International Conference on Fostering Human Resilience June 15-16, 2015 Las Vegas, USA

Trevor Griffiths studied medicine at Oxford University. He was a pioneering UK family physician for 25 years, where he developed Emotional Logic as a lifelong learning approach to promote physical health and social wellbeing. He founded the Emotional Logic Centre, and now full-time trains tutors internationally who promote healthy adjustment to change by character development in schools, healthcare, business and church settings. He has developed and published theory to account for the rapid changes in personal identity and social character that can follow when understanding how emotions have a social, systemic purpose.

Resilience is defined as the constructive ability to manage multiple small losses and worries about loss that can accumulate in any social setting within setbacks, disappointments and hurts. These un-named ‘hidden losses’ each start their own emotional loss reaction, all of which occur simultaneously when the stressing situation is remembered. Tools have been developed (card sorting, and Loss Reaction Worksheets) that can kinesthetically map the resulting emotional chaos. Habitual or fleeting ‘whirlpools of emotion’ can thus be identified, which make people feel stuck in the situation with tension, distress or confusion, and generate behavioral reactions. These may be diagnosed as illness, bad social character or personality disorder, and may lead people to adopt a victim status to justify their behavior, or to seek help to find a way out. The Emotional Logic Centre teaches that these are adjustment reactions complicating normal and healthy grieving for un-named values. Emotional Logic is a lifelong learning approach to improve understanding, self-respect and strength of character, by which people learn a solution-focused, action-planning way out of the identified emotional chaos. It provides an approach to adjustment that says there are NO negative emotions, only unpleasant ones that have useful purposes to activate adjustment in social settings. The assertive action plan removes the victim status, and enables exploration of new ways to live by renewed, empathic relationship building. Resilience thus becomes a teachable life skill to manage setbacks, disappointments and hurts constructively by conversational methods.

George S. Everly, Jr., PhD, ABPP is an award-winning author and researcher. He holds faculty appointments at the Johns Hopkins University and at Loyola University in Maryland. He has served on the adjunct faculty of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FBI’s National Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Dr. Everly holds Honorary Professorships at the Universidad de Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Universidad de Weiner, Lima, Peru. He was an advisor to the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. Dr. Everly is co-founder of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, a non-profit United Nations-affiliated public health and safety organization. He was formerly Distinguished Visiting Professor, Universidad de Flores (Argentina), and was Senior Research Advisor, Social Development Office, Office of His Highness, the Amir of Kuwait, State of Kuwait. Prior to these appointments Dr Everly was Chief Psychologist and Director of Behavioral Medicine for the Johns Hopkins' Homewood Hospital Center. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 20 textbooks and over 100 professional papers. Among his texts are Fostering Human Resilience (Chevron, 2013), The Resilient Leader (DiaMedica, 2010), The Resilient Child (DiaMedica, 2009, Gold Medal Winner), Integrative Crisis Intervention and Disaster Mental Health (Chevron, 2008), and Mental Health Aspects of Disasters: Public Health Preparedness and Response (Johns Hopkins, 2005).

Dr. Liat Korn is a senior researcher and lecturer in the field of Medical Sociology. Her doctoral thesis (2005) was on “Water Pipe Smoking among Teen-agers in Israel: A sociological Analysis” from Bar-Ilan University, Israel. In her post-doc she studied and conducted the Israeli HBSC (Health Behavior of School-aged Children) and HBSC-ME (HBSC in the Middle East). She published more than 20 papers in reputed journals and conducted several studies including risk behaviors among teenagers and young adults in Israel. She offers courses and seminars in Sociology; Medical Sociology, Epidemiology, Health Promotion and Risk Behavior

1. Post-traumatic stress and world assumptions – The effects of religious coping. 2. Resilience following exposure to traumatic events- The moderating effect of religiosity on post trauma amongst students studying under a high level of terror event exposure

Judith Landau, MD, DPM, LMFT, CAI, CIP, BRI II, is a child, family and community neuropsychiatrist, specializing in resilience and overcoming adversity across cultures. Dr. Landau is also an isangoma or traditional African healer. Co-developer of the Evidence-Based, Best Practice ARISE Continuum of Care, Dr. Landau draws 30+ years of research and experience aimed at facilitating long-term healing for survivors of trauma and their families including those suffering from addiction, PTSD, and head injury. Author of numerous peer-reviewed publications, she has taught in 100+ countries, trained more than 1000 Certified ARISE Interventionists, and consulted to UN, WHO, NIMH, NIDA, NIAAA, SAMHSA, and several international governments. She is the recipient of awards for AAMFT’s Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy and AFTA’s Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy. Currently recognized as a global addiction and trauma pioneer, Dr. Landau continues to change the future of addiction by identifying trauma that spans generations. Her recent TEDX talk, Family Stories, Secrets and Survival, has become legendary and is one of the most sought after presentations on the subjects of family resilience, trauma and addiction.

