Rob Axsen, B.A., Honours

Spanning nearly 30 years in the helping field, Rob has worked in corrections, mental health and addictions programs, with specialized training and experience working with youth. Rob has been instrumental in developing and managing several award-winning and innovative programs for youth, and brings a strong emphasis on working collaboratively with clients. He is also an accomplished trainer in private practice and at the Justice Institute of British Columbia, most notably in the areas of assessment, understanding change processes, Behavior Change Counselling, Motivational Interviewing and Client-Directed Outcome-Informed practices. He currently works half-time as an Addiction Counsellor for Vancouver Coastal Health, at an inner-city Primary Care clinic. Rob has conducted training sessions throughout Western Canada and at National Conferences, and is known for his ability to offer practice-oriented information in an experiential format, encouraging training participants to quickly integrate new ideas and material into their current practice. Rob is a Certified Trainer in the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change’s Client-Directed Outcome-Informed (CDOI) Service Delivery Model.

Ray Baker, M.D., FCFP, FASAM
website: www.healthquest.ca

Dr. Baker moved to the Lower Mainland to specialize in Addiction & Occupational Medicine after 12 years as a busy family doctor in a BC mining town. He won a national award for the UBC Addiction Medicine Curriculum he designed and directed. He chaired the British Columbia Medical Association's Addiction Medicine Committee. He is medical director of HealthQuest Occupational Health, providing consultation to organizations with respect to employee health, especially focusing on complex disabilities: stress, depression, chronic pain and addictions. He wrote a chapter on Alcoholism for Conn's Current Therapy, 2002 edition - a major medical text. He has worked with many unions, employers and health insurers in developing policies, providing training and performing assessments and treatment planning for health problems in the workplace that cause impairment, injure health and cause safety risk.

John Briere, Ph.D.
website: www.JohnBriere.com

John Briere is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and Director of the Psychological Trauma Program at LAC-USC Medical Center. He is a past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), and recipient of the Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Scientific Achievement from ISTSS and the Outstanding Professional Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). Recently designated as "Highly Cited Researcher" by the Institute for Scientific Information, he is author or co-author of over 70 articles, 20 chapters and encyclopedia entries, 10 books, and 8 psychological tests in the areas of trauma, child abuse, and interpersonal violence.

David Burns, M.D.
website: www.feelinggood.com

Dr. Burns is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatryand Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He also has served as Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Medicine School and Acting Chief of Psychiatry at the Presbyterian University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Burns has authored six books on cognitive behavior therapy including his best-selling Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980), which has sold over four million copies. In a national survey, Feeling Good was rated # 1—from a list of over 1,000 self-help books—and is the most frequently recommended book by mental health professionals in the United States and Canada for clients suffering from depression. His most current work is titled When Panic Attacks.

Although he is best known for his work on psychotherapy, Dr. Burns has also done significant research on the central nervous system and received the A.E. Bennett Award for his studies of serotonin metabolism. Currently he is investigating variables associated with therapeutic success or failure. His research has been published in numerous scientific journals. Dr. Burns is a dynamic and engaging educator. Every year, thousands of mental health professionals attend his workshops. Dr. Burns also maintains a strong interest in public education. He was recently featured in a ninety minute PBS special on depression and received the Distinquished Contribution to Psychology through the Media Award from the Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology in 1995.

Paul Foxman, Ph.D
website:www.drfoxman.com

Paul Foxman, Ph.D., has led hundreds of top rated workshops throughout the U.S. and has appeared on television and radio as an expert on the topic of anxiety. His books include Dancing with Fear (2007) and The Worried Child (2004). Dr. Foxman is known for his knowledge and clarity, sense of humor, compassion, and engaging speaking style.

Dr. Foxman is a clinical psychologist as well as Founder and Director of the Center for Anxiety Disorders in Vermont. In 1985 he co-founded the Lake Champlain Waldorf School, now flourishing from kindergarten through high school.

Dr. Foxman has 30 years of clinical experience in a variety of settings including hospitals, community mental health centers, schools, and private practice. His education includes Yale University (B.A. in Psychology), Vanderbilt University (Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology), and training at the Department of Psychiatry of Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, the Kennedy Child Study Center in Nashville, and the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.

Ross Greene, Ph.D.

Ross Greene is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of the Collaborative Problem Solving Institute in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also author of the highly acclaimed book The Explosive Child and co-author of the forthcoming Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach.

Dr. Greene specializes in the treatment of explosive children and adolescents at home and school and in inpatient, residential, and juvenile detention facilities. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and scientific papers on the effectiveness of the Collaborative Problem Solving approach; comorbidity and familiality in oppositional defiant disorder; classification and longitudinal outcomes of children with severe social impairment; and teacher stress. Dr. Greene’s research has been funded by the Stanley Research Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse/National Institutes of Mental Health, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Greene received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech after completing his predoctoral internship at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. Prior to his current positions, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor on the clinical psychology faculty at Virginia Tech and as Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and in Pediatrics at University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

He lives in Boston with his wife and two children.

