Biography:

Dr. Beverly Dexter, a US Navy Commander (Retired) with over 35 years of military experience, served on 4 shipboard tours, and tours with US Marines and Special Forces stateside, and Joint Service with US Marines and US Army in Iraq. A leader in the treatment and prevention of trauma, she founded  Military Special Interest Groups for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the EMDR International Assoication. In continuing humanitarian work, she also has provided Planned Dream Intervention training at no cost, to groups in England, Germany, France, Italy, India, Israel, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada and across the US.   

Abstract:

Planned Dream Intervention^® (PDI) is a highly effective, rapidly learned skill that teaches the dreaming brain how to sleep through nightmares.  Developed by Dr. Beverly Dexter in 2001 and taught to thousands of clients (including in an active combat zone),  health care providers and educators around the world. PDI is dramatically different from previous therapies that require multiple sessions, an established therapy relationship, continued follow up if more disturbing events occur, and is much more acceptable to the large percentage of nightmare sufferers who would never pursue traditional therapy or who might not have in-person access to therapy.  Briefly, the successful PDI is: 1) an intuitive emotion-gut creation; 2) may not necessarily be the first thing the individual thinks of; 3) the ‘emotional volume’ of the effective PDI matches that of the dream at the point where the dreamer woke up; 4) the successful PDI is not re-writing the dream—it kick-starts the person back into the dream with a sense of mastery; 5) if the dream is about a real life event, the PDI that will work may not necessarily appear to be related to what the dreamer would like to have happen in real life;  and 6) effective dream interventions can be created from physical sensations or emotions, even when the individual does not remember actual dream content.  PDI training creates a mastery experience allowing the dreamer to sleep through any dream without waking or acting out dream content, now and in the future.

Biography:

Ms. Milinkovic is an early-career researcher currently in her second year of her doctoral research at the University of Sydney and has completed a Bachelor of Psychological Science(Honours) at the University of Wollongong. Mikaela teaches 200- and 300-level psychology subjects to undergraduate students in the area of Personality and Psychological Assessment at the University of Sydney.

Abstract:

Biography:

Dr.Tetiana Zinchenko, the president of the International association for the study of game addictions (IASGA)/Switzerland, PhD, psychotherapist, psychologist, rehabilitologist, practicing doctor in private practice. Practical experience of 20 years in psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychological counseling. Experience in specialized clinics. Last 10 years in private practice and public organizations. Over the last 5 years, I have been specializing in group and individual psychotherapy and rehabilitation of people with various behavioral addictions.

Abstract:

It is well known that people with gambling addiction and with internet gaming disorders both suffer from other mental disorders too. The current work represents and analyzes interconnection, temporal sequence and risk of development of other mental disorders in individuals with GD and IGD. Electronic literary search was conducted using PubMed, PsychINFO, ScienceDirect, Web of Science и Google Scholar. Object - analysis of existing studies finds a high degree of correlation between IGD and anxiety 92%, with depression 89%, with ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) 85%, with social phobia/anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms 75%. In the gambling addiction case, the highest comorbidity was found with psychoactive substance use up to 57.5%; with depression 23% - 40%; with anxiety disorder 37.4-60% of players. Thus, psychoactive substance dependence is 5-6 times higher and the incidence of anxiety and mood disorders is 3 times higher in individuals with GD compared to the General population. It has been shown from these studies that comorbid psychopathology joined in more than half of the cases after a person started playing and was associated with problems that arose as a result of behavioral addiction. At abandonment from a game and restore healthy vital activity severity of symptoms decreased. In other studies, it is difficult to establish a temporal sequence. Gambling addiction can form in individuals without mental disorders, as well as in people with mental disorders at the subclinical or clinical level. But as a result, new mental disorders are added, or existing ones are aggravated. The question is not in any particularly vulnerable group of people, but in the modern products of the gaming industry, which themselves are the main risk factor for GD and IGD development and their accompanying psychopathology.

