David Bullard and Dr. Isa Gucciardi present two very different meditative approaches to working with difficult memories, flashbacks, sleep disturbances and other experiences related to trauma.
The Foundation of the Sacred Stream in Berkeley, CA. has posted a video from their January 2019 event, Reaching Beyond the Conscious Mind to Treat Trauma: New Approaches. In this talk, Dr. David Bullard and Dr. Isa Gucciardi present two very different meditative approaches to working with difficult memories, flashbacks, sleep disturbances and other experiences related to trauma. David will discuss Blink-Flash Meditation® – a short and simple visualization that can rapidly reduce trauma and promote integration and resilience. It is based on the EMDR-derived Flash Technique®. Isa will discuss how Depth Hypnosis techniques can be applied to traumatic experience to create greater understanding and self-awareness. She will also talk about other ways of working with trauma in an altered state, including regression therapy and suggestion hypnosis.
