Meditation, Emotions and the Brain with Philippe Goldin, Ph.D. - An experiential workshop June 13, 2009

Meditation practices can have a profound influence on emotions and the brain. In this workshop, we will focus on experiencing a variety of specific meditation practices that are related to training attention, enhancing emotional awareness and increasing psychological flexibility. Additionally, we will relate these practices to current neuroscience perspectives on specific brain systems involved in emotional reactivity, cognitive and attention regulation, and self-referential processing. We will also discuss how mental health practitioners are working on integrating meditation practices into cognitive-behavioral therapies for a variety of specific psychological problems, where such hybrid clinical interventions may or may not be helpful, and how clinical scientists are examining the underlying mechanisms of change related to different meditation and cognitive practices.

Philippe Goldin, Ph.D. spent 6 years in India and Nepal studying various languages, Buddhist philosophy and debate at Namgyal Monastery and the Dialectic Monastic Institute, and serving as an interpreter for various Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He then returned to the U.S. to complete a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University. He is currently a research scientist and directs the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychology and serves as Director of Clinical Research for the Center for Compassion and Altruistic Research and Education at Stanford University. His NIH-funded clinical research focuses on (a) functional neuroimaging investigations of cognitive-affective mechanisms in adults with anxiety disorders, (b) differential effects of mindfulness meditation, cognitive-behavioral therapy and aerobic exercise on brain-behavior correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation, and (c) training children in family and elementary school settings in mindfulness skills to reduce anxiety and enhance compassion, self-esteem and quality of family interactions.

Official Website: http://center4personalgrowth.com