Biography:

Professor Marcelo Pombo Novaes Fernandes is a Psychoanalyst, Bachelor of Arts, Master in Religion, TEFL Teacher in London, travelled all over the Globe teaching in countries like England, Brazil, Bolívia and China and giving lectures/being invited to talk about human sexuality and religion at Oxford University and several other educational instituitions in Brazil, England, Thailand, Turkey, Poland and Portugal. He also worked as a newspaper columnist where he used to talk about human sexuality and other subjects related to ethics, religion or sociology. He now lives in Portugal where he is doing his second Master, this turn in Anthropology, and is also the vice-president of OGA – Obra Gay Associação (Opus Diversidades), an NGO that works among LGBT community.

Abstract:

The trilogy of money, sex, and power has always been actual. Only a naïve or demagogic vision would be able to deny the influence of them inside the churches. Sex and corruption scandals and false prophets with messianic and dictatorial postures are spread among us, grossly opposing the Gospel. A Christianity that does not have Jesus Christ in its core will demand a clear and common enemy to gather all the flock and, through fear and hatred, keep it together in the practice of tithing and, nowadays, serving as a political support to the ones appointed by their religious leaders. In a confused Christianity so typical of Brazil, the elected enemy once were the Catholic, later the Freemasons, the Spiritualist, the Communist and, in the last ten years, the homosexuals and the LGBT movement which are blamed for cases of pedophilia by Christian leaders in this country. Our goal here is not to prove the coherence or not of such gospel “jihad” though the analysis of the canonical books searching for answers, instead will try to understand who and how many of such people there are there, the connection between pedophilia and homosexuality, to be aware of what they have been through in their pursuit of correcting their sexual drive, their religious dilemma when facing the Christian intolerance, and their subsequent apostasy.

Keywords: homosexuality, religion, pedophilia, sexual abuse.

Biography:

Sarah Telzak is a second-year PhD Clinical Psychology student at Adelphi University’s Derner School of Psychology. She obtained her B.A. in Psychology and Religion (double major) from Wesleyan University in 2011, and her M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2017. Previously, she worked as an assistant research scientist at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at NYU, where she completed classroom-observation evaluations. She is a current Psychology extern at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, where she conducts both group and individual therapy. 

Abstract:

I will present findings from an original grounded theory-based study that investigates the phenomenological experience of the emotion of shame, as well as how experiences of shame may be shared, passed, and/or related between mothers and daughters. This study examines a range of memories and emotional experiences connected to feeling ashamed, including but not limited to self-consciousness, pride, humiliation, and disgust. Mothers and daughters will are asked about the role of shame in their relationship with one another and how this relationship may or may not have contributed to the role of shame in their lives. Participants include pairs of mothers and daughters culled from women ages 18+ who are interested in sharing their narratives. Data is collected through extensive in-person interviews with four pairs of mothers and daughters. The primary instrument employed is a questionnaire I developed to probe experiences of shame in one’s relationship with oneself and in one’s relationship with one’s mother or daughter. Questions explore various aspects of shame, including early memories related to not living up to standards, recent experiences with self-exposure and self-disgust, and incidents of feeling belittled, humiliated and disgraced both within and outside of the mother-daughter relationship. In addition, some questions have a projective quality, in order to elicit more unconscious thoughts and feelings of mothers and daughters.This study utilizes a grounded-theory approach that employs the constant comparison method developed by Glaser and Strauss, intersubjective consistency, and bracketing. I will also analyze the interviews using Carol Gilligan’s Feminist Listening approach in order to more fully understand how participants speak about themselves and perhaps dissociate from their experiences, as well as to gain insight into the interplay of various voices within each individual. Statistical analyses will be utilized to examine the prevalence of various themes and language use.

Biography:

Fabricia Signorelli Galeti has 13 years of experience as a psychiatrist, specialized in childhood and adolescent psychiatry at the State University of Campinas where she is a member of the Preschoolers Developmental Assessment Outpatients Clinic. She completed Masters degree in Developmental Disorders and she is currently a psychiatrist and researcher at the Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, and at the Preterms Outpatients Clinic at the Neonatal Division from the Federal University of São Paulo. International Membership American Academy of Child an Adolescent Psychiatry and member of the Scientific Board of the Brazillian Institute of Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenetics.