Les Greenberg, Ph.D.

Leslie Greenberg, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario. He is the Director of the York University Psychotherapy Research Clinic. He is the developer of an Emotion-focused approach to therapy. He has co-authored the major texts on emotion focused approaches to treatment. These include Emotion in Psychotherapy (1986), Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (1988) Facilitating Emotional Change (1993), Working with Emotions in Psychotherapy (1997) Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Emotions (2002) and most recently Emotion-Focused Therapy of Depression (2005.) He recently was awarded the Distinguished Research Career Award of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dr. Greenberg is a founding member of the Society of the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and a past President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). He has been on the editorial board of many psychotherapy journals, including currently the Person-Centered & Experiential Therapies, Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, Journal of Constructivist Psychology, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Gestalt Review, Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Jack Hirose, M.A., C.C.C.

Jack Hirose is a Vancouver based counsellor and training co-ordinator with over 25 years experience developing high quality training programs for mental health professionals, educators, community organizations and parents. Jack is a certified counsellor with the Canadian Counselling Association and a certified Addictions Counsellor Trainer. He has had a long counseling/teaching career in working with youth, adults and families in many different environments, eg. outpatient clinics, community colleges, schools, correctional settings, hospitals, treatment centres, and group homes. Jack has organized well over 300 workshops and conferences in his career. In the last decade, 20,000 participants have attended his professional training events. He is co-founder of the highly rated Western Canadian Conference on Addictions and Mental Health held annually in Vancouver during the third week of November. During the past fifteen years, 1,500 professionals completed Jack’s Addiction Training Intensive for Youth Practitioners.

In another chapter of Jack’s life, he was a member of Canada's National Judo Team and had a brief profesional football career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Toronto Argonauts. Jack resides in North Vancouver with his wife, Julie, and two daughters.

Mel Levine, Ph.D.

Dr. Mel Levine is a Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Clinical Centre for the Study of Development and Learning and the University of North Carolina Medical School.

He is the founder and co-chairman (with Charles Schwab) of the board of All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the understanding of differences in learning.

He graduated summa cum laude from Brown University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in England. He later graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed his pediatric training at the Children’s Hospital in Boston.Following his service in the USAF Medical Corps, Dr. Levine served as Chief of the Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Boston. During this period he was an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Levine was the Medical Director of the Brookline Early Education Project and the Principal Investigator in the Middle Childhood Project. He initiated and is currently collaborating in Schools Attuned, a national project designed to enhance the abilities of teachers to deal with children and adolescents having academic difficulties. He also has been instrumental in establishing diagnostic and follow-up programs, called Student Success Centres, designed to offer precise assessment and management plans for students with learning difficulties.

Dr. Levine has written numerous books, including A Mind at a Time, The Myth of Laziness, A Pediatric Approach to Learning Disorders, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Educational Care, and Developmental Variation and Learning Disorders. He has also written three books for children who have learning disorders, titled Keeping a Head in School, All Kinds of Minds, and Jarvis Clutch - Social Spy. His latest book is Ready or Not, Here Life Comes. His major research interests are focused on learning processes and the specific dysfunctions that impede the education of many children and adolescents.

Donald Meichenbaum, Ph.D.

Donald Meichenbaum is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, and currently Research Director of The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment of Victims, in Miami, Florida (www.melissainstitute.org). The Melissa Institute is designed to bridge the gap between research findings and clinical and educational practices and public policy.

Dr. Meichenbaum is one of the founders of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and his book Cognitive Behaviour Modification: An Integrative Approach is considered a classic in the field. He has also authored several other books including Stress Inoculation Training; A Clinical Handbook for Assessing and Treating Adults with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder; and Treatment of Individuals with Anger-Control Problems and Aggressive Behaviors: A Clinical Handbook. He has also co-authored Pain and Behavioral Medicine; Facilitating Treatment Adherence: A practitioner's Guidebook; and Nurturing Independent Learners; and co-edited Stress Reduction and Prevention and The Unconscious Reconsidered. He was one of the founders of the Journal of Cognitive Therapy and Research and served as its Associate Editor, as well as being on the editorial boards of a dozen other journals.

Dr. Meichenbaum was a recipient of the prestigious Izaak Killiam Fellowship Award administered by Canada Council and appointed Honorary President of the Canadian Psychological Association. The Killiam award allowed him to devote his full time to research. Dr. Meichenbaum is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of both the American and Canadian Psychological Associations.