Richard Penson is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Clinical Director of Medical Gynecologic Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. He is also the Clinical Director Cancer Services at Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Dr. Penson is a faculty member teaching Patient Doctor I for first year Harvard Medical students, and serves each year as an attending on the Bigelow General Medical Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. He trained at St Bart’s and Guy’s Hospitals in London, UK and came to the US in 1997. His oncology practice is devoted almost exclusively to gynecologic oncology with approximately a quarter of his patients treated on therapeutic clinical trials. Dr. Penson is one of the chairs for of the Institutional Review Board for Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, and sits on the Ovarian Committee for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), and on the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) committee for Health Outcomes Research. He on the Editorial Board of The Oncologist and Medical Humanities.

Yun Chen completed his MD (medical science) and MSc (neurosurgery) from Third Military Medical University, China, and his Ph.D. (neuropharmacology) from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He completed his postdoctoral studies (neuroscience) from NIH, USA. He is the President and Principal Scientist of BrightstarTech, Inc. in Maryland, USA. He has published more than 100 papers in reputed journals. He has been serving as a reviewer for 12 reputed journals, and a Guest Associate Editor and Topic Editor of the Frontiers in Neurology (Nature Publishing Group).

Kim M. Anderson, Ph.D., LCSW, is an associate professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri and a licensed clinical social worker. Dr. Anderson is the author of Enhancing Resilience in Survivors of Family Violence, a book informed by her research on, teaching about, and practice in the field of family violence. It provides empirical findings and conceptual insights for helping professionals to assist people affected by violence and oppression to cultivate their strengths and resilient capacities so they may reclaim lives of potential, possibility, and promise. Dr. Anderson has also written several journal articles and book chapters and presented at several national and international conferences on the subject of resilience. Dr. Anderson’s scholarship bridges gaps between theory and practice by offering conceptual frameworks that captures the interplay of trauma and resilience for survivors of family violence and mental health practitioners. Additionally, Dr. Anderson leads Trauma-Responsive Innovations (TRI), a consulting business for human service organizations interested in developing and delivering trauma-responsive solutions to ease the suffering and mental anguish of their clientele affected by trauma.

Dr. Weil is a licensed California psychologist and pioneer in the treatment of incestuous child abuse and co occurring disorders. She currently has a private practice located in Southern California. She also holds a Consulting leadership position with Tarzana Treatment Centers, Inc. the largest provider of co occurring disorder services in Los Angeles County. Dr. Weil played an integral part in the development and implementation of the Community Assessment Service Centers and integrated care in Los Angeles County. She was the Director of the Long Beach region for Tarzana Treatment Centers, Inc. Which included a 64-bed women’s and children residential facility, outpatient facility and sober living homes. Dr. Weil began her mental health career as a “peer counselor” working with those still suffering the affects of sexual trauma. Her resiliency is self-evident and a work of a lifetime. Dr. Weil has authored numerous presentations over the years to include but not limited to, “Incestuous Child Abuse and Addiction,” “Cultural Diversity,” Blending Clinical Practice and Research,” and “Sexual Addiction and Trauma Treatment and Recovery.” Her current publications include, “Do You Really Want to Eat That?”, “Inside Incest,”, her new series of lectures and workbooks, “On Becoming a Matriarch.” is available in 2015.

Witold Simon, MD, PhD, CGP (born in 1968) is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer certified by The American Group Psychotherapy Association, European Association of Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Research Section of Polish Psychiatric Association, and New Experience for Survivors of Trauma. He currently works in private practice. He previously worked as the assistant professor in the Department of Neurotic Disorders and Psychotherapy, at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, Poland. He served as Senior Fulbright Fellow (2007) and visiting assistant professor (2007–2010) at the Clinical Psychology Department at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA . His research interests include: psychotherapy process and outcome, trauma, and existential philosophy. In his clinical work he prefers integrative approach with the emphasis on the following schools: existential, humanistic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, and gestalt. It is, however, therapeutic alliance, not any particular theory or technique, which he recognizes as the main vehicle of change and healing on the road to authenticity.