Abstract:

Biography:

Fabricia Signorelli Galeti has 13 years of experience as a psychiatrist, specialized in childhood and adolescent psychiatry at the State University of Campinas where she is a member of the Preschoolers Developmental Assessment Outpatients Clinic. She completed Masters degree in Developmental Disorders and she is currently a psychiatrist and researcher at the Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, and at the Preterms Outpatients Clinic at the Neonatal Division from the Federal University of São Paulo. International Membership American Academy of Child an Adolescent Psychiatry and member of the Scientific Board of the Brazillian Institute of Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenetics.

Abstract:

Biography:

Fabricia Signorelli Galeti has 13 years of experience as a psychiatrist, specialized in childhood and adolescent psychiatry at the State University of Campinas where she is a member of the Preschoolers Developmental Assessment Outpatients Clinic. She completed Masters degree in Developmental Disorders and she is currently a psychiatrist and researcher at the Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, and at the Preterms Outpatients Clinic at the Neonatal Division from the Federal University of São Paulo. International Membership American Academy of Child an Adolescent Psychiatry and member of the Scientific Board of the Brazillian Institute of Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenetics.

Abstract:

Biography:

Anja Davis Norbye is a young researcher of 30 years and a PhD student. Norbyes PhD research is based in on data from the health survey the Tromsø study. Her background is as a clinical physiotherapist with a Master degree in neurological physiotherapy, working 8 years with patients with severe conditions. Combining clinical work with research, Norbye has published papers relevant for her work; two articles on chronic back pain, one article on how spasticity affects mobility in patients with multiple sclerosis, and now in her PhD theses- exploring health anxiety within the field of psychology.

Abstract:

Health anxiety is a condition associated with increased risk of disability, increased health care utilization and reduced quality of life. Although we know some negative consequences of the condition, there is no consensus on which factors are important for the levels of health anxiety. The aim of this descriptive study was to explore the distribution of health anxiety in a general, adult population, and to investigate if demographic and social factors were associated with health anxiety. The study employed a cross-section design in the Tromsø study: Tromsø 7. 21.083 participants age 40-97 gave self-reported information on health anxiety and the sociodemographic variables age, sex, household income and education, whether they were living with a spouse/partner and children under 18 or others over 18, quality of friendship and whether they participated in organized activity. We used Whiteley Index-6 with a 0-4 point Likert Scale to measure health anxiety. Exponential regression was used to explore the statistical significance of associations. The results showed a highly skewed distribution with a mean score of 3.15 out of 24 points. 10 % had ≥7 points and 1 % had ≥14 points. Income was significantly associated with health anxiety. Of the social variables, living with a spouse/partner, children or others over 18 were not significantly related to health anxiety, while quality of friendship and participation in organised activity were highly significant. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore if social factors are associated with health anxiety.

Biography:

Dr. Dahan is currently focusing her research on childbirth and sexualities from an evolutionary point of view. She desires her research to have a more immediate impact on humankind, rather than theories that might not have real-world applications. Thus, she is now connecting her previous work on the fields of philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, to the areas of altered states of consciousness in psychology, education, and life sciences.

Abstract:

My talk focuses on the riddle of the extreme ends of the birth experience. On one end are women who experience relatively successful childbirth as traumatic and suffer from PP-PTSD. On the other end are women who experience childbirth as a highly positive, life-altering event. I offer that both extreme ends can be understood from an evolutionary point of view through the phenomena of "birthing consciousness," which is a fragile psycho-physical state of focus and retreat that happens during physiological birth. When this state is uninterrupted, there are more chances for a natural process of birth. At the end of an undisturbed natural delivery, women report 'natural high' sensations. However, interruptions to the birthing consciousness state stop the birth from progressing. I claim that the fragility of birthing consciousness, which was a useful adaptation in evolutionary times (postponing childbirth until the threat passed), became a maladaptation in the contemporary typical birth environment. Thus, interruptions to birthing consciousness bare different consequences in evolutionary times and in current hospital settings. My evolutionary approach offers a new direction for understanding PP-PTSD and a path for future research concerning its prevention.