In a survey reported in the American Psychologist, North American clinicians voted Dr. Meichenbaum “one of the ten most influential psychotherapists of the century”. During his academic career, a citations analysis indicated that Dr. Meichenbaum was identified as the most cited psychology researcher at Canadian universities. He has presented workshops and lectured worldwide including all of the U.S. states (except Alaska), Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Japan, the Caribbean, and Russia. He has consulted widely for such varied clinical populations as patients in psychiatric hospitals, residential programs, adolescent offenders, individuals with developmental delays and those with traumatic brain injury, military organizations, industrial and educations institutions.

Dr. Meichenbaum’s workshops received the heist accolades as he combines scholarship, critical-mindedness, clinical perspicacity and humor in his presentations.

Jane Middelton-Moz, M.S.

Jane Middelton-Moz is currently living in the State of Vermont and is the Director of the Middelton-Moz Institute a division of The Institute of Professional Practice, Inc. Ms. Middelton-Moz is on the advisory board of the National Association for Native American Children of Alcoholics. She has a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology and over thirty-five years experience in the treatment of mental health and substance abuse problems. She has held numerous direct service, management and executive positions in community agencies.
Over the last several years, Ms. Middelton-Moz has become well known nationally and internationally for her work in the areas of Adult Children of Alcoholics, Multi-Generational Grief in individuals and families, Children of Trauma, Ethnic and Cultural Awareness, Differential Diagnosis, Cultural Self-Hate and Multi-Generational Sexual and Physical Abuse in families.
Ms. Middelton-Moz is well known for Corporate Consultation, Intervention, Training, Lecturer and Author, She is the author of: Children of Trauma: Rediscovering Your Discarded Self; Shame and Guilt: The Masters of Disguise; Will to Survive: Affirming the Positive Power of the Human Spirit; Boiling Point: Dealing with the Anger in Our Lives; Boiling Point, The Workbook; Welcoming our Children to a new Millennium; and co-author of Bullies: From the playground to the boardroom; Strategies for Survival; The Ultimate guide to Transforming Anger, and After the Tears: Reclaiming the Personal Losses of Childhood.
Ms. Middelton-Moz has appeared on national television including Oprah, Maury Povich, Montel Williams and had her own PBS special.

Scott Miller, Ph.D.
website: www.talkingcure.com

Scott D. Miller is a co-founder of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, a private group of clinicians and researchers dedicated to studying “what works” in treatment. He also works as a therapist providing all clinical services pro bono to traditionally under served clients. Dr. Miller conducts workshops and training in the United States, Canada and Europe and is known for his engaging and humorous presentation style. He has presented to many audiences including the American Psychological Association, the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, the International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy, and the National Association of Social Workers. He is the author of numerous articles and co-author of Working with the Problem Drinker: A Solution Focused Approach (Norton, 1992), The “Miracle” Method: A Radically New Approach to Problem Drinking (with Insoo Kim Berg, Norton, 1995), Finding the Adult Within: A Solution-Focused Self-Help Guide (with Barbara McFarland, Brief Therapy Centre Press, 1995), Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Foundations, Applications, and Research (with Mark Hubble, Jossey-Bass, 1996), Escape from Babel: Toward a Unifying Language for Psychotherapy Practice (with Barry Duncan and Mark Hubble, Norton, 1997), Psychotherapy with Impossible Cases: Efficient Treatment of Therapy Veterans (with Barry Duncan and Mark Hubble, Norton, 1997), The Heart and Soul of Change: Common Factors in Human Services (APA Press, 1999), The Heroic Client: Principles of Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed Clinical Work (Jossey-Bass, 2000), and the forthcoming Creating Hope: “What Works” with Borderline-Diagnosed Clients (with Kay Vaughn and Linda Willits).

Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.
website: www.gordonneufeld.com

Dr. Neufeld is a developmental and clinical psychologist who has been putting the pieces of the aggression puzzle together for over 30 years. He has dealt with aggression from toddlers to teens and from the most banal to the most violating. He has a proven track record in working effectively with violent young offenders and acts as a consultant to parents and professionals. Dr. Neufeld has served as a parent consultant to various media programs including CBC’s Almanac. He has presented at conferences across Canada including the Annual Conference of Canadian School Boards and the Canadian Teachers Federation in Ottawa. Dr. Neufeld’s 3 day workshop is rooted in years of experience with violent young offenders and thousands of consultations with parents and teachers of children/youth with aggression problems. His training on aggression and violence are in high demand particularly among professionals in the fields of education, health care, social services and corrections. Dr. Neufeld educates in a most engaging way, speaks with passion and compassion and makes difficult concepts easily understood no matter what one’s exposure to the psychological literature is. Those who have heard him present, inevitably comment on how he makes sense of the very complex problem and opens the door to change.

