The Neuroscience of Happiness

Overview

Hope is consistently identified as both a key component of—and even a prerequisite—for recovery across mental illnesses. A trigger for healing as well as a maintaining factor, hope has important implications for lasting recovery. Using a neuroscientific model, this unique course combines research and clinical knowledge with a patient’s perspective to demonstrate how hope is real, tangible, and even required in eating disorder recovery. In fact, over the last decade, new and improved brain imaging techniques have opened up novel opportunities to provide insight into what hope is and how therapy, nutrition, and drugs can catalyze the recovery process. An informative as well as entertaining presentation, this course provides a practical, neuroscientific explanation of hope as well as concrete tools for helping clients to achieve lasting recovery.

Dr. Carson will discuss the ways that emotional stress damages the brain, research supporting the necessary role of hope in the recovery process from an eating disorder, and the neuroscience of eating disorders symptomology as it relates to harnessing the real, tangible power of hope. Learn about the basics of the hindbrain, limbic system and prefrontal cortex when responding to stress, how the brain heals through bio balancing neurotransmitters and plasticity, as well as how the amygdala and left prefrontal cortex provide an explanation for emotional balance. You’ll also discover the importance of hope as a trigger for healing, as well as a maintaining factor in one patient’s journey to full recovery.

Learning Objectives

After completing this program, participants will be able to:

• Describe the physiology underlying stress and the balancing response in the brain
• Identify the relationship between hope, belief, gratitude, forgiveness and healing