Biography:

Saadi Lotfali is a graduate of Cognitive science & cognitive psychology (MA) from the Institute for Cognitive Science Studies, Tehran. He has been education consultant and advisor for second district of Karaj city (Ministry of Education) for 9 years. He has worked for many years as a therapist and consultant in the clinics of Ministry of Education and most recently as a psychotherapist at the private Clinics. In Ministry of Education, he is a Social Injury Prevention Trainer who teaches students, their parents, and staff. As a cognitive therapist, he utilizes cognitive science findings in behavioral and cognitive interventions, and his research and writings (2books) are based on cognitive science and cognitive psychology findings that emphasize behavioral and cognitive exercises.

Abstract:

Cognitive science, by intervening in neural networks, claims to offer a new approach to treatment and cognitive and behavioral changes. In any activity, one or more brain neural networks are activated and the neural circuit or circuits may be mutually and simultaneously deactivated. Therefore, intervention as a means to facilitate the activation or deactivation (stimulation or inhibition) of neural networks can cause changes in cognition and behavior of individuals. Resilience is an important cognitive function that several brain circuits are involved. The current presentation, as a review study, examines these circuits and proposes strategies as interventions in these networks to increase resilience. In Neuro-cognitive interventions, parts of the brain (circuits) are stimulated and affected through using medication, electrical or electromagnetic stimulants, mental activities or certain behaviors. In the present study, mental and behavioral exercises have been taken into consideration. Exercises and activities that are done mentally or in the form of behavior and doing so will enhance resilience by affecting brain circuits. These interventions cause changes in cognitive functions such as attention, memory, inhibition, emotion regulation, decision making, and other cognitive functions. Most of these changes result in prevention of ego depletion, self-awareness in the form of introspection and extroversion, changes in memory and memory retrieval, reinterpretation, emotion regulation. The purpose of this study is to provide cognitive and behavioral methods that listeners, including therapists, parents, school officials and educators of children and adolescents, can contribute to resiliency by presenting and performing these behaviors and transmitting them to their children so that their self-control can be increased. These findings can be used as complementary therapeutic techniques in clinics or behavioral training to parents.

Biography:

The author received an honorary PhD in mathematics and majored in engineering at MIT. He attended different universities over 17 years and studied seven academic disciplines. Furthermore,he self-studiedandresearch three disciplines,internal medicine, food nutrition, and psychology. He has spent ~30,000 hours in endocrinology research, especially diabetes. First, he studied six metabolic diseases and food nutrition during 2010 to 2013, then conducted his own diabetes research during 2014 to 2019. His approach is “quantitative and precision medicine” based on mathematics, physics, optical and electronics physics, engineering modeling, wave theory, energy theory, signal processing, computer science, big data analytics, statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. His main focus is on preventive medicine using prediction tools. He believes that the better the prediction, the more control you have. Thus far, he has written, published, and presented more than 250 medical papers, including some psychology research papers.

Abstract:

Abstract:

Introduction:In this paper, the author presents his hypothesis of the role the brain plays in glucose production, particularly the simulation model of fasting plasma glucose (FPG) production, and the body weight functioning as the brain’s stimulator.  

Methods:The author has been a type 2 diabetes (T2D) patient for over 25 years. During the first 20 years, he was relying heavily on medications to control his disease symptoms until they worsen in 2010 when most of his severe complications appeared including five cardiac episodes, kidney complications, bladder infection, foot ulcer, thyroid, and retinal problems.  By that time, the medications seemed to stop working. As a result, he focused on his lifestyle issues, especially diet and exercise, in controlling his postprandial plasma glucose (PPG) since it contributes around 75% to 85% of HbA1C formation. In November of 2016, he flew to Honolulu and stayed in Hawaii for a while. He suddenly noticed his persistently elevated FPG values in the morning. During the following four months, he exhausted all avenues based on his knowledge to examine what went wrong with his body.  On March 17, 2017 at 3am, he had a dream to delve into the relationships among output factors, instead of relationships between input categories and output categories as he was educated and trained as an engineer for 40 years.  After four hours of running a computer software to examine the relationships among glucose, lipids, blood pressure, and weight, he identified that his increased body weight was the reason of his elevated FPG!  Since then, for the past 2.5 years, he has continuously researched this subject and provided additional proofs of this astonishing relationship. 

