Ohio Psychological Association Union of Psychology and Spirituality Retreat

Union of Psychology and Spirituality Retreat

Registration is now closed.

When: Friday and Saturday, February 19-20
Where: Mohican State Park, Loudonville (one hour north of Columbus)
CE Credits: Up to 11
Cost: The cost of the workshop includes all meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), beverage breaks, refreshments, hotel room and credit hours.
Single Room Occupancy Rates:
$380 OPA Member/Clergy/Spouse of OPA Member
$425 Non OPA Member
$280 Student
Double Room Occupancy Rates:
$320 OPA Member/Clergy/Spouse of OPA Member
$365 Non OPA Member
$220 Student
These rates include your overnight room for Friday, afternoon refreshments on Friday, dinner Friday, continental breakfast Saturday, Saturday lunch and beverages and refreshments on Saturday.
Friday Night Overnight Accommodations: Single and double rooms are available. The cost of a room is included in your workshop package. Please list the name of your roommate on the registration form or check if you would like OPA to assign you a roommate. Roommates will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis. OPA will post a list of participants on the Web site as they come in. If you would like a room for Saturday night, please contact Mohican directly at 800-282-7275 and tell them you’re with the OPA room block.
Registration Deadline: February 12

Attendees Looking for a Roommate:
F. Kate Anthony
Deryck Richardson

The Union of Psychology and Spirituality Retreat is offered for psychologists, pastoral counselors, other mental health professionals, clergy and all individuals who share an interest in the overlapping realms of psychology and spirituality. The intent is to bring together people who will speak openly about their beliefs and practices and will actively participate in their own learning and growth. The programming is designed for participants at all levels of knowledge and psychological/spiritual development. Three concurrent programs will be offered on Friday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, ending at 4 p.m. A special fireside chat will be Friday night after dinner. All the Retreat programs emphasize active discussion and participation rather than lecture only. Attendees are strongly encouraged to stay overnight to fully benefit from the Retreat experience. There will be ample opportunities for social interaction. Together, attendees will grow in their own understanding that we are more than our roles in life, more than our bodies and more than our minds. This is an opportunity to explore and experience more of what we are and what we all share.

Participants will leave with the following: 1) A better understanding of how the science of psychology and the forms of spiritual experience inform and complement one another; 2) Having learned and practiced exercises and activities which are designed to contribute to personal and spiritual growth; 3) An expanded perspective on who we are and what we have in common.

Retreat Leaders are Richard Reckman, PhD, Bobbie Celeste, PhD, Mary Anne Orcutt, PhD, Jerome Gabis, PsyD

Friday: (2-5 p.m.)
Meditation and Movement: Both Paths to Peace
Robin Arthur, PsyD

In our world of turbulence and stress, one can find inner peace through meditation. This practice helps you become aware of your higher self, which is silent, whole, creative and blissful. Meditation is quiet. Meditation helps to eliminate irrelevant thought processes through training of internalized attention and it can lead to physical and mental relaxation, stress reduction, psycho-emotional stability and enhanced concentration and relapse prevention in substance abuse.

Movement is active and can also bring the same benefits of meditation. Both are valid methods to find inner peace and strengthen our spirituality.

This is an interactive workshop.

Participants will:
1) learn the basics of primordial sound meditation;
2) practice meditation to be used for themselves and to teach patients;
3) learn how our use of movement can inform spirituality for themselves as practitioners and for their patients; and,
4) practice movement to use for healing.

Dr. Robin Arthur is the chief of psychology at Lindner Center of HOPE mental health hospital in Mason. She was a member of the clinical team that created Lindner Center of HOPE. Dr. Arthur received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Cincinnati, a master's degree in organizational psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Xavier University. She is currently pursuing her MBA at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Arthur lectures on countless topics locally and regionally including women's issues, “tweens” and self-esteem, parenting techniques, women in the workplace, personality disorders and mindfulness practices. Her training as a professional ballet dancer enhances her movement therapy practices.

Grief – Where Spirituality and Therapy Meet
Jerome Gabis, PsyD

Death and grief have a way of making philosophers out of all of us. As therapists, we understand grief work as a time when beliefs about ultimate meaning and therapy intersect. Grief work is a place where spirituality and counseling share the same space. This workshop will examine how these two realities of spirituality and psychotherapy are personally connected in the stories of grieving clients we have treated. During this workshop, psychologists will reflect on their own development as therapists by examining seminal cases that influenced their appreciation of both the grieving process and how a client’s spirituality can both support and perhaps even hinder the resolution of grief. Participants will also be encouraged to examine how the experience of their own personal grief affects how they engage in grief work with clients who have experienced loss.

