Events Archive

IN YOUR OWN HANDS: A COURSE IN SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Dr. Larry Berkelhammer’s presented at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA, August 2015.

THE POWER OF THE MIND TO EFFECT PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES

Dr. Larry Berkelhammer was a guest lecturer in Dr. Erik Peper’s Health and Social Sciences course at SFSU. This presentation concentrates on documented medical reports of profound physiological changes that occurred from mental stimulus.

HOW TO LIVE A REWARDING LIFE WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS

Dr. Larry Berkelhammer’s presentation at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland for a multiple sclerosis support group.

MIND AND HEALTH SEMINAR BY LARRY BERKELHAMMER, PHD AT UC SAN FRANCISCO MEDICAL CENTER

If you’d like to contact Dr Larry Berkelhammer for interviews, talks, or other special events please fill out the contact form. Thank you.

Both presentations—the one for clinicians and the one for patients can run anywhere from 30 to 90-minutes. The longer one can be more interactive and experiential.

For Professional Audiences
Title: Beyond Behavioral Medicine: Evidence-Based Mind-Training Practices to Improve Health Outcomes.
This presentation is for any group of physicians, nurses, social workers, or psychologists working in mind-body medicine, behavioral medicine, psychooncology, or integrative medicine, and can be customized to specific professional audiences and to specific topics related to the mind and health.

This talk will be based on qualitative research that was published in refereed journals. Any form of mind training that reduces emotional distress serves to reduce physiological stress, and any reductions in physiological stress serve to improve physiological functioning—sometimes enough to improve health outcomes. We will explore the effects of cognitive fusion (entanglement with cognitive processes) and experiential avoidance of private events (avoidance of unpleasant thoughts & feelings) on health and will then explore ways to help people to defuse from cognitive entanglements, and to reduce experiential avoidance. We will also explore the mind-training behaviors that most strongly correlate with the best health outcomes. In particular, we will focus on the concept of choice and the mindfulness practice of choosing from moment-to-moment. We will also explore the strong correlations between social support and health, the importance of helping people find meaning and purpose, and how to empower patients so that they feel in control of their lives. When delivering a frightening diagnosis, it is important to include in the discussion, that people have recovered from the same diagnosis, and to refer the patient to sources of hope. Hope improves outcomes.

For Patient Audiences
This presentation is for patient support associations and support groups for people living with chronic illness, such as autoimmune diseases or for cancer survivors who want to learn how mind-training can improve health and well-being.

Title: Mind-Training Practices to Improve Health & Well-Being for People Living with Chronic Illness, Based on Intention and Mindfulness. This talk will include stories of people who have recovered unexpectedly from chronic and life-threatening diseases, and what they did that may have played a role in their unexpected recoveries. What a large percentage of those people had in common was that they had used the diagnosis to motivate them to make important changes in the way they lived their lives. They ended bad relationships, resigned from unhealthy work environments, took the time to do what they had previously only dreamed of doing. Most importantly, they engaged in behaviors that are consistently associated with health and well-being. Examples include mindfulness, acceptance, gratitude, meaning and purpose, identifying and living by personal life values, the incredible power of choice, the concept of loving self-care, authentic self-expression, social support, altruism, and humor. This talk is intended to inspire participants to take action to improve their lives now, before it is too late.