Bill O'Hanlon, M.S.
website: www.brieftherapy.com

Bill O'Hanlon has authored or co-authored 21 books, the latest being Thriving Through Crisis (Penguin/Perigee, February 2004), A Lazy Man's Guide to Success (PossibilitEbooks, July 2003) and A Guide to Inclusive Therapy (W.W. Norton, March 2003). He has published 45 articles or book chapters. His books have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, German, Chinese, Bulgarian, Turkish, Korean, Indonesian, Italian, Croatian, Arabic and Japanese. He has appeared on Oprah (with his book Do One Thing Different), The Today Show, and a variety of other television and radio programs. Since 1977, Bill has taught over 1,000 seminars around the world. He has been a top-rated presenter at many national conferences and was awarded the "Outstanding Mental Health Educator of the Year" in 2001 by the New England Educational Institute. Bill is a licensed Mental Health Professional, Certified Professional Counsellor, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Bill is clinical member of AAMFT, certified by the National Board of Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists and a Fellow and a Board Member of the American Psychotherapy Association.

Bill was a founder of Solution-Oriented and Possibility and Inclusive Therapies. His clinical work is recognized for its collaborative, respectful approach to clients. He is known for storytelling, irreverent humor, clear and accessible style and his boundless enthusiasm for whatever he is doing. His seminars are as entertaining as they are educational.

Zindel Segal, Ph.D.

Zindel V. Segal has studied and published on psychological treatments for depression for over 20 years.

He received his M.A. in 1979, his Diploma of Clinical Psychology in 1980, and his Ph.D. in 1983, all from Queens University. He worked in the Dept. of Psychiatry of the Toronto Western Hospital from 1984-86.

Dr. Segal began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1986. He now heads the Department of Psychiatry Psychotherapy Program and is the Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherapy for the Department of Psychiatry. He also heads the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Unit of Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and directs the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Unit at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

Since 1984, Dr. Segal has received over 30 grants to conduct research. He is currently chief investigator of a NIMH $2.6 million grant to study prevention of relapse in recurrent depression with MBCT. He has published numerous articles and co-authored 5 books. His most recent book, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, advocates for the relevance of mindfulness-based clinical care in psychiatry and mental health. Dr. Segal has presented numerous seminars and workshops on the application of MBCT. He is a widely repsected teacher and workshop leader whose use of insights from both the academic literature and his personal mindfulness practice is much lauded by participants.

Joe Solanto, Ph.D.

Joe Solanto served as a School Psychologist for nearly 18 years in the public schools of New York. For the next seven years he acted as Director of an outpatient mental health centre which treated the full range of psychiatric disorders in youth and their families, using combinations of clinical and complementary therapies. Since coming to BC in the early 1990's he has been teaching trauma related courses at the Justice Institute and consulting across Canada in First Nations and Inuit communities.
In the mid-90's he served as Director of the Vancouver Ocean Challenge Society providing at-risk youth with 15-day marine/wilderness expeditions using the principles of adventure-based counselling.

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.

Bessel van der Kolk has been active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. He founded the first clinic in Boston, the Trauma Center, which specializes in the treatment of traumatized children and adults, in 1982.

Dr. van der Kolk was investigator on the first neuroimaging study of PTSD. He recently completed the first NIMH funded study of a new exposure treatment, EMDR for the treatment of PTSD. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trial for PTSD, in which he and his colleagues specifically delineated the impact of trauma across the life span, and the differential impact of interpersonal trauma.

His current research is on how trauma affects memory processes; brain-imaging studies of PTSD, treatment outcome of exposure treatment vs. pharmacological interventions, and the effects of theater groups on preventing violence among chronically traumatized youth.

Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He is Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Clinical Director of the Trauma Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is co-director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Community Program in Boston and originator of, and currently on the steering committee of, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

 

Michael Yapko, Ph.D.

Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist located in Fallbrook, California. He is internationally recognized for his work in depression and outcome-focused psychotherapy, routinely teaching to professional audiences all over the world. To date, he has been invited to present his ideas and methods to colleagues in 25 countries across six continents, and all over the United States and Canada. His clinical trainings are known for being practical as well as enjoyable.

Dr. Yapko has had a special interest which spans more than a quarter century in the intricacies of brief therapy, the clinical applications of directive methods, and treating the disorder of major depression. He is the author of numerous books, book chapters, and articles on the subjects of brief therapy of depression and the use of strategic psychotherapies. These include the award winning Treating Depression With Hypnosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Strategic Approaches; Hand-Me-Down Blues: How to Stop Depression From Spreading in Families; Breaking the Patterns of Depression; Trancework (3rd Edition), and Hypnosis and the Treatment of Depressions. His works have been translated into seven languages.

Dr. Yapko is a member of the American Psychological Association, a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Division of Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine (in England), a member of the the International Society of Hypnosis, and a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Dr. Yapko was honored to be chosen to write the authoritative sections on “Treating Depression” and “Brief Therapy” for the Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annuals.