Participants will learn to:
1. facilitate the grieving process by accessing the best of a client’s spiritual and religious understandings about life and death.
2. reflect on their own development as therapists by examining how seminal cases and experiences with grieving clients helped to formulate their role as companions to those who grieve.
3. incorporate their own spiritual awareness and experiences of grief as effective reference points in helping grieving clients.

Jerome A. Gabis, PsyD, is a 1994 graduate of Wright State University’s School of Professional Psychology. He and several associates at Legacy Psychological Services work among the general population and extensively among the elderly in continuum of care communities in the Cincinnati area. As a geropsychologist, a great deal of his work includes assisting individuals whose grief has triggered a depressive reaction or episode. Prior to his training and work as a psychotherapist, he served as a Roman Catholic priest and underwent post-graduate training in spirituality and spiritual direction. He often finds that religious beliefs and practices of clients support resilient adaptation to the loss of a loved one.

Dancing With The Shadow: The Synthesis of Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction
Daniel L. Davis, PhD, and Vickie Murphy

This program is an introduction to Spiritual Direction, including mystics such as Teresa of Avila and St. John of The Cross. This workshop will address stages of faith development from a cognitive-structural approach (Fowler, 1981) as well as other developmental perspectives (Erickson, 1963; Maslow). Also addressed will be empirical findings on psychotherapeutic processes and religion (Worthington, et al 1996) and ethical issues in psychological psychotherapy and religion (Bergin, 1991). Lastly, the work will address spirituality and questions that psychologists often confront such as the nature of evil and psychopathy (May, 2004; Hare, 1970).

Participants will:
• be able to identify the stages of faith development as they are similar to stages of psychological development.
• be able to identify differences between psychological models of development and spiritual models of faith development.
• be able to identify value and process similarities in psychological psychotherapy and spiritual direction.
• be able to identify value and process differences between psychological psychotherapy and spiritual direction.
• become familiar with empirical data concerning use of religious interventions by psychotherapists.
• become familiar with ethical issues and values in addressing spirituality in psychological psychotherapy.
• become familiar with differing approaches (spiritual/religious versus forensic psychological) in the understanding of antisociality, psychopathy, moral development and spiritual development.

Daniel L. Davis, PhD, is a psychologist in Columbus with the Center for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction. He is the author of two books and co-author of one. He has published book chapter and peer-reviewed journals in forensic psychology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Forensic Psychology and holds an academic appointment as a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at The Ohio State University. Vickie Murphy is a spiritual director with the Center for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction. She is an accomplished musician, writer and journeyer.

Friday Night (after dinner)
Attending to our own Spiritual Needs and How this Relates to our Professional Work
Mary Anne Orcutt, PhD, Paschal Baute, EdD, Deryck Richardson, PhD

This fireside chat will involve exploration and sharing among participants of how we meet our spiritual needs, and how this affects our work as psychologists/therapists. Large and small group discussions will take place.

Participants will learn:
1) to become more aware of how our spirituality affects the therapy that we do; and,
2) to be aware of alternate ways to enhance spirituality and benefits therein to the practice of psychotherapy.

Mary Anne Orcutt, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who has been in private practice in Columbus for over 25 years. She is the director of Bethel Olentangy Psychological Services, a practice with nine psychologists. Her PhD is in psychology from The Ohio State University, and she is on the associate medical staff at Riverside Methodist Hospital. She has worked in inpatient and outpatient treatment centers, and was associate executive director of a mental health center in Columbus for three years. Her specialties include couples and family therapy, trauma and abuse, family of origin issues, compulsive behaviors/addictions, sex/sexuality, mood disorders and meditative mindfulness/spirituality issues.

Deryck Richardson, PhD, was born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas. He received his BA from St. John's University in Minnesota and MA and PhD from The Ohio State University. He works in private practice in Columbus, Ohio, and also works as a consultant for the Bureau of Disability Determination in Columbus. Has had a longstanding interest in the intersection and interplay between religion/faith/spirituality and psychology. Dr. Richardson is an active member of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church and St. Andrew's Anglican Church.

Saturday Stretching with Beth (7:30-8 a.m.)
With Beth Wherley, AFAA Certified Aerobics Instructor

Get a morning stretch with OPA-MCE Director Beth Wherley. Ease into your day with a half hour of stretching before breakfast. Stretching will increase blood flow, flexibility, balance, ease back and joint pain and just feels great! Wear comfortable clothes and bring a mat or towel.