Results:Among all of the human internal organs, only the brain has the power of cognition, decision-making, and issuing an order capabilities.  The brain instructs the liver to produce glucose and the pancreatic alpha cells to produce glucagon to raise glucose level if it is too low and beta cells to produce insulin to reduce glucose level if it is too high.  In other words, the liver and pancreas are merely working machines for the master, the brain.  

In the scope of FPG, what is the stimulator for the brain to instruct liver producing glucose and at what appropriate level of glucose?  During our sleep time (other than the continuous operations of the internal organs and somewhat natural sweating, vaporization, nighttime urination), our body lacks the heavy physical activities such as eating, drinking, and exercising.  It is the author’s hypothesis that our brain knows our body weight level and situation continuously and then used this vital information as the yardstick to decide how much glucose level our body needs.  

Based on this hypothesis, the author tried to prove these available physical characteristics of our biomedical phenomenon via some mathematical and computational tools.  As the first evidence, Figure 1 shows that the 77% high correlation coefficient exists between weight and FPG from a time-series analysis using data from 1/1/2014 through 10/18/2019 (a total of 2,116 days in ~5.5 years).  Furthermore, a spatial analysis diagram in the lower part of Figure 1 also depicts a skewed cucumber shape of these data sets between weight and FPG without time factor.  It indicates that when body weight increases or decreases, the FPG changes upward or downward accordingly.  

Based on this finding, the author developed a prediction model for FPG by using weight as its major input (~80%) and a cold weather temperature (FPG drops 0.3 mg/dL for every degree of weather temperature drop when it is below 67 degrees Fahrenheit) as its secondary factor due to “hibernation” (~10%).  

Figure 2 displays the extremely high correlation of 99.97% existing between predicted FPG and measured FPG by using data from 5/5/2018 through 10/18/2019 ( a total of 532 days).  The reason he selected this time period is due to his use of a “dual and parallel measurements using both continuous glucose monitoring sensor device and finger-piercing with test strip”.  Although the patterns have low similarity between Finger FPG and Sensor FPG, but their averaged FPG value deviations is within 0.9% to 1.2% (113 mg/dL for Sensor FPG and 112 mg/dL for Finger FPG). 

Figure 3 shows both of his annual averaged weight and annual averaged FPG from 2012 to 2019.  It should be noted that both of them are declining with time.  In other words, while his weight reduced from 189 lbs. to 173 lbs., his FPG also decreased from 135 mg/dL to 113 mg/dL.  This FPG reduction indeed contributes around 20% of his overall A1C reduction from 10% in 2010 with 198 lbs. weight down to ~6.5% in 2019 with 172 lbs. weight. 

In summary, the findings and proof of FPG level based on body weight is very accurate and valuable enough for him to develop FPG simulation or prediction model based on this hypothesis.  

Conclusion:Body weight serves as a stimulator to the brain in making decisions on producing FPG and its appropriate amount in early mornings.The FPG prediction model is merely a mathematical simulation model to explain the complex operation of FPG production as instructed by the brain to communicate with the organs of liver and pancreas.  

Biography:

The author received an honorary PhD in mathematics and majored in engineering at MIT.  He attended different universities over the 17 years and studied seven academic disciplines.  Furthermore, he self-studied and research three disciplines, internal medicine, food nutrition, and psychology. He has spent ~30,000 hours in endocrinology research, especially diabetes.  First, he studied six metabolic diseases and food nutrition during 2010 to 2013, then conducted his own diabetes research during 2014 to 2019.  His approach is “quantitative and precision medicine” based on mathematics, physics, optical and electronics physics, engineering modeling, wave theory, energy theory, signal processing, computer science, big data analytics, statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.  His main focus is on the preventive medicine using prediction tools.  He believes that the better the prediction, and the more control you have.  Thus far, he has written, published, and presented more than 250 medical papers, including some psychology research papers.

Abstract: