Since the time of Freud, psychotherapists have worked with non-ordinary states such as dreams, hypnosis, and free association to understand and heal psychological distress. More recently, mindfulness and compassion practices have become mainstream clinical tools, while research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has expanded rapidly.

Together, these approaches are providing new possibilities for treating PTSD, depression, addiction, and end-of-life anxiety, while offering fresh insight into the nature of suffering, healing, and human flourishing.

What can clinicians learn from these developments? What do they reveal about the neurobiology of change? And how can this knowledge be integrated into everyday clinical practice?

Join Dr. Ron Siegel to explore how non-ordinary states can be thoughtfully incorporated into psychotherapy to help clients:

• Process and integrate split-off traumatic memories
• Open their hearts and embrace vulnerability
• Surrender to the flow of ever-changing experience
• Move from isolation toward deep connection with people and nature
• Appreciate the unreliable, fluid nature of thought
• Find meaning in everyday moments

Mindfulness groups offer something uniquely healing: the opportunity to cultivate self-compassion, openness, and meaningful connection in community with others.

In an era of increasing loneliness, isolation, trauma, and chronic stress, these groups provide an evidence-based way to foster belonging, strengthen social connection, and expand access to care.

You'll learn:

• The latest evidence linking social disconnection, health outcomes, and mindfulness-based group interventions
• Trauma-informed frameworks for creating psychological safety, trust, and inclusive group cultures
• Group structure, eligibility, and adaptation considerations for diverse clinical populations
• Practical approaches for mindfulness practice, inquiry, and connection-building that deepen participant engagement
• Sustainable implementation strategies, including referrals, workflow design, staffing, telehealth, and program evaluation

Why do we find ourselves stuck in the same conflicts, reacting in ways we later regret, or struggling to understand our own emotional responses?

In this engaging and practical session, Dr. Mark Bertin offers a roadmap for understanding emotions from the inside out, helping clients navigate their inner world with greater awareness, clarity, and intention.

• Powerful body-based signals that reveal emotions before they take over
• The surprising complexity and nuance hidden beneath everyday feelings
• The stories, assumptions, and emotional habits that shape our reactions
• Practical pathways to greater steadiness, self-awareness, empathy, and connection

As therapists, we spend our days helping others navigate stress, trauma, and emotional overwhelm, yet many of us struggle to extend that same care to ourselves. Between packed schedules, documentation, and the emotional demands of clinical work, it can be difficult to maintain the balance, boundaries, and resilience needed to sustain our well-being.

In this experiential session, you'll discover practical, realistic mindfulness strategies designed specifically for busy mental health professionals, helping you continue to do meaningful work without sacrificing yourself in the process. You'll walk away with:

• Early warning signs of emotional activation, compassion fatigue, and boundary erosion
• Brief mindfulness practices for grounding, regulation, and between-session recovery
• Mindful transition strategies for separating work life from personal life
• Simple, effective tools to help you stay present for your clients while protecting your own energy, resilience, and well-being

Mindfulness is not simply a technique. It's a quality of attention we bring to what is already happening. Eating, walking, listening, breathing, and sensing the world around us can all become doorways to mindful awareness.

The question is not whether a client can be mindful. It's which doorway their nervous system can access right now. This session introduces a yoga-informed framework for matching mindfulness and somatic interventions to a client's current state, creating more effective and individualized pathways to regulation and healing.

You'll walk away with:

• A practical understanding of the five Koshas as a map for assessment and intervention
• Nervous system-informed approaches for hyperarousal, hypoarousal, and regulated states
• Mindfulness and somatic practices matched to the body, breath, mind, intuition, and connection/spirit
• A trauma-sensitive, neurodivergent-affirming framework for selecting and adapting interventions

You'll leave with a flexible, culturally rooted approach that helps clients access mindfulness through the doorway that fits them best.

Many people view mindfulness as a skill that requires constant effort, but what if mindful awareness is actually our brain's natural resting state?

Blending psychotherapy, neuroscience, contemplative practice, and decades of martial arts training, Dr. Richard Sears will show you how mindfulness can be leveraged as a practical clinical tool for addressing anxiety, avoidance, emotional distress, and disconnection from the body.

You'll walk away with:

• Clinical applications of embodied mindfulness for anxiety, avoidance, and emotional distress
• Practical approaches to using interoceptive awareness as a catalyst for therapeutic change
• An embodied model of mindfulness rooted in presence rather than thought control
• Insights into the brain's resting state networks and their relationship to mindful awareness

In a world marked by stress, isolation, and disconnection, many people long for a deeper sense of belonging, meaning, and well-being. This experiential session introduces soulfulness, a culturally grounded contemplative approach that expands mindfulness beyond individual awareness to include connection with self, others, community, culture, and the natural world.

This session explores:

• Soulfulness as a pathway to embodied presence, meaning, and interconnectedness
• Creative contemplative practices that integrate mindfulness, movement, music, and ritual
• The impact of disconnection, marginalization, and oppression on healing and well-being, with attention to the relevance of mindfulness for healing and liberation
• Pathways toward resilience, collective well-being, and authentic engagement with life

Neuroscientist, medical anthropologist, meditation teacher, and MindHeart AI co-founder Dr. Sará King explores how mindfulness can become a catalyst for both personal and collective healing. Drawing on her groundbreaking Systems-Based Awareness Map and Science of Social Justice framework, she reveals how awareness, compassion, and belonging can help heal intergenerational trauma and support individual and community well-being.

• The connection between inner awareness and collective well-being
• Mindfulness, neuroscience, and the healing of intergenerational trauma
• The Systems-Based Awareness Map as a tool for personal and social transformation
• Compassion and "loving awareness in action" as pathways to meaningful change
• How emerging technologies can be designed to support human flourishing and collective care

For many children, especially those who are anxious, energetic, neurodivergent, overwhelmed, or impacted by stress and trauma, stillness is not the starting point for growth and regulation.

This engaging session explores how mindfulness, movement, play, and connection help children build resilience, navigate big emotions, and develop healthier relationships. Grounded in neuroscience, child development, and positive psychology, you'll discover practical mindfulness strategies that can be immediately applied in therapy, schools, families, and community settings.

This session will teach you how to:

• The critical role of co-regulation, nervous system safety, and supportive relationships in children’s emotional development
• Playful mindfulness practices that foster emotional awareness, attention, coping skills, and resilience
• Trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming, and developmentally responsive approaches to supporting children

Mindfulness teachers and psychotherapists face a central challenge: how do we make contemplative practice genuinely accessible to people with different life circumstances, learning styles, and sometimes quirky neurodivergent nervous systems without losing what is essential about the practice itself?

Together, we'll explore questions such as:

• What aspects of practice are universal?
• What can be modified?
• How do we work skillfully with nervous systems for which conventional mindfulness instructions may not be a natural fit?
• What helps people discover practices that support regulation, insight, and growth rather than frustration or self-judgment?

As conversations around identity, culture, and equity become increasingly important in clinical practice, therapists must be prepared to recognize how race-based stress and trauma shape the experiences of those they serve. Through guided reflection and mindfulness-based self-study, this session invites clinicians to explore their own racial and ethnic identities and consider how greater self-awareness strengthens therapeutic effectiveness.

Key clinical considerations include:

• The impact of ethnic and race-based traumatic stress
• How personal beliefs and assumptions can influence clinical care
• Barriers to meaningful conversations about race and ethnicity in therapy
• Mindfulness-based practices that support greater self-awareness and cultural responsiveness