Saturday Morning: (9-Noon)

Meditation and Relaxation Workshop for Professional Psychologists
Indira Palekar, PhD, with Bobbie Celeste, PhD

Research has shown that mindfulness-based treatment interventions can be effective for a range of mental and physical health disorders in adult populations. Meditation was found to positively impact patients with rheumatoid arthritis and recurrent depression across multiple measures including positive and negative affect and physicians’ rating of joint tenderness. (Zautra, A.J. et al, 2008) In a study of psychological aspects of asthma, Paul Leher, et al (2002) reported promising psychological interventions for asthma including meditation and yoga. Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of meditation, relative to treatment as usual, for adolescents 14-18 in an outpatient psychiatric facility.(Biegel, G.M., et al, 2009)

In this workshop, led by an experienced practicing health psychologist, participants will have the opportunity to experience a number of basic relaxation techniques. Beginning with breathing techniques and moving on to a number of simple beginning yoga postures, participants will learn by practicing muscle stretching and relaxation. Included in the workshop will be guided imagery techniques found to be useful for deep relaxation.Taken together, these techniques can be used by practicing psychologists for self-care to combat occupational stress and to be used in the practice of psychology, especially with patients who suffer from anxiety or stress-related disorders such as asthma and depression.

Participants will:
1) learn basic breathing techniques for relaxation training

2) will practice basic yoga postures associated with sympathetic and parasympathetic variability;

3) experience one form of yoga meditation which effectively calms the mind;

4) have an opportunity to ask questions of the presenter to enhance the relevance of their learning for practice and self-care

5) participate in a cross-cultural psychological practice used by many Hindus and Buddhist around the world.

Indira Palekar, PhD, is in private practice in Elyria, is an ordained interfaith minister, has presented on yoga and anxiety and other related topics for OPA, teaches yoga at a local cancer center and in a private setting.

Please bring a yoga or an exercise mat, and eat a light breakfast.

Valuing the Mind/Body/Spirit Connection: Psychological and Spiritual Challenges with Aging Clients
Paschal Baute, EdD

Much research (see Oakley Ray, American Psychologist, January 2004 for summary) on the biopsychosocial model specifically demonstrates the power of the mind and belief to change, hurt or heal the body. We examine attitudes, resources and interventions. Psychologists who overlook or neglect this connection may deny the client resources for change and healing.

Participants will learn:
1) the extent of research supporting the biopsychosocial model;
2) How the mind/body connection supports the value of faith, hope, love and traditional sources of wisdom;
3) A broader perspective of healing interventions;
4) New applications of the power of positive psychology (Martin Seligman Authentic Happiness); and,
5) that by valuing spirituality you can increase competence to be effective agents of change with a more diverse population.
6) how to apply the biopsychosocial model in treatment settings with case examples.

Dr. Baute has been studying, teaching and applying the body/mind/spirit connection in a diversity of settings in Lexington for many decades, more recently in the power of story to change, in workshops and storytelling. His latest course, "The Origin and the Role of Story in History, Culture and Transformation," is being offered by the University of Kentucky Osher Life Long Learning Institute this spring.

Spiritually Integrated Therapy: Clinical and Research Implications
Steven Lucero, BA

The program will use Ken Pargament's newest book "Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred" and supporting research as the underlying focus of the program. Part 1 will begin with an operational definition of spirituality as "the search for the sacred." Then, the rationale behind this definition as both substantive and functional, in terms of pathways and destinations, will be explained. Participants will be broken up into small groups to discuss how they think of and live their spirituality. Next, four primary spiritual coping methods will be described: discovering, maintaining, conserving, and transforming the sacred. This program is not religious or denominational specific. Participants also will be given the opportunity to look at vignettes and classify which coping methods they believe the person in the vignette is using.

Part 2 will focus on the orientation that a clinician takes toward spiritually integrated therapy. The presenter will describe the ethical implications of spiritually integrated therapy and spiritual assessment, both implicit and explicit. After this section, participants will have the opportunity to break into partnerships and use some of the assessment methods to interview one another. Participants will have the opportunity to offer real answers or how they think someone else might answer the questions if that will help the participant to feel more comfortable. Then various spiritual practices, relationships and coping methods that can be used by a person from essentially any spiritual background will be described. Participants will be broken down into small groups to discuss examples of their own spiritual practices or coping methods with one another. The speaker also will describe how to address problems of both spiritual pathways and destinations.

Participants will learn:
1) a conceptual framework for the use of spirituality and religion within therapy that encourages the client to provide his or her own meaning based on the open-ended promptings of the therapist, use the client's spiritual language to communicate and ethically address spirituality in session.
2) to conduct a spiritual assessment focused on these important areas: salience of spirituality to the client, salience of a religious community and salience of spirituality to the problem and solution.
3) to help clients to draw on spiritual resources by tailoring spiritual resources to the specific client and problem, identify and overcome barriers to using spiritual resources, work with spiritual resources within the boundaries of one's own professional and personal boundaries, identify and draw on spiritual relationships and practices, and use spiritual support and meaning making to cope with problems.

Steven Lucero is a native of Cheyenne, Wyoming. He studied to be a Catholic priest at Conception Seminary College in Missouri for three years. After graduating from the program, he followed a new path into psychology at the University of Wyoming. He is currently in the child and family track in the clinical psychology PhD program at Bowling Green State University with a focus on the psychology of religion.

Saturday Afternoon (1-4 p.m.)
Use of Guided Reminiscence and Meditation: Exploring Spirituality in the Context of Therapeutic Groups
Paula E. Hartman-Stein, PhD

This workshop combines didactic information about how to conduct guided autobiography groups with experiential elements of Kirtan Kriya meditative practice, inspirational writing by sages of all faiths and prompts for guided reminiscence writing. This workshop will illustrate the methodology of guided autobiography groups developed by the gerontologist, James Birren, Ph.D. It will emphasize how explorations of clients' spirituality can be used therapeutically in a group context.

Participants will learn:
1) key elements of guided autobiography groups;
2) a brief Kirtan Kriya meditative practice; and,
3) how to incorporate spiritual readings and exploration of spiritual beliefs and experiences by writing within a group context.

Paula E. Hartman-Stein, PhD, is a clinical geropsychologist in Kent. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Kent State University and a master's degree from West Virginia University. She received the Interdisciplinary Geriatric Clinician Development Award from the Western Reserve Geriatric Education Center. She is a Senior Fellow, Institute for Life Span Development and Gerontology, University of Akron, and assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry from the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and Pharmacy.

The Dilemma of Suffering: Spiritual and Psychological Reflections
Mary Benton, PhD

As mental health professionals, we are regularly confronted with the suffering of others. In their suffering, our patients often bring with them dilemmas of faith, spoken or unspoken: Why did God allow this to happen to me? If there is a loving God, couldn't he have stopped this? Undoubtedly, each of us has experienced suffering of our own, at different times and in different ways, that may impact how we respond to our patients' dilemmas. This program is offered as an opportunity to share both information and personal experiences, about where we are with the dilemma of suffering, in light of our own unique professional, spiritual and cultural backgrounds. Additional discussion will address how our personal experiences and beliefs interact with our professional work: if and how we address the spiritual with our patients, whether to self-disclose and possible countertransference issues that may arise.

Participants will learn:
1) to identify the different dimensions of suffering that affect its impact on people;
2) to describe the dilemma of suffering and cite examples of how different spiritual and cultural traditions address it;
3) to reflect on where they as individuals are on the path of contending with the dilemma in their own lives; and,
4) to be aware of and address such practice issues as counter-transference and self-disclosure in light of one's personal experiences and beliefs.

Dr. Mary Benton is a clinical psychologist who has practiced in the diverse environment of an HMO for the past 17 years. Prior to becoming a psychologist, she worked with the mentally ill in community mental health and with ex-offenders in an alternative program. Her personal spiritual tradition is Christian/Catholic but she reverences all of the ways in which people search for meaning and for God. She recently started a blog for patients that integrates psychology and spiritual.

Ethics, Spirituality and Psychotherapy
Elliott Ingersoll, PhD

If spirituality is a legitimate construct in psychotherapy, how do we operationalize it? What are the ways our understandings of spirituality and religiosity have evolved since the late 19th century when Starbuck published the first psychological work on the topic? How do we draw the line between psychotherapy and pop psychology? These are questions that will be addressed in this workshop.

Participants will:
1) learn about the history of "religiosity" and "spirituality" as constructs in psychological practice;
2) explore where the "line" is between ethical practice and what is colloquially referred to as "pop" psychology;
3) explore how they operationalize "religiosity" and "spirituality" in their own work; and,
4) Participants will generally explore the ontological status of "spirituality" and the implications of this for ethical psychological practice.

Elliott Ingersoll (www.elliottingersoll.com) is a psychologist in Ohio. He is professor of counseling at Cleveland State University where he worked for seven years as department chair for counseling, school leadership & adult learning. He works with Integral Institute in the Integral Psychotherapy program and was co-director of the Integral Psychology Center with Susann Cook-Greuter at Integral University. He is the among the first SCTi-MAP scorers certified by Dr. Cook-Greuter in the United States.

Elliott does psychotherapy, coaching, and consulting using Ken Wilber’s Integral Model. Details are available on his website www.elliottingersoll.com . He has authored or co-authored five books and over thirty articles and book chapters on topics as diverse as Integral Psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and spiritual approaches to counseling. He is currently writing a book on An Integral Approach to Psychopathology for Prentice-Hall publishers.