Rick Hanson – Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence
- Faculty:
- Rick Hanson
- Duration:
- 6 Hours 9 Minutes
- Format:
- Audio and Video
- Copyright:
- Oct 15, 2014
Description
Featuring Neuropsychologist, international speaker, and bestselling author of Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and newest book, Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
Based on Dr. Rick Hanson’s latest book, Hardwiring Happiness, this workshop will present the four simple HEAL steps of taking in the good, which turn passing experiences into lasting neural resources. We’ll explore how to use these methods to lower anxiety and stress, lift mood, grow confidence, calm, and contentment, and fundamentally, hardwire happiness into the brain. The mind shapes the brain: neurons that fire together, wire together. Positive experiences are the main source of the neural structures underlying positive mood, resilience, feeling loved, the executive functions, and other inner strengths. Unfortunately, most positive experiences are wasted on the brain because it evolved a negativity bias to help our ancestors survive. It’s like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.
You will learn many practical ways to help your clients overcome this negative bias – which is disheartening, flattens learning curves, undermines compliance and progress in treatment, and fosters drop outs or relapsing – and instead draw upon the positive experiences available in both treatment and everyday life to weave strength and happiness into the fabric of their brain and their life.
In addition to teaching general-purpose methods for deliberately internalizing positive experiences – taking in the good – the workshop will explore how to identify and use key resource experiences to soothe and even heal clinical issues related to the three fundamental systems of the brain: Avoiding harms, Approaching Rewards, and Attaching to others. These methods include how to skillfully hold both positive and negative material in awareness so that – “as neurons fire together, they wire together” – the positive factors connect with, dampen, and gradually replace the negative ones.
The workshop will also cover applications to particular populations and needs, notably trauma, children, and addiction/recovery.
Handouts
Outline
The Brain, The Mind, & The Mind/Brain System
- Perspectives
- Self-Directed Neuroplasticity
- Your brain: The technical specs
- The mind/body brain system-a working model
- 3 facts about the brain and the mind
- Experience: How mental states become neural traits
- The power of mindful attention
- Self-compassion
- The Evolving Brain
- 3 fundamental motivational systems:
- Avoiding
- Approaching
- Attaching
- How the brain pursues in two basic ways:
- Homeostatic, refuel-and-repair, sustainable Responsive mode and the Allostatic, fight-or-flight, unhealthy Reactive mode
The Negativity Bias
- Why the brain is primed to go Reactive
- We learn too much from negative experiences and too little from positive ones
- Clinical consequences
Threat Reactivity
Implicit Memory and Inner Resources
Taking in the Good (TIG)
- 4 steps of taking in the good
- Activate and install positive mental states
- Help clients notice or create positive experiences
- 4 ways to use taking in the good with clients, both during and between sessions
- How to build up key strengths for depression, addiction, anxiety, trauma, loss and feeling inadequate:
- Avoiding systems
- Approaching systems
- Attaching systems
- Applications for couples and children
- Skillfully pairing positive and negative material in awareness
- Special considerations for children, couples, trauma, and addictions
Use TIG to Heal Emotional Pain
Natural Happiness
Faculty
Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and a New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 28 languages and include Buddha’s Brain (New Harbinger, 2009), Just One Thing (New Harbinger, 2011), Hardwiring Happiness (Harmony, 2016), Resilient (Harmony, 2018), Just One Thing Card Deck (PESI, 2018), and Mother Nurture (Penguin, 2002). He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous online programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA and Google, and Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.
Dr. Hanson has been a trustee of Saybrook University, served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and was president of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency. He began meditating in 1974, trained in several traditions, and leads a weekly meditation gathering in San Rafael, California. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and over 140,000 people receive his free Just One Thing weekly newsletter.
He enjoys rock-climbing and taking a break from emails. He and his wife have two adult children.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Rick Hanson is in private practice. He receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.
Non-financial: Rick Hanson has no relevant non-financial relationship to disclose.
Related products
