Mindfulness, Meditation and Neuroscience for Clinicians: Active Pathways for Therapeutic Change - 2015 Panama Canal Cruise - Seminar

PESI Panama Canal Cruise on Coral Princess
(Daily Itinerary Subject to Change)
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: Friday, February 27, 2015, Depart 4:00 PM Aruba: Monday, March 2, 2015, Arrive 8:00 AM; Depart 7:00 PM Cartagena, Colombia: Wednesday, March 4, 2015, Arrive 7:00 AM; Depart 2:00 PM Panama Canal, Panama: Thursday, March 5, 2015, Arrive 6:00 AM; Depart 3:30 PM
	Colon, Panama: Thursday, March 5, 2015, Arrive 5:00 PM; Depart 8:00 PM Limon, Costa Rica: Friday, March 6, 2015, Arrive 7:00 AM; Depart 6:00 PM Ocho Rios, Jamaica: Sunday, March 8, 2015, Arrive 9:00 AM; Depart 4:00 PM Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: Tuesday, March 10, 2015, Arrive 7:00 AM

Mindfulness, Meditation and Neuroscience for Clinicians: Activate Pathways for Therapeutic Change

Program Description:

Join Dr. C. Alexander Simpkins and Dr. Annellen Simpkins, experts in the field of neuroscience and meditation, as they take you through an intensive and beautiful experience on your journey through the historic and breathtaking Panama Canal. While on the ship, you will attend four sessions of continuing education focusing on mindfulness, meditation and how you can help rewire your client’s brain for therapeutic change. Experience these methods as you travel through the Caribbean, make stops in South America and see for yourself the eighth wonder of the world, the Panama Canal! Leave this adventure feeling excited about your profession!

As more is understood about how the mind is intimately involved with the brain, we now know that the brain can literally rewire for better or for worse depending on what you think, feel, and do. This workshop will add new dimensions to your treatments by promoting brain change using top down, bottom up and horizontal methods. Understand key nervous system structures, functions, and pathways to make the complexities of brain science your own. Discover where neuroplasticity occurs and ways to use it therapeutically.

With protocols, case examples, and experiential exercises, you will have fun as you get to know the brain. Mindfulness, meditation, and yoga offer methods anyone can learn that clear the way for better functioning and are useful for many common mental health disorders. In addition, you will bring home treatments for stress, anxiety, trauma, OCD, depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, sleep disorders, and pain reduction. You will learn how to learn with neuroscience principles will help you create your own techniques for creative individualizing. And in the process, you will activate your own brain in positive ways, feeling present, alert, relaxed and renewed!

Pricing:

1. Inside Cabin – IB $2314 per personSOLD OUT!
2. Oceanview Cabin – OC $2614 per personSOLD OUT!
3. Balcony Cabin - BD $2914 per personSOLD OUT!
4. Mini Suite – MD $3214 per personSOLD OUT!

Note: Pricing includes seminar fee. Please contact Heidi DesJarlais, Heidi@higginstravel.com, 715-834-2686 at Higgins Travel Leaders for pricing and availability. Rates are per person based on double occupancy. Single, triple and quad accommodations are subject to availability.

Course Schedule:

Saturday, 2/28/15, 8:00 – 11:30 am

Part I: Neuroscience & Neuroplasticity: Rewiring the Brain for Therapeutic Results

• Neuroscience Essentials
• From neurons to structures to pathways to functions
• Conflict monitoring
• Right-left hemisphere


• Neuroplasticity: How the brain can change
• What is neuroplasticity?
• Three time-frames for change
• Trace neuroplasticity to its roots in the neurons
• Neuroplasticity and remapping
• Learn ways to stimulate neuroplasticity


• Elicit therapeutic neuroplasticity
• Sensory, visual & motor plasticity
• Cognitive plasticity


• Integrating mind and brain
• Meditation, mindfulness & yoga of the East meet science and research of the West in the brain

Sunday, 3/1/15, 8:00 am – 11:30 am

Part II: Interpersonal Neuroscience & Brain-Change Tools: Sensory, Meditation and Mindfulness

• The social brain: We are wired for relationships
• Interpersonal neuroscience through early attachment
• Fear and memory in the brain
• Implicit and explicit memory pathways
• Development of memory in the child
• Mirror neuron system in the brain


• Sensory, Meditation and Mindfulness for Brain Change
• Sensory-Body Tools
• Sensing
• Centering
• Moving


• Meditation: Attention tools
• Focus meditations drawn from yoga to
• Unifying mind, body, and spirit
• Open-Focus mindfulness
• Non-judgmental awareness and acceptance
• No focus meditations for free flow
• Clearing consciousness
• Experience the mind-body link
• Unconscious Tools: Activate unconscious wisdom
• The power of expectancy
• Utilize suggestion
• Apply a 4-Step method for changing negative self-suggestions

Saturday, 3/7/15, 8:00 am – 11:30 am and Monday, 3/9/15, 8:00 am – 11:30 am

Part III & IV: Mindfulness, Yoga and Meditation: Using Neuroscience and Brain Change Exercises for Mental Health Disorders

• Therapy alters the brain indifferent ways
• Cognitive Therapy
• Behavior Therapy
• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
• Meditation
• Hypnosis
• Protocols, case examples and brain-changing exercise for
• Stress
• How stress alters the nervous system
• Calm the stress/fear pathway
• Develop alert/relaxed attention for better coping
• Trauma
• Develop security through self-soothing methods
• Foster confidence with yoga body positioning
• Extinguish traumatic memories
• Reconsolidate implicit memories
• Anxiety
• The anxious brain reaction
• Work top down/bottom up/horizontally
• Calm the limbic system bottom up with movement
• Soothe the insula through meditative sensory awareness
• Deconstruct sensations mindfully
• Balance the nervous system
• OCD
• Brain areas involved in OCD
• Calm over-activated basal ganglia
• Pratyahara withdrawal from obsessive thoughts
• Mindful involvement and engagement
• Encourage healing rituals
• Depression
• The depressed brain pattern
• Activate an under-activated nervous system with yoga postures and energy meditations
• Regulate the limbic system by activating links to prefrontal cortex and cingulated gyrus with mindfulness turned outward
• Practice the 4-step method to overcome negative self-suggestions
• Unify real and ideal
• Foster joyful relationship through mirror neurons
• Develop compassion and gratitude
• Bipolar Disorder
• Brain change patterns from bipolar disorders
• Lower stress levels to diminish bipolar cycling
• Overcome depression with energizing postures
• Soothe mania with breathing meditations
• Develop mindful awareness of emotions in self and others
• Foster healthy habits through mindful awareness, journaling, and charting
• Substance Abuse
• A neuroscience of theory of addiction: Altered reward pathway
• Rewire the reward pathway with experiences of meditative well-being
• Detach from pleasure and pain
• Activate the parietal lobes for health-promoting body experience
• Develop the prefrontal cortex connections for improved judgment
• Pain
• The brain’s capacity to reduce pain
• Shift pain from a generalized interpolation response to a specific, manageable response
• Use positive expectancy and self-suggestion for improved cingulate gyrus regulation
• Practice non-judgmental attitudes, mindfulness and acceptance
• Activate ideomotor relaxing to elicit unconscious pain reduction
• Sleep disorders
• How the brain regulates the sleep-wake cycle
• Relax an over-activated nervous system with calming yoga postures
• Resolve fears and worries consciously and unconsciously
• Attune to biological rhythms mindfully, to allow natural sleep patterns to emerge
• Conclusion: 6 principles to guide your practice
• The nervous system tends to heal naturally
• The mind-brain-body forms a network
• Neuroplasticity is possible
• The nervous system is neutral
• Use feedback and feedforward for optimal balance
• Enlist the many pathways to change

Ports of Call

Aruba – Dutch influence still lingers on this balmy Caribbean island, part of the former Netherlands Antilles until its independence in 1986. Aruba is a contrast: the island’s arid interior is dotted with cactus and windswept divi-divi trees while secluded coves and sandy beaches make up its coast. Aruba’s long and colorful heritage is reflected in its dialect. Called Papiamento, it is a tongue that combines elements of Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, African and English.

Cartagena, Colombia – One of the more interesting cities on your itinerary steeped in history. This was the transit port for all the wealth Spain derived from South America. The famous “Old City” is comprised of 12 square blocks filled with attractions, boutiques and restaurants. Throughout Colombia, the Spanish Empires’ influence in the New World is self-evident. Its fortress walls, quaint narrow streets, and balconied houses are all vivid reminders of Spain’s hold on Cartagena and throughout the Caribbean and South America. This is the land of El Dorado and flamboyant adventures in search of the ever-elusive gold. Cartagena’s well-constructed fortifications defended its borders against seafaring pirates whose attacks lasted for more than 200 years. Today this modern and bustling city, seaport, and commercial center still boasts much of its original colonial architecture. Your journey here will provide you with a significant link to the region’s grand past.

Panama Canal, Panama – The narrow isthmus separating the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean had a colorful and turbulent history long before Ferdinand de Lesseps first dreamed of building a transcontinental canal. Spanish conquistadors hauled Incan gold through the dense rainforest to ports on the Atlantic. English freebooters sought to ransack those ports and attack the treasure ships that sailed from Portobelo. And 49ers braved mosquitoes and yellow fever to get to the California gold fields. While the Panama Canal remains one of the great American engineering feats of the 20th century, visitors to Panama will discover a whole range of scenic wonders. Hike into the dense rainforest, home to over 1,000 species of animals. Or pay a visit to an Embera Indian village in the heart of Chagres National Park.

Limon, Costa Rica – Costa Rica’s Limon Province boasts pristine beaches, sprawling banana plantations and dense rainforest. These Caribbean lowlands are still sparsely populated – nearly a third of the province’s population lives around Puerto Limon – and conservation efforts have led to growing eco-tourism. Limon Province offers other charms as well. Afro-Caribbean influences abound, from the lilting speech and reggae rhythms brought by Jamaican settlers to the colorful bungalows lining small fishing villages. Limon is a zesty little slice of heaven.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica – Ocho Rios (Spanish for “Eight Rivers”) is located on the northern coast of Jamaica – 67 miles east of Montego Bay. Blue-green mountains, white-sand beaches, lilting breezes wafting across flower-adorned hillsides – Jamaica is a sensual feast. Stunning natural beauty and a unique society molded by British, African, Spanish and Asian influences make Jamaica an unforgettable port of call in the Caribbean. Ocho Rios is a superb slice of Jamaica. The area is named for its spectacular rivers and waterfalls, including famed Dunn’s River